<p>The accepted average GPA of students accepted to medical school is an astronomical 3.7, vastly above the national average of ~3.5. So not only is MIT grade deflated (which it is), but its graduates actually suffer a GPA penalty.</p>
<p>It basically indicates there simply aren’t too many people in that 3.0-3.3 range. This doesn’t surprise me because I think the grade deflation of MIT is way overblown. If you are giving out 40% A’s, you are not that grade deflated.</p>
<p>Um… I have some serious questions about the facts you are giving… </p>
<p>First~ I’ve taked to several admissions counselors at top Med schools here, that all say the same thing… It doesn’t matter if you took your pre-reqs at a CC or a 4-year as long as it had a lab component and you did well… and it is my understanding that many top schools are changing their policies now regarding non-trads students and looking for them. </p>
<p>It’s rude and ignorant to assume that a CC education isn’t good enough for any school. From the moment that an IVY decides they will accept transfer credit from a CC based upon successful completion of a placement score in order to recieve credit towards a Bachelor’s than it is implied that a grad school wil equally accept the credit. </p>
<p>It’s a false assumption that a CC education is different or less rigorous than a 4-year education. First of all, CC benefits in that class size is smaller, therefore, more individual attention. Second, teachers may not have a PhD, but they are knowledgeable in their given subjects (My A&P instructor is a Cardio Surgeon at Rush Medical, and my Physics Prof is a Medical Physicist at North Shore despite his lack of a PhD)… Finally, because of these reasons we are expected to have 4.0’s and often snubbed if we have below a 3.35 at a CC. The coursework is similar if not the same in all basic courses (in IL IAI initiative requires certain syllabi be almost exactly the same accross the state). Yes our advanced courses are not specialized but that is why NO ONE goes directly from a CC to a grad school… you have to go get a Bachelor’s from a 4-year first. </p>
<p>Finally, there is a number of reasons someone may be at a CC. These may or may not have to do with their aptitude, however, it is misguided, judgmental, and ignorant to be commenting negatively on a system that has been in place for many years, and has a proven success rate.</p>
<p>Your post is reading a lot into what is not here.</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter if Caltech Profs are teaching at a juco, the simple fact is that the competition for A’s is much easier at the two-year level. (In my hometown, the community college is even easier than our HS honors courses.) And in courses that tend to be curved, for example, its just easier to take Stats with students who average <600 on SAT math then who average 750+. Even at grade-inflated Harvard, 25% of the matriculating Frosh scored an 790-800. </p>
<p>And yes, admissions will tell you that where you take courses does not much matter. But did you also ask them about the impact of the MCAT for that same community college student?</p>
<p>btw: if you read many of sakky’s post, he shows quite clearly that grade inflated colleges do better in med admissions than rigorous publics (which also happen to have high transfer rates); but that just may be a correlation.</p>
<p>Totally agree, it’s not the content of the courses that’s different, it’s the competition for grades that is substantially different between various colleges. An much less dramatic comparison than CC vs. top 4-yr, my D1 transferred from a top 5 Public to a top 5 overall. The coursework is similar at both schools, but at the Public she was at the top of her cohort, while at her new school she’s more in the middle of the pack. She’s still getting good grades, but it takes considerably more work to do so.</p>
<p>To echo what has just been said, it’s not the material taught, difficulty of tests, or even quality of education that’s debated here. A CC may very well provide better undergraduate education than a grad-focused school like Harvard or Cornell but the difficulty in attaining A’s is not the same. My friend from UC Davis showed me one of their orgo tests. It looked about the same as my orgo tests at Cornell (same types of probs, difficulty, etc.). The difference is that the mean on that test was a 39 while the means on my orgo tests were usually around 65. That has real implications for grading.</p>
<p>A lot of the debate thus far has focused on whether a person should go to their state school and earn top grades or go to an elite college. The real answer is that if you want the BEST shot at getting into a top med school, you should be able to do both. Top med schools are filled with students who went to MIT, Harvard, Duke, etc. and STILL earned 3.8+. Those of you who have interviewed at top schools know the caliber of undergrads that’s typically represented on the interviewer rosters. I interviewed at seven Top 20 med schools last year and I am emailed my current med school’s interview roster every week so I know roughly the schools represented. Out of 20 kids interviewing, you will find 13-15 from top colleges, 3 from local state colleges, and maybe 1-2 exceptional kids from colleges you’ve never heard of. It’s not impossible to get into a top med school from an unknown college but it’s harder.</p>
