Don't care about rigor of major?

[sakky]

<p>

Meaning a 4.0 in Leisure Studies from a cheesepuff community college really does beat a 3.0 in Quantum Engineering from the Incomprehensible Institute of Technology.

No, they would both get rejected.

</p>

<p>

I agree that both will be rejected. IMHO, sakky was so eager to highlight his point that he overdid it.

</p>

<p>Gentlemen, it was a joke. There is obviously no such thing as “Incomprehensible Institute of Technology” and you can’t get a 4-year degree at a community college. {On the other hand, many colleges really do offer Leisure Studies, so that part was not a joke.} </p>

<p>[Department</a> of Recreation and Leisure Studies](<a href=“http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/chhs/departments/recreation-and-leisure-studies/]Department”>http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/chhs/departments/recreation-and-leisure-studies/)</p>

<p>[SUNY</a> Cortland Recreation and Leisure Studies Department](<a href=“http://www.cortland.edu/rec/]SUNY”>Recreation, Parks and Leisure Studies Department Overview - SUNY Cortland)</p>

<p>However, the joke is inherently black humor in that it unfortunately really is true that somebody who took an extraordinarily difficult major at a difficult school and earned subpar grades won’t get into med-school, even if that person could have almost surely earned top grades at an easy school at an easy major. Med-school adcoms either don’t know or don’t care - probably the latter - about course rigor. </p>

<p>

This sounds like speculation on your part. 3rd most common could mean mean basically anything under 33%, all the way down to under 1%

</p>

<p>Biological Sciences - comprising both Biology and Brain & Cognitive Sciences - represented about 11% of all bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2009.</p>

<p>[Enrollment</a> Statistics: MIT Office of the Registrar](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/degrees/index.html]Enrollment”>http://web.mit.edu/registrar/stats/degrees/index.html)</p>

<p>Now, granted, one might argue as to whether Brain and Cognitive Sciences truly is a biological science; I would argue that it does as it is basically MIT’s fancy name for Neuroscience, with some psychology thrown in, and hence I believe it should be classified as biological science. </p>

<p>[MIT</a> : Brain and Cognitive Sciences : Research](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/bcs/research/]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/bcs/research/)</p>

<p>However, even if one were to exclude BCS from the mix completely and consider only pure biology degrees only, that would still represent 7% of the pool.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Perhaps this from the Princeton Review will add perspective. “We can’t overestimate the value of a Classics major. Check this out: according to Association of American Medical Colleges, students who major or double-major in Classics have a better success rate getting into medical school than do students who concentrate solely in biology, microbiology, and other branches of science. Crazy, huh?”

</p>

<p>Well, actually, I think this is just an artifact of sample selection. After all, only a tiny fraction of Classics majors will actually also complete the premed requirements, take the MCAT, and then apply to med-school. Many Classics majors don’t like science courses, would never dream of taking them, and would do poorly if they did. On the other hand, biology students complete the entire premed sequence as an inherent consequence of their major, and so taking the MCAT and then applying to med-school is not a major additional hurdle. </p>

<p>As a consequence, only the most exceptional Classics students - i.e. those who are also actually science literate - will apply to med-school whereas many mediocre biology students will. I’m sure that if we added in all of the mediocre Classics students, we would find a more even admissions distribution, but those students don’t even apply.</p>

[mcat2]

<p>

consider only pure biology degrees only, that would still represent 7% of the pool.

At one of the schools, 7.6 % of the class are traditional bio majors.

</p>

<p>I am pretty proud of the fact that the number I quoted is so close to the number sakky actually looked up. (And he is definitely a very experienced member on this board, with 11196 posts under his belt.) But I admit it is kind of silly to quote what I wrote myself.</p>

<p>However, I believe the number at H should be much higher as I heard a couple of years ago that there were about 600 kids (out of the class size of about 1600) who took the introduction to life science class there; most of them may be aspiring premeds. (This was before they decided to break up the biology into many “sub-concentrations.”) Also, their engineering program may not have such a strong pull as compared to MIT’s. I wonder what the premed attrition rate is at H.</p>

<p>I just read sakky’s post #42. I agree with him on what he wrote in his last paragraph. Looking at the same issue from another point of view, if only the top 5% of biology majors apply to medical schools, their admission rate will likely be much higher.</p>

<p>Maybe only the top few percents of Classics majors who also happen to be good at sciences to some extent would apply to medical schools but maybe as many as 80 (or even close to 90?) percents of bio majors apply to medical schools.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

However, I believe the number at H should be much higher as I heard a couple of years ago that there were about 600 kids (out of the class size of about 1600) who took the introduction to life science class there; most of them may be aspiring premeds. (This was before they decided to break up the biology into many “sub-concentrations.”

