I’m considering applying to Hamilton as a pre med. From what I read it seems to be that if you study really hard, you’ll be lucky enough to get a B+. Is that true? Generally, if a person wants to apply to a D.O medical school, they should have a gpa of at least 3.5. And a 3.7 for MD schools. I know about 40% of Hamilton students are on the Deans List per semester. But I don’t know how much of those students do pre med. Any info about how rigorous the “pre med” classes are?
(I know applying to med school shouldn’t be easy and I have to work for my grade/success however I just really want to be accepted into a medical school.)
If you study hard with the goal of mastering the material in your classes (and less so striving for grades), most of your final grades at Hamilton will land as either As or Bs, provided you’ve followed a similar principle successfully in high school. Regarding the rigor of the pre-med classes, they’d allow for some discretion on your part. For example, either calc I or II can satisfy a portion of the math requirement, statistics can be taken through the psychology department, the physics sequences that many pre-med students elect differ somewhat from that oriented toward physics majors, etc.
Best of luck to you!
You might be interested in post #101 on this thread @alwaysPurple:
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22329040#Comment_22329040
@merc81 Let’s say if I had a good work ethic but I don’t just grasp the information right away… what are the chances of getting a gpa of above a 3.6 at Hamilton? I mean I’m in the top 10% of my class( then again, a good portion of Hamilton students are too) but I have to really study for my grades, Will I fall behind? I want to go to Hamilton but I can’t risk going to a college that is too difficult for me.
This may offer you an advantage in college even though it may hardly seem that way to you at this time. Academic knowledge is comprised of layers. If you were to have “achieved” without effort, then your current foundation would not be as deep.
By itself, this is not a strong indicator one way or the other. If possible, I’d highly recommend you arrange to sit-in on an appropriate physics, chemistry, or math class at Hamilton, as well as possibly a literature class. In the course of that experience, I think you would gain a sense of whether Hamilton would match your academic level and of whether your attendance there would enhance your prospects for medical school.
If 40% make Dean’s list at Hamilton, that sounds more like grade inflation vs grade deflation
However, the OP (indirectly) expressed legitimate concern with respect to the potential for his BCPM (Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Math) GPA, a determination that would be difficult to infer from Dean’s List figures. Beyond that, Hamilton students enter with an academic profile that places among the highest in the country, which should, under fair circumstances, increase the proportion of Dean’s List students relative to that of many other colleges, making assessments regarding grade inflation/deflation problematic.
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Without knowing the criteria for making Dean’s list, there is no basis to determine whether or not grade inflation is an issue.
The issue is whether Hamilton weeds out a large % of med wannabes. This isn’t ordinary ‘take a class and study.’ Weeding can be brutal, to pare down the number they endorse. It makes sense to go to a college that’s collaborative for premed. And one you can most easily afford.
Though no college can equally support all its med school aspirants, Hamilton will prepare an evaluative letter for all students who meet its basic criteria: