How is the progam here?
Plenty of people get into good med schools but there is very little to no grade inflation here. Since GPA is pretty vital for med school apps I’d have to have strong reasons to go to GA Tech as a pre-med.
They have the biology major…which is relatively normal (tame-many classes give standard biology exams with mainly multiple choice and short answer…memorization except for classes like genetics and maybe gen. biology) compared to most selective schools…so is chemistry to some extent. The issue is finding courses that are interesting but also will support the GPA. It has little to do with lack of grade inflation. The fact is that Georgia Tech is a STEM school where most students are in STEM majors. With exception of physics, grading standards at Tech are in line with grading standards in STEM courses at most top institutions (in fact, I know that the chemistry dept at Emory is a little more stingy grade wise than at Tech). The difference is that, if you went somewhere like Emory for example, you can easily balance with non-STEM courses if you stick to life science oriented majors and just take non-STEM gen. ed requirements (which comprise a huge chunk of the graduation requirements). I think that is the part missing at a place like Tech. That is just harder to do. Like, taking classes beyond a certain level in Ivan Allen, without actually being in Ivan Allen may be hard, but I’m not sure. If it isn’t, then ultimately you can just do what pre-meds at Emory do. Take your sciences/major in science and take less stringently graded or intense courses outside of science.
My roommate at GT went to Medical school (nuclear engineer) as did my brother in law (chem engineer).
My roommate had a 3.4 gpa. The medical schools he applied to actually bumped his gpa up (some by .5) to account for the difficulty of the school. For other schools they subtracted (so a 4.0 might be a 3.5).
BOth got into numerous medical schools and both killed the MCAT
My brother in law said medical school was very easy compared to Chem E at GT…
The acceptance rates should be fairly similar for GTech, Emory and UGA. As is to be expected, Emory and UGA will be sending many more applicants than GTech. For 2014,
UGA - 481
Emory - 386
GTech - 191
https://www.aamc.org/download/321456/data/factstable2-6.pdf
The acceptance rates to Med schools (example 2012)
GTech - 54 %
http://www.prehealth.gatech.edu/content/prospective-student-faqs
Emory - 54% (Emory does a much better job of publishing this info)
http://career.emory.edu/images/parents_images_pdf/2012_med_mcat_gpa.pdf
http://career.emory.edu/images/prehealth_documents/AMCAS%207%20Year%20Composite%20Matriculate%20Chart.pdf (2009-2015)
UGA ~ 51-52%
https://premed.uga.edu/about-premedical-studies
My guess ( yes just a hunch !!) is that from GTech, most of the Med school applicants would be not from the Pure Sciences like Biology or Chemistry but from the CS/Eng streams. Hopefully, a more informed poster will post some stats (please no hearsay !)
So, to emphasize, despite the low GPAs at GTech, getting into Med school should not be an issue.
Well, technically UGA and Emory are doing very well considering that they are saturating the applicant pool, especially Emory where 386 is a FAR higher percentage of the student body than UGA’s 481 and this hurts a bit. Emory’s performance simply % wise would be far better if a) it discouraged low stats applicants from applying and b) if simply less people applied. Note that Emory’s includes reapplicants so this likely helps? And there is also the issue of Emory students being stuck up and aiming too high (as in not applying to a range). Many of those who have near perfect stats are almost too sure they’ll get into some elite medical school (even those applying MDPhD) because that is how it worked for undergrad and then they don’t…and have to reapply the following cycle. With lower GPA’s, students are less likely to take such risks.
As for the MCAT: One would expect anyone in a physical sciences heavy (especially engineering which integrates sciences well, much as the new MCAT does now) or a reading heavy major to do very well on the MCAT (or any critical thinking oriented admissions test). Usually biology majors do relatively poor (in comparison to the other disciplines including some social sciences) mainly because it is the bulk of the applicants and is ultimately a default pre-med major, so basically everyone does it. It also doesn’t stress physical/quantitative science and problem solving at most schools anywhere near as much as an engineering, physics, or even a chemistry major. It also tends not to be reading heavy. The only thing helping Emory students (I still think most pre-meds there are biology majors) can even pull off decent rates is because the biology major is relatively good. While not loaded with math and physical science requirements…many intermediate and advanced classes are data/primary literature heavy or have primary literature discussion sections associated with them. Also, any poor performances by all the biology majors is perhaps offset by all the neuro majors (which does require an integrated understanding of the sciences and has much more problem solving/lit. based, and case-based courses). However, I must say that if it weren’t for the engineering major GPA’s (which are most certainly lowered due to departments such as math and physics), I would expect Tech to outperform Emory because the MCATs should be higher due to the major distribution. And again, it isn’t saturated.
As for your hunch…while a greater share are probably from those fields, I am willing to bet you Tech follows similar trends as other schools except maybe you get some BME pre-meds who think they are basically doing a “middleway”. But of course I have no such stats and I don’t know many schools that publish it.
@Grindle Which Medical Schools bumped up his GPA?
several. medical college of georgia for. Mind you that this was 1997
Yeah, in 1997, Georgia Tech’s averages in the sciences were actually lower than peer schools (or schools in the tier of selectivity it is now), but it isn’t the case anymore. Selectivity has increased and the grades have floated up to be on par with other very selective schools. I would think they should give a bump to maybe engineering majors who would have to endure a very heavy courseload (but this is the case at any school for engineering), but not necessarily for the other science majors.Tech is as or less tough than many top privates in that area for example, at least content wise, but in several cases even grading wise (many of said schools are doing the C+/B- type of distribution but with harder exams than seen in general biology, general chemistry, organic, or biochemistry at Tech. Physics and math at some of these places is also just as hard or harder). Only a few other selective schools have significant grade inflation in the sciences and/or easier than Tech. Tech, like anywhere selective, probably gets a bump over normal schools depending on the students course load, but I don’t think everybody from there would get a huge boost…not even MIT receives one and I hate to be blunt, but the pre-med relevant courses at MIT are MUCH harder than Tech counterparts.