<p>^^Unless you can point out what wrong with the data, data doesn’t lie. Granted, Harvard’s overall UG GPA is higher than Dartmouth’s while Duke’s overall UG GPA is similar to Dartmouth’s.</p>
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Actually, it does. The average successful GPA at MIT, for example is 3.73 - a far cry from your 3.547.</p>
<p>[Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office](<a href=“http://www.mit.edu/~career/infostats/preprof.html]Preprofessional”>http://www.mit.edu/~career/infostats/preprof.html)</p>
<p>Less drastic of a shift, the most recent actual data (class of '07) from Duke reports a 3.55 cumulative (3.38 science), not nearly 3.60.</p>
<p>Self-reported data is absolutely useless for comparative purposes. That’s fairly basic statistical knowledge. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Both awesome schools. This choice isn’t going to make any difference in where this guy goes to med school. What is different:</p>
<p>Advantage Dartmouth: Amazing study abroad (really top few in the country), sophomore summer, super tightknit community, lots of liberal arts “perks” like dinner with professors, noted med advising (nathan smith society), resort like campus, etc.</p>
<p>Advantage Duke: More urban campus with benefit of natural beauty, weather, college sports (Blue Devils are big!), proximity to UNC and other schools, larger student body (plus or minus), etc</p>
<p>Duke-great academics with one of the top med centers, warm weather, top athletics with strong school spirit.</p>
<p>yes. choose duke</p>
<p>Hi guys, please tell me which one I should choose. I want to be a doctor.</p>
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It is true that self-reporting data has problems, but you cannot say it is absolutely useless, especially if reported randomly without the intent to mislead. After all randomness is the key in sampling.</p>
<p>Professor101 – It would be necessary for the student quality at each of those schools in your table to be the same or very similar for the GPAs listed to be relevant.</p>
<p>It has already been discussed innumerable times on this board over the years that a GIVEN student will likely achieve different GPAs at different schools. One would have to control for student aptitude (SAT, GPA, etc.) to arrive at what a student of THAT quality would achieve in GPA, on average, at Princeton v. Duke v. WashU v. Stanford v. Harvard, etc.</p>
<p>One would first somehow need to arrive at a correction factor by school for an applicant of GIVEN quality – e.g. tracking the 78 alumni of Andover plus the 65 from Exeter plus the 110 from Harvard-Westlake, entering college between 1996 and 2005 and possessing a 3.6 and 2250 would, then, on average achieve the following GPAs: 3.7 Harvard, 3.5 Princeton, 3.4 Swarthmore, 3.6 Stanford, 3.75 Brown, etc. This could certainly be done in a number of different statistically relevant ways, but I have never seen such a longitudinal study published. I only see average GPAs that are not controlled for applicant aptitude upon entering college. </p>
<p>Off topic, but it would be incredibly relevant to further track this 3.6,2250 cohort from these three feeder schools over those ten years to see how such applicants fared four years later on the GMAT, GRE, LSAT, etc. after their four years at that college. This might help define the ability of each institution to prepare its students to score well on these critical professonal/graduate school entrance exams … a quality control measure if you will. In the end it may be discovered that these institutions do absolutely nothing to alter the ability of a graduate to score well on standardized tests after their four years there, but what if they do?</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t see how those data are relevant at all if they are not comparing similar quality students at the varying institutions.</p>
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<p>I hope that you aren’t a Stats professor. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Hint: Any AP Stats student could tell you what’s wrong with self-reported “data.” But even if you believe that self-reported numbers are truly accurate and representative, without MCAT scores, your data is not of much value… </p>
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<p>Or perhaps Dartmouth students applying to med school have an higher MCAT score than Duke?</p>
<p>^^ or the EC’s are stronger because of the opportunities available.
WRT to the data, say my post at #27.</p>
<p>DuninLA, the data does provide some insight if you compare two schools with similar students composition.</p>
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<p>And you cannot say that it is random… :D</p>
<p>But randomness in itself means nothing, you need to know that it is a representative sampling of applicants. (You could pick a “random” person in San Francisco who loves Nancy Pelosi, but you might not receive reaction from a “random” person in rural Texas.)</p>
<p>“perhaps Dartmouth students applying to med school have an higher MCAT score than Duke?”</p>
<p>If so, that doesn’t exactly make Duke look better than Dartmouth.</p>
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Or maybe Dartmouth alums favor Dartmouth students in med admissions because they have such a wicked awesome extra amazing kickass super duper alumni network (with sprinkles on top).</p>
<p>hanover is beautiful, even in winter. duke is beautiful too but it gets very hot there and HUMID, which i can’t stand. if you like the change of seasons, top academics, being reasonably close to a big city (boston is two hours away) and in a small new england town, which fosters a very close college community, then dart. remember dartmouth and princeton are tops in percentage of alums that give, a good measure how much they loved their undergraduate experience. and dart’s record of sending students in all fields, including sciences, is second to none.</p>