</p>

<p>Well, then according to that logic, you could say that every single MIT student could be said to be an aspiring premed, as every single one has to take a general biology course as part of the General Institute Requirement. Even the students in EECS, which is the largest major at MIT, and the (rare) MIT humanities students all have to take biology. In contrast, only a fraction of EECS students at most other schools will take biology, as will probably even fewer humanities students at those other schools. </p>

<p>Which complements what’s been said above regarding bio students and med-school applications. MIT students complete most of the premed requirements as part of the GIR’s, so it isn’t much of an extra burden to complete the rest, take the MCAT, and then apply to med-school.</p>

[mcat2]

<p>

Even the students in EECS, which is the largest major at MIT, and the (rare) MIT humanities students all have to take biology.

</p>

<p>This may help explain why the freshmen grades at MIT are lower. I have met many many EECS graduates from many schools, and have almost never met one who enjoyed srudying biology, or at least the way the introductory biology is typically taught. When you force all these students who tend to be lopsided toward physics/math to take this kind of introductory biology class, a natural consequence is that many of them will likely not do very well on it. There may be some EECS students who could also be good at this. But I bet a majority of them would not enjoy it and are therefore not willing to spend too much time on this subject.</p>

<p>We all know that it is very important to have balanced scores on all sections on MCAT. Similarly, to get a GPA as high as possible, it is also important to get high grades on all four science pre-reqs (BCPM). Some lopsided students are not good at all these subjects. On the pre-med track, you can often find students who are very good at B and C (at least at the introductory level), but not so good at either P or M (or even both). When a student are good at all 4 subjects, you call him/her a good premed student (in terms of grades only) – I would think both norcalguy and BDM are one of those who are good at almost all of these subjects.</p>

<p>I think (but I am not sure) that MIT tends to recruit lopsided students. Lopsided students may be extremely good at one or two subjects while may not be so good at others. The well-rounded nature of the pre-med course sequence and ECs (except the research maybe) may not appeal to this kind of student. This may be one of the reasons why the pre-med success rate at MIT is not that high.</p>

<p>It is said that Einstein was a lopsided student when he was a student. He failed his first attempt to get into the university, and was graduated almost the last from his class (the last one was his first wife who was unwed and pregnant at that time.) If Einstein were a premed, do you think he would be a successful/happy one? One professor even called him a lazy dog or something. He could not get a recommendation letter from any of his professors. He is definitely neither a good father nor a good husband. He is not a good grandfather. He is likely not a good doctor, IMHO. Luckily for him and for us, he is a physicist.</p>

[silence_kit]

<p>If anything physics students are better at biology than the other way around. Not a lot of people are good at doing mathematics. Schools offer physics courses designed for biology majors, but not biology courses for physics majors.</p>

[norcalguy]

<p>

Again, the issue is about relative grade inflation, which means that the real issue is whether MIT students suffer from grade deflation relative to peer schools. MIT students are obviously some of the most technically competent students in the world, so one would expect them to earn high grades simply by that fact alone.</p>

<p>Harvard</p>

<p>Yale University</p>

<p>MIT

</p>

<p>Without knowing what MIT’s average GPA is today, it is still not apparent whether MIT is more or less grade inflated than Yale and Harvard. After all, 10 years ago, it’s average GPA was 3.26. From grade inflation.com: Duke’s GPA was 3.33 in 1999, Dartmouth 3.31, Rice 3.31 (2001), Princeton 3.34 (this was pre-grade deflation initiative), and so on. The average GPA at these supposedly grade inflated schools were not that much different from MIT’s average GPA. Factor in the fact MIT has a much higher proportion of engineers, I’m not sure if there is any difference in GPA at all for non-engineers. A better comparison would be to compare the average MIT GPA to the engineering schools at Columbia or Cornell or whatever and you would see the difference shrink even more.</p>

<p>

Yeah, but what about that freshman MIT year? That is precisely the time when savvy premeds at other schools could be racking up strings of easy A’s.

</p>

<p>No.</p>

<p>Freshman year GPA’s tend to be lowest at every school (meaning, longitudinally, a student’s GPA tends to rise as they progress through their college career). For example, the average GPA for freshmen at Cornell is approx. 3.0 (info given out at orientation) while the average GPA overall for all students is in the 3.4 range. This is not so surprising considering the curves for intro courses tend to be lower and the freshmen are adjusting to the rigors of college academics. I don’t know if med schools ask to uncover the P/F grades MIT gives out to its students their freshman semester but if they don’t, then that is actually a significant advantage for MIT premeds to be able to hide their freshman grades.</p>

<p>I agree with the notion that engineering is not a great premed major and that the rigor of engineering makes it more difficult to have time to assemble a great med school application. MIT, one would expect, would have a higher proportion of premed engineers. However, it is not apparent to me that a humanities or bio major at MIT would be worse off than a humanities or bio major at Duke or Dartmouth or any other top college.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Without knowing what MIT’s average GPA is today, it is still not apparent whether MIT is more or less grade inflated than Yale and Harvard.