<p>Top LACs and universities definitely represent a large chunk of my school’s interviewees. I’d dare say 70% or more. I don’t even know if it is harder to succeed at a less know uni so much as the talent base is much less stunning on average for less competitive colleges. The whole reason why competitive schools are competitive is because of the kids that they admit. When a large chunk of the stellar students end up at top LACs and universities, you would expect them to be a very high proportion of the top medical applicants. Another factor is that the schools that have the largest pre-med applicants are also the top schools. Harvard alone chugs out 300 applicants a year. U of Michigan, Cornell, and UCLA could fill the top 10 medical schools with their applicant pools easily.</p>
<p>What kind of gpa should kids in top 20 schools shoot for in order to get into their state med schools?</p>
<p>I know at Emory kids who have a 3.5+ and a 30 +, 90 percent manage to get into 1 medical school…but to me a 3.5 seems kind of low…</p>
<p>I have been comparing tests, with my friends who go to state schools, and their tests are jokes compared to some of my tests…I finished a test for gen chem at a state school in 40 minutes out of 60 minutes allowed for the test and would have gotten a 98 on it(the answer key was up), and on my tests…i only get 88s =( and it takes me the whole hour to complete…One major difference in the two tests, was how hard the classes are…on my tests if you misspell stuff there is no partial credit, all off…example, I had the answer right, it was trigonal planar and I spelled it trigonal planar(e instead of a in planar) and I got the entire question right(it was worth 10 ****en points), whereas at a state school, you get full credit for stuff like that…You can’t just give out A’s at a top school, because it would look bad, even though the kids probably deserved A’s(EVERYONE works hard)…They might get drunk/high at night, but they probably spend a lot of hours in the library during the day…at state schools you always have the kids who don’t try at all, so the average is rarely an A at a state school…</p>
<p>You should work under the assumption that you will not be cut any slack for going to a top college simply because so many applicants go to top colleges. There are a lot of other factors that go into the admissions process. So, if your application is weaker in other areas, you might need a higher GPA. I couldn’t get into most of my state med schools with a 3.9+ from Cornell. Heck, I didn’t even get interviews to half of them.</p>
<p>Statistically speaking, the national average for admits to medical school – regardless of what undergrad they come from – is about 3.5-3.6. So a 3.5 from Emory isn’t that low.</p>
<p>My question would be what is an A on the exam in your class? I would also ask why do you feel that, having already taken an exam on the material, it is fair to judge another exam? I’m not saying that it wasn’t easier, but you’ve already gotten a shot at the material (and you also had no stress). I’d also be interested in what the ranking of the state college was approximately (flagship versus regional college kind of thing).</p>
<p>I looked at 2 different state colleges tests…One was a state school ranked in the 50s-60s…the other was a state school ranked in the 80s…</p>
<p>To get an As in my classes, you need above a 93 or above on a test…</p>
<p>I was making the comparison before I took my test…My professors put up old exams, and after I had worked through 1 of the old exams for my class, my friends sent over one of the tests they had just recently taken (their professors put up the answer keys after they had taken the test)…</p>
<p>The averages on the tests, at all 3 schools is the same (around 68)…but the caliber of the students varies which means that for the averages to be the same, the test must be harder…</p>
<p>^Did you have your friends take your test? Your perception of “difficulty” is not necessarily accurate. What you need to avoid bias is to have multiple students at random take each test w/o knowing which test is which. You will naturally be biased toward the confirmation of your own assumptions (as we all are).</p>
<p>I am also curious what kind of science gpa a pre-med who isn’t majoring in the sciences should have(taking just the basic science classes but majoring in something else)…I know the average overall gpas for pre-meds is around 3.5-3.6(according to BMD)…but what about science gpas…</p>
<p>^By forgiveness, I mean room for error. That is, a science major who has 60 units of science courses and gets a C+ in G-Bio freshmen yr but all A-s otherwise ends up w/ a 3.63, whereas if that another person had all A-s except that C+ but only the premed classes, s/he would end up w/ a 3.59. If someone has more than 1 of those lower grades, it could easily bring the non-sci major down, whereas the sci major has more opportunities to bring up his/her sGPA.</p>
<p>There is another possibility: Most premeds, science majors or not, often take more than the minimal number of science pre-req classes in order to show their “science aptitude.” The science majors often have no choice but to take all the science “core courses” required by their majors, but non-science majors may hand-pick their upper-division science classes, and if needed, avoid taking classes taught by some “difficult” professors (e.g., some of these professors may be a Nobel prize winner who believes that only the very best few deserves an A from him.) This may be the reason why I sometimes think that it is likely not easy to consistently get very good grades as a science major at a major research university – This is because it is more likely at that kind of place where you may run into this kind of professor. (e.g., Berkeley’s science program is what comes to my mind.)</p>