^ Yes, but that is vs a 3.75 at Miami. The underlying question was if med schools factor in grade inflation or deflation and/or prestige/reputation of undergrad institutions. A 3.66 at Chicago may be harder to get than a 3.75 at Miami, who knows, different professors, different standards, different students. But the fact is the avg GPA of a successful premed at UC is lower than that of Miami, so something is being recognized. Being curious, I dug this up from the Harvard Office of Career Services:
“In recent years, Harvard students were admitted to medical school with equal or lower GPAs than national applicants. In a typical year, the admissions rate for Harvard applicants is in the range of
88 to 90%, and approximately 95% of applicants with GPAs above 3.5 are admitted.” p5. http://hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ocs/files/applying-to-medical-school.pdf
So for Harvard, which everyone claims has grade inflation, its premeds have a 95% success rate for GPA’s over 3.5.
Depending on how strong your science background is, getting 3.66 GPA in UChicago may be not that difficult for you… considering both your parents are professors there. As long as you keep your GPA (sGPA) to 3.7+ in UChicago, you should have good chance to get into med schools.
Having said that, there is a long-time CA poster, the D graduated with under 3.5 GPA and couldn’t get any MD acceptance, she went to a DO school in CA.
I am an infrequent poster who joined CC to learn about the college admission process for my own high-stats kids. However, I am also an MD who has served on my highly-ranked state medical school’s admissions committee, so cannot resist weighing in here.
And so I will say again: Undergrad name/prestige are NOWHERE on the exhaustive list of criteria by which candidates are judged at my state medical school.
GPA, MCAT scores, experience in and commitment to medicine, community service/commitment to underserved populations, research experience, letters of rec., interview score, and state residency. THOSE are the criteria at my state medical school. Period.
Private medical schools are different. First, they don’t have the same mandate to provide future MDs to care for the state’s residents that state schools do, and second, they may consider undergrad name/prestige. I suspect many do.
Nearly every new med school grad I know has truly crushing debt, which is why we’re looking to chase merit $ for our own kids. We’re hoping to save at least some of their 529 funds for grad school, especially in case they decide to go into medicine. It’s also why I always encourage medical school applicants to go to their state school if they get in, since it is nearly always less expensive than the privates.
@UpNorth2019 - since now that you’re “self-exposed”, we welcome your input on this Pre-Med Topics forum as an expert (similar to Goro/gyngyn on SDN) on med school admission.
Ivy/elite college names are not the substitute for low GPA, but they are great back-up choices in case med school not working out. With that said, make sure pick the “right” Ivy/elite colleges that you will have a better chance for high GPA. For Ivy, Brown/Dartmouth/UPenn/Cornell are better choice than HYPC.
Does no one care about the actual premed undergrad education one gets at “elite” colleges and whether they are better prepared by attending say a Yale versus large state college like Penn State?
I can also see where that Yale undergraduate might have made some contacts and experiences with some of the Yale medical school professors and other faculty which might give one a leg up in admissions, all things equal.
Interesting but not surprising as I’ve read somewhere awhile back (sorry, lost the source) that a large percentage of Harvard Medical School, although they admit graduates from 73 other colleges, is made up of Harvard graduates, i.e., they favor their own. The same with Yale. Their institutional nepotism then extends to other Ivy graduates, as well.
But then how much is due to selection effect (highly ranked schools have stronger students to begin with, so they will have a disproportionate share of success in getting into medical school) versus treatment effect (the same student attending a higher ranked school has a greater chance of getting into medical school than if s/he attended a lower ranked school)?
@UpNorth2019 - great to have your insight. We have always heard it doesn’t matter where you go to undergrad and that it’s actually better to go to a less selective school if pre-med. I’m wondering then if MCAT is more important than GPA? Or do they weigh the same in the application? If the MCAT is higher but GPA is at or slightly lower than the average admit, is this a great disadvantage?
Wondering this because my D goes to a T20 school and has no regrets but the weed -out classes have been pretty extraordinary. When the classes are designed to allow for only 10% of the class to get an A and the kids sitting in that class came in with 34+ ACT scores and were all in the top of their HS classes, it’s just not possible for all of the kids who actually understand the material to get As in all of the pre-med classes.