</p>

<p>Actually, it is. The numbers speak for themselves. </p>

<p>

Duke’s GPA was 3.33 in 1999, Dartmouth 3.31, Rice 3.31 (2001), Princeton 3.34 (this was pre-grade deflation initiative), and so on

</p>

<p>We’re not comparing MIT to Duke, Dartmouth, or Rice: after all, MIT students are supposed to be more qualified than students from those schools. The average student at those schools probably couldn’t get into MIT. </p>

<p>I have been comparing MIT to Princeton, and I agree that the GPA’s are comparable. </p>

<p>

Factor in the fact MIT has a much higher proportion of engineers, I’m not sure if there is any difference in GPA at all for non-engineers. A better comparison would be to compare the average MIT GPA to the engineering schools at Columbia or Cornell or whatever and you would see the difference shrink even more.

</p>

<p>Actually, I don’t think this matters much at all. See below. </p>

<p>

No.

</p>

<p>Yes. Notice that I said savvy premeds. There are obviously plenty of non-savvy premeds who foolishly take the regular intro courses that have the tough grade curves (and get crushed). </p>

<p>However, from what I have seen, it is the savvy ones who use freshman year to make hay while the sun shines, for example, by taking courses on subjects that they already know from high school. For example, I know many students who could have AP’d out of intro chemistry, calculus, etc. but chose not to, determining that it would be better for them to stock their GPA arsenal, or take intro language courses in languages that they already speak fluently. {Heck, I’ve been advocating that engineering students do precisely this to survive the upcoming weeder war, which tends to occur in sophomore year for the engineers.}</p>

<p>

I agree with the notion that engineering is not a great premed major and that the rigor of engineering makes it more difficult to have time to assemble a great med school application. MIT, one would expect, would have a higher proportion of premed engineers.

</p>

<p>Let’s keep in mind what I am talking about here. I am simply using MIT as an example of a famous school that should be known for its engineering rigor. If some premed were to major in engineering at some 4th tier no-name school, med-school adcoms might well question how rigorous his program is, no matter that he’s an engineer. But the MIT brand name is far too prominent to dismiss as unrigorous as far as engineering is concerned. But dismiss it the adcoms do.. Put another way, med-school adcoms don’t care about the difficulty of your major, even if that difficulty is well-understood.</p>

<p>Now, if you want to argue that MIT biology is not that hard, then I don’t have any serious objection to that notion for I tend to agree. However, my point is - and to which you agree - that med-school adcoms don’t care about the difficulty of major, even if the level of difficulty is well-known.</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Without knowing what MIT’s average GPA is today, it is still not apparent whether MIT is more or less grade inflated than Yale and Harvard. After all, 10 years ago, it’s average GPA was 3.26. From grade inflation.com: Duke’s GPA was 3.33 in 1999, Dartmouth 3.31, Rice 3.31 (2001), Princeton 3.34 (this was pre-grade deflation initiative), and so on. The average GPA at these supposedly grade inflated schools were not that much different from MIT’s average GPA.

</p>

<p>Got it:</p>

<p>*Are the classes totally impossible, or can you actually do well in them?</p>

<p>If you put in the effort you can do well. The average GPA at MIT is about 4.1/5.0, which is a B average (from this it is evident that most students are doing quite well here, and are far from failing all their classes). *</p>

<p>[Smoots:</a> FAQ](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/avihess/www/faq.html]Smoots:”>http://web.mit.edu/avihess/www/faq.html)</p>

<p>I would therefore argue that that’s significant grade deflation. Princeton’s average GPA, post-deflation, is still a 3.28, where MIT is 0.2 below that.</p>

<p>We can now also place the data from schools like Duke and Dartmouth in context - each of those schools exhibits an average GPA of about 3.4, compared to 3.1 (out of 4) for MIT. Couple that with the fact that, as stated before, Duke and Dartmouth are not as selective as MIT, and you have clear evidence of tremendous grade inflation, adjusted for average student quality. Granted, much of that is surely due to the proportional differences of engineering students amongst the various schools. However, that only proves my central point that med-school adcoms don’t seem to care about rigor, whether the source of that rigor comes from the major or from the school.</p>