@PurpleTitan Your post that I replied to said, *"Engineering GPA’s at *elite privates/b " Stanford meets this description of an elite private with similar or higher selectivity/stats well. Lehigh does not, as I expect most on here would not consider Lehigh to be an “elite private.” Ignoring that, the difference in selectivity would not explain the delta from a ~3.7 engineering GPA.
I expect your Princeton comment relates to an earlier post in the thread . Note that I mentioned both NYU and Princeton in that post. NYU is no more selective than UM, yet NYU engineering has a higher GPA than UM, as does their full college. There are many more examples. Looking at Lehigh’s average GPA, and the typical difference between average GPA and engineering GPA, I’d be surprised in engineering is below 3.0; but it is indeed lower than most private colleges with a similar degree of selectivity. .
IMO, if the assessment is absolute as defined here, saying there can only be 30% A grades is arbitrary and capricious. If 40% perform at the A level - however that is defined - 40% should get As. The classes should be more challenging, or grading rubrics reconsidered, if “too many As” is a problem.
Apparently P-ton is (was?) OK with professors choosing the other option - grading relative to the other students in the class. I don’t like that system either, because it depends so much on who else is in the class that term, not what students actually learn and do/create. It creates a competition between students, too, which is useful for come professions and classes perhaps, but definitely not for others.
I do agree that grading should be consistent across departments. To that end, they should have come up with a policy re: absolute and relative grading and made that consistent also. As I said, I would favor absolute.
Hard to believe this needed to be said…this wasn’t already happening??
Near the end of the doc they quote medical school admissions responses to the idea of deflating P-ton grades. It’s interesting - and goes against the conventional wisdom here on CC - that they said they would consider Princeton applicant GPAs in the context of the policy. So a lower GPA from that college would be adjusted in some way, presumably, as compared to GPAs from “lesser” colleges, or those known to grade-inflate. Some of the med school comments say they already do this. That would be a surprise to the “gpa and mcat are all that matters” crowd here.
Top (but not lower ranked) law schools saying this was to be expected. I think we all agree that they look at GPAs differently depending on the institution.
Fraternities are not known for having the same average GPA of the full student body. Instead fraternity GPAs tend to be lower. The publication at https://studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/sites/studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/files/offices/ofye/docs/Draft%20Book%20Entire%20Book%20with%20Covers.pdf mentions first year students at Lehigh averaged a 3.24 GPA at the time of the publication. It’s likely higher today. It’s well documented that first year GPAs tend to be lower than the full class. If engineering students make of 40% of the class, then 2.8 sounds far too low.
Based on the average of the high and low of the middle 50%, Princeton and Penn average student is ~2.5 points higher than Michigan, Stanford is 2 points higher. Lehigh is .5 points lower. Based on that, it does appear that Lehigh is quite a bit more comparable to Michigan than the Ivies are.
ACT middle 50% of enrolled (per CDS)
Princeton 32 - 35
Penn 32 - 35
Stanford 31 - 35
Michigan 29 - 33
Lehigh 29 - 32
I do think @data10 asks a good question. Why would Lehigh, for example, keep their grade average so low?
If Michigan engineers average a 3.26%, what is the benefit of Lehigh keeping their average below 3.0? It seems to me that perhaps they have continued to maintain historical standards while other schools have continued to allow them to slide.
@Data10:
“Lehigh does not, as I expect most on here would not consider Lehigh to be an “elite private.””
Ouch. I consider Lehigh an elite private, BTW, and I daresay many on CC do as well, but carry on. These are just personal biases/elitism.
“Ignoring that, the difference in selectivity would not explain the delta from a ~3.7 engineering GPA.”
How so and why not?
The problem with the SAT/ACT is that the upper end is leveled out (at 35/36 ACT) because these tests (especially the math section) just aren’t that difficult. But someone who scores a 36/35 in math certainly could actually be somewhere more like around 50/60 in a harder test that scales someone who has a 32 back to 32.
“yet NYU engineering has a higher GPA than UM”
What is NYU Poly’s average GPA? My understanding is that a good number of kids fail out of NYU Poly.
@DAta10 "Lehigh does not, as I expect most on here would not consider Lehigh to be an “elite private.”
Well, I didn’t claim that. I called Lehigh “reasonably selective.”, which was meant to be a practical term and not a defined category. However, Michigan students are quite similar. There is a lot of regional bias. People in Michigan would tend to think Michigan is elite, and many in PA, NJ, and NY would think Lehigh is elite.
Very Little Drift
Comparing 2017 to 2012 suggests very little GPA drift. The Fraternity average GPA has risen .02, the avg. Sorority GPA has risen .08, and the all-Greek average is up .044. If the all-undergrad GPAs rose by the same amount as the all-Greek GPA, the current all undergraduate average is 3.163.
Spring 2017 GPAs
Frats 3.03
Sororities 3.34
Combined 3.17
Conclusion
I don’t have enough data here to tell conclusively that the GPA average for Lehigh engineering majors is below 3.0, but this data does make it appear very plausible to me.
