If I go to a school that is know for grade deflation would it hurt my chances at getting into a good medical school seeing as most med schools want high GPAs from its applicants. That in comparison of going to a college where the grading is not as harsh and will probably give me a higher GPA then the school with a more rigorous grading policy
Generally speaking medical school admission committees do not take grade deflation into consideration when looking at GPAs.
The reason is twofold:
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Students always think their own college is grade-deflated when compared to every other college. (Kind of like a reverse Lake Wobegon Effect. See: [url <a href=“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_effect%5DThe”>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon#The_Lake_Wobegon_effect]The Lake Wobegon Effect)
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Adcoms simply cannot be familiar with the grading policies of every single college in the country and so don’t know which colleges are legitimately “grade deflated” and which aren’t. There may be a small handful of colleges that the adcom members of a specific med school may be familiar with (because the med school get large numbers of applicants from it year after year) that may get a bit of GPA consideration, but that’s not something you should count on.
Also, it’s foolish to assume that you would automatically get a higher GPA at School B than you would at School A. (Life just isn’t that simple and easy to predict.)
@WayOutWestMom What if it’s a top 20 school known for a harder grading system like Princeton or Vanderbilt
Not all Top 20 undergrads are grade deflated. (A number are, in fact, grade inflated.)
Adcomm members based their professional judgements on their own experience, not hearsay or rumors of grade deflation. If a specific member of an adcomm has personal knowledge that grade deflation is indeed a fact at a particular school, that one individual might be inclined to allow some leeway; however, that does not mean the person sitting next to him or her in the committee room will feel the same way. Adcomms are not groupthink hive minds; an adcomm is a group of frequently changing individuals, each with their own opinions, beliefs and viewpoints.
If you could gather a group adcomms from various med schools across the US, I highly doubt you could get them to all agree on a consensus list of “grade deflated schools.”
And remember GPA is just one factor (out of dozens) that is taken into consideration when making the decision to interview and admit an applicant.
@wayoutwestmom Is a 3.8 at an “easy school” like fsu really equivalent to a 3.8 at Vandy, Princeton, Duke, etc? Or even state flagships like Umich/uva/uw madison vs a prestigious school?
I just feel if that were the case the % pre med at a top 20 school would be significantly lower since state schools are generally cheaper and easier (at least that is the student consensus)
equivalent no, of course they’re not equivalent but a) that’s why there’s the MCAT and b) GPA differences above a certain amount don’t really mean much anyway.
Yes, those schools are generally easier, but pre-meds are not representative of the general population.
Like IWBB said --perhaps 3.8 at FSU in not exactly equivalent to the 3.8 at Princeton, but the computer program that screens applications at a med school (and yes, that is exactly what happens at most medical schools–the first pass over your application is done by a computer) isn’t going to automatically add .3 points to your GPA just because of the name of your transcript. Your GPA is your GPA.
Pre-meds are not representative of the general population. High achieving students tend to cluster in STEM majors everywhere, but especially at so-called “easier” colleges.
And I said above–GPA is just one factor out of dozens that influences the decision to interview and admit an applicant.
@iwannabe_Brown @wayoutwestmom okay thanks for the clarification. I wanted to be sure because recently there’s been talk from students at my college saying it would be better to go to a state school because it is “easier” and that going to a top 20 school is the worst choice you can make for going to med school.
For self assessment, at what point does gpa differences not mean that much? Like if my gpa is above x, I am not really at a disadvantage for all schools (in which case I would need to ensure a high mcat and good experiences that I can draw in for interviews)
The median GPA nationally for matriculating students last year was 3.7+.
[Table A-18: MCAT Scores and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools by Race/Ethnicity, 2015-2016](https://www.aamc.org/download/321498/data/factstablea18.pdf)
Depending on the school, the minimum GPA for a screen out may be 3.2 or 3.5 or something entirely different. The screening cut off may also depend on factors like your ethnicity or career-changer or military veteran status. The exact number is proprietary to each school and not made public. Assuming you make it through the minimum GPA screen, then other factors in your application come into play.
BTW, if I had $5 for every time I hear this–
–I’d be retired and living in a hilltop mansion on my own tropical island.
State colleges can have some surprisingly tough competition in STEM fields. There are many smart kids whose parents simply cannot afford (even with FA) private colleges. True story. D1 attended a state U ranked below #200. She was a physics major and one of her classmates was certifiably brilliant. He was taking grad level coursework in high school. By the end of his sophomore year he was co-authoring papers with [Kip Thorne](Kip Thorne - Wikipedia) at Cal Tech. Now imagine that kid setting the curves in all your major courses. It happens–and more often that you might think.
Yes, maybe a 3.5 at Princeton will compare very well to a 4.0 at Podunk U. But I don’t think a 3.5 at Princeton would compare well to a 3.7 at Duke.
True grade deflation is generally non-existent (although they did that for certain classes at Penn, definitely not all). Majors that are very tough can give a tenth of a point or two of leeway, but again, not a huge amount.
Bio majors are by far most common, so if your not managing a 3.8 or higher, there better be a very good reason. A less common major could help.
Never had anyone beg for grades as much as pre-meds do. Sorry, scratch that, pre-dental were worse…
@suffer: an MSAR might be helpful
Based on my experiences with the MD/PhD AdCom (which is a more competitive process than MD and has a higher average GPA), this is not an accurate assessment of how admissions works*, so almost certainly not a true statement for MD only.
*excluding the fact that yes, bio majors are most common
As far as I know, colleges with true grade deflation policies (and/or shadow grading) will send a letter explaining their grading policy with your transcript. Now, if anyone reads it or cares, I don’t know. Best to just suck it up and get as close to a 4.0 as you possibly can.