Grade Deflation and Inflation - Saint Anselm and others

Hi
I was just reading about Saint A’s after visiting its beautiful campus and was very impressed by the programs they had to offer. My son is interested in Pre-med and loves the fact they have a student EMT program there as well. My question is regarding the grade deflation rumors I have been reading about on this site. While my son has no issue in working hard, for medical school its all about your grades and less about where you went to school. If there is known grade deflation why should we send him to that school to hurt his chances for med school? Any ideas on schools that are know for grade inflation (other than the Ivys)? Its so competitive and as I said he is a hard worker but why not get every advantage one can?

Where does your son stand academically in relation to the typical student at St. Anselm’s? If he’s in the top quintile (or higher) of admitted students (GPA, SAT/ACT), he should be fine since he’ll be one of the stronger students.

Pre med is hard everywhere. All colleges weed pre-meds in some fashion–whether by implicit policy (capping the percentage of As awarded) or simply due the fact that material is difficult and most students aren’t able to master it.

The MCAT is the great equalizer w/r/t grading policies at various schools and an applicant’s GPA is never considered in isolation.

(BTW, if you think adcomms aren’t aware of which colleges are known for having major grade inflation, you’d be wrong.)

Med school admission is much more than just GPA + MCAT score.

If you want to see how med school admission officers rank various factors when considering a student for med school admission, see p. 4 of this document: [Using MCAT Data in 2017 Medical Student Selection](https://www.aamc.org/download/462316/data/2017mcatguide.pdf#page=9)

I work with someone who went there and grade deflation is a known thing.