<p>What is a respectable engineering GPA for med school admission? I just finished my freshmen year with a 3.55. My major is biomedical engineering. I know i have a long way to go but I want to know what kind of GPA I will need if say I have acceptable MCAT scores and medical ECs. Thanks.</p>
<p>It will depend on what school you go to somewhat. See if you can get stats from the advising office on the average GPA/MCAT for students in your major. I’d say a 3.55 is within range where a competent application and MCAT will make you still competitive, but like all other majors a 3.7+ is best. It’s best not to count on a boost because of your major, but rather benefit from it if it comes. Schools no doubt vary on their interpretation of Engineering GPAs.</p>
<p>Medical schools don’t care that your major was in engineering, and probably won’t account for it when evaluating your GPA. Your 3.55 in engineering is likely to be deemed as inferior to a 3.60 in a liberal arts major like say Biology (at least in terms of acceptance, not true ability) to most, if not all, medical admissions committees. I have yet to see statistics showing that they weigh in relative difficulties across majors when evaluating GPA’s.</p>
<p>idk man… i think they care what your major is and i really think they do take in to account what classes you took… i’m giving them the benefit of the doubt that they are intelligent people and will realize that assessing numbers on a scale of 0-4 without considering what classes were taken would just be… stupid. sorry.</p>
<p>because ‘evaluating’ isn’t the same as ‘looking’ at a GPA. college admission commits don’t even just ‘look’ at GPAs. they evaluate the courses you took and in the context of the courses possible and the rigor of the high school…</p>
<p>Person A: “I have a question.”</p>
<p>Person B: “Here’s your answer.”</p>
<p>Person C: “Person B is right.”</p>
<p>Person A: “No you’re both wrong. I knew the answer before I asked the question.”</p>
<p>I understand what you’re getting at and why you would think that, but you just have to understand how their minds work. If anything, they definitely would notice if you just were taking absolute, complete joke classes, in which case they would question you during your interview as to why - but hey, at least you got to the interview.</p>
<p>Look at students from MIT. If I could pull together the arsenal of statistics for you I would, but pre med students from MIT actually have an even harder time getting into some medical schools, difficulty of MIT aside. I’m sure no one would dispute that MIT is extremely demanding, and that especially students that can maintain a 3.7 at MIT are absolutely stunning. However, statistics show that for a 3.7 GPA from MIT applying to some medical schools, a 3.6 from another just as ranked school like Princeton beats it. It’s really peculiar actually, because I know the adcoms know themselves that MIT generally would produce a stronger & more sound applicant, so treading lower in GPA’s from MIT isn’t the same as treading lower in GPA’s from other schools.</p>
<p>Also, I would like to point out 2 things. 1) College admissions is not the same thing as med admissions. 2) Colleges from Virginia Tech and down don’t really analyze your courses, little distinguishment between those who take rigorous selection and those who don’t take a single AP. VT is an excellent school, acceptees’ average GPA’s are 3.9 weighted and 2000 SAT, so from them down, course selections aren’t really analyzed.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, a 3.7 at MIT performs about equivalently to a 3.55 from Duke or a 3.35 from Penn even when the MIT kid has higher MCAT scores. It’s really quite scary for MIT folks.</p>
<p>Person D: i feel no need to contribute anything to this discussion except make myself look like an ignoramus. </p>
<p>i just hope they don’t dumb down my GPA because i don’t go to a top 20 university… is it possible to get into medical school if i didn’t go to an ivy or duke or johns hopkins??? 3.7 at MIT is equivalent to 3.35 at Penn… so my GPA is probably like negligible… oh wait no i’m an engineering major so 0.5 now? oh wait no major doesn’t matter they’ll just look at GPA and nothing else… 0.0. thanks… to mmmcdowe for the only ‘respone.’</p>
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<p>There are 18,000 people who enter medical school every year. Probably about 2000 of them came from Ivies, Duke, and Hopkins.</p>
<p>The following is taken word-for-word from my undergrad’s ChemE page:</p>
<p>“It is important to dispel the myth that engineering premeds have an advantage that displaces a high GPA and high MCAT score. In recent years admission to medical school has become very competitive. Consequently, medical school applicants have a low probability of acceptance without a reputable GPA, even if they opted for a more difficult undergraduate major. Do not expect admissions committees to utilize another academic standard because of the relative difficulty of Chemical Engineering curricula. In fact, most schools clearly state the indifference in undergraduate majors as a selection factor.”</p>
<p>tl;dr: This is the department warning engineering pre-meds that their more difficult choice of major makes no difference in their application process.</p>