If anyone has more specific data, that would be appreciated.
interestingly - I’ve read nothing but the opposite of that on here (in the pre-med forums). When I’ve asked about different schools for my D to choose from since she wants to go to medical school, everyone’s telling me they don’t really care where you went undergrad, just your GPA. It was mentioned by numerous people that, for example, a 3.8 from middle-tier-school would be far better than a 3.4 from Princeton, even if both are average/above average for the institution.
@shadret & @OHMomof2, I believe that, like anything else, it depends.
Private med schools seem to more holistic. Years ago on CC, someone listed an equivalency chart between GPA from different colleges used by a private.
Someone else on a public med school adcom committee (where the vast majority of their in-state applicants come from one of their two big in-state public research U’s) said that they had a hard cut-off of GPA. They were familiar with the rigor of the pre-med science courses at those public flagships and didn’t feel like they needed to adjust their requirements for other schools.
Still, I would not advise aiming for anything lower than a 3.5 GPA (both in pre-med classes and overall) anywhere.
BTW, @bluebayou, that applicant who got in to med school with a 3.0 GPA probably did so many years ago. Not sure if that’s applicable now.
@Much2learn . The quote you listed was from a reply to a different poster who did use the phrase “elite private.” I agree that the linked fraternity/sorority reports suggest a lower overall class GPA than does the first year GPA link. I also agree that Lehigh has a lower average GPA than most similarly selective private colleges.
@PurpleTitan “Elite college” is a somewhat arbitrary definition. Threads I’ve seen on the parents forum that use the phrase “elite colleges” and list specific colleges generally list colleges that are more selective and/or higher ranked than Lehigh. Also note that “most” and “many” can exist without overlap.
You mentioned SAT/ACT, so I’ll focus my example on test scores. Michigan’s ACT scores are ~2 below Stanford. Michigan has notably higher admission standards for engineering students than the overall Michigan student body, while Stanford does not admit by major, so the difference is most likely notably smaller between engineering students at the two schools. I’ll assume an ACT difference of ~1 for the purposes of this example. It seems unreasonable that a difference of ~1 ACT point would explain the difference between a ~3.25 average GPA and a ~3.7 average GPA. If you look at other colleges with a ~1 point difference in ACT scores, this large of a difference in class GPA is not common.
You’re ignoring selectivity and attractiveness.
Did you read my post #86? Even among those with 35/36 scores in ACT math, there would be a difference in ability, with some who are only a bit better than those who get a 32 ACT and some who are several times more talented than the “typical” 32 ACT (or 35 ACT) kid (due to the SAT/ACT being very easy tests).
Because Stanford is both much more selective and attractive to the vast majority of applicants, I daresay Stanford has a higher proportion of those kids. BTW, UMich, like all publics, would have a good percentage of transfers (from in-state CC’s and elsewhere). Their stats are not in the entering freshmen stats.
PT, if you would have bothered to look at the source document that I posted, you would have easily seen the reference at at the top of the page:
“for first-time applicants from 2012 to 2016.”
Of course, that does not say what type of med school (allopathic or DO), or where (Guadalajara?)…
That being said, I agree with your advice…
…which is the bare minimum for a California resident (which has a gazillion premeds, and a handful of top-rated med schools, with admission stats to match.).
@OHMomof2 I’m not 100% sure what the question is. The initial GPA screen is completely blind to the name of the school but after that people can put as much or as little weight into school name. So thinking about my school, the 3.8 from some other school will get looked st before the 3.4 from Princeton but when I’m thinking about the “strength” of a student’s academics I’m going to think about the name of the school a little. Plus if the 3.8’s MCAT isnt high enough they’re also getting put to the back of the pile.
My earlier link suggested that ~65% of the Stanford engineering grades were A’s. If we are correlating ACT scores with this bottom 35% A/B division, it would be more appropriate to look at those with scores toward the bottom of the engineering class than those who have a math ability that is too high to be measured by the ACT scale. This towards the bottom of the class includes more than just the genius math kids within the student body. For example, 2 of the 4 most popular majors among athletes are within the engineering school.
Med schools were telling Princeton that if they adjusted grading downward, the lower GPAs would be looked at in that context. Some said they already take GPA in the school’s context.
So they were saying something different than what you’re saying, which is that the 3.4 from P-ton wouldn’t be looked at with the 3.8 from Podunk U (or Grade Inflation U).
Obviously there’s more to an app than just GPA, but if an initial screen removes low GPAs, do those apps ever get a holistic review?
Could it mean that the initial screening with a hard minimum GPA is blind to school name and reputation for grade inflation or not, but that subsequent holistic review of those who pass the initial screening may consider the school name and reputation for grade inflation or not when comparing applicants’ GPAs?
[So they were saying something different than what you’re saying…
[/quote]
Both can easily be true.
P’ton, like the rest of the uber-selective, select for nothing but the best test-takers. (SAT/ACT is a big threshold to clear for admission to those top schools.). Thus, on average, a P’ton grad is gonna have an MCAT score that will be significantly higher than someone from Podunk U.
Moreover, a few years ago, in a survey of med admissions officers, of all the criteria for getting invited to interview, the #1 item was MCAT score, followed closely by GPA.
