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<p>Actually I don’t think this is it, or at least this isn’t ALL of it. Penn students who go to medical school have on average a 3.35 or so; MIT students have a 3.75 or so.</p>
<p>If the difference in grading standards was the only difference, MIT kids would get in with an average of 3.35, there would just be a lot fewer of them. There has to be something else at play as well.</p>
<p>(By the way, according to the limited data I’ve seen, Penn is the 5th hardest school in the country and MIT is second. Spots #1, #3, and #4 are the military academies.)</p>
<p>In the past, sakky’s answer has been that it’s probably EC’s and that it boils back down to grade inflation, since MIT kids have to work harder to earn the same grades and have less time. But that can’t be it either – unless we’re willing to assume that MIT kids are also insanely poor strategists. If that was the difference, then they should be willing to sacrifice 0.4 GPA points to rack up some extra EC’s, to the equilibrium point. But they’re not.</p>