My D took a pre-med required class over the summer at our local T100 university because she couldn’t fit it in to her schedule at her school. The lab TA told the class that it was the most difficult course at that university. My D planned to study 20 hours for the first exam - as this is what she would normally do for a science class. But she ended up in the hospital and was only able to study for 5 hours. She was worried sick she wouldn’t do well. But she got the second highest score in the class. The highest score was a kid who goes to the same T20 school as my D. The exam, as well all the other exams in that class, tested the kids on the material that was taught. This is not the case where my D goes to school. They are rarely tested on the exact material that is taught; rather they are asked questions that are less straight forward and more abstract than the material covered in class and in the book. GPAs are definitely not the same from school to school so I’m wondering, even though prestige doesn’t matter, is a 3.6 from a non-selective school truly treated as a 3.6 from a T20, grade deflated school? TYIA!
^^Don’t think there is a simple answer. Agree that kids who get into the top schools are going to be stronger than the avg student at less selective schools. Most likely they test better as well. Whether or not they would be better off in terms of professional school prospects by going to one or the other on an individual basis is unknowable. One strong kid might thrive at a T20 and flounder at large State U. Another equally strong kid may experience the opposite. And it may not matter for a third kid. There are too many variables to make individual predictions.
I was just exploring the validity of the blanket statement that where you go undergrad doesn’t matter for medical school purposes. Based on just a random look at outcomes data for 3 schools, we see that the avg gpa of successful premeds is different for different schools, so clearly the wide range of medical schools are applying different standards (the expected outcome of a 3.66 at Chic is different than a 3.66 at Miami), although I am sure as mentioned upthread, there are some medical schools that don’t care about undergrad pedigree. Other data points that I would consider and dig into by school is the number of med school applicants, the overall success rate, and the avg MCAT score and science gpa of the successful applicants. There are differences in how well schools prepare their premedies.
From the data I saw, if my kid were sure he/she wanted to be a doctor, and the choice was between Harvard and Miami (using Miami as a general proxy for State U) and the sole consideration was getting into med school, I think it is an easy choice since he/she would almost be a sure thing (95%) by maintaining a 3.5 or higher (with qualifying MCAT scores and classes) in an already grade inflated environment. There are plenty of valid reasons to choose Miami/State U over Harvard and vice versa, but that is another thread.
@HalfMoon22 see my post 18 which links outcomes data for Miami of Ohio and UChic. See also the link to Harvard’s OCS’s piece on med school in post #20. 95% of Harvard premeds with a 3.5 or higher get into med school.
You must be cautious when investigating this data as many private and/or elite undergrads (and some public undergrads) use committee letters to artificially limit the number of “pre-meds” that apply to medical school.
One of the purposes of the health professions committee is to winnow out any applicants the committee considers to have a poor or even a below average chance of a successful medical school application cycle. Effectively, the HPC acts as a pre-screener of applicants for medical schools.
If the HPC feels the applicant doesn’t have the GPA/sGPA, MCAT, LORs and the appropriate ECs, they will refuse to provide a committee letter of recommendation to the student or they will inform the student that the committee will write a letter of non-support. (Recommend with reservations, do not recommend) Students know having such a letter is essentially a fatal blow to their med school aspirations for that
cycle and do not apply. And because they don’t apply, their data is never included in the information about med school applicants.
Another consideration when using school provided data about med school applicants is that HPC offer provide committee letters to student who are as many as 5 years out from undergrad. With >65% of med school applicants taking gap years, HPCs today are often writing more committee letters for alumni than they are for current students. You don’t know what mix of students the school is reporting on. (And you don’t know what kind of additional MCAT prep or coursework the student may have taken in those post-grad years or how the reported GPAs are derived.)
@HalfMoon22 - what your D had experienced the exam difficulty between T20 vs local T100 is true, and the worst part is T20 has plenty “genius” students which makes the top 10% A’s very hard to grab. True story - one way to separate the true top 10% is the professor who threw in couple graduate-level OChem questions in the final exam. To be in that top 10% in elite colleges, studying hard is not enough, private tutoring (with tutor being a graduate student in that science dept) will cover that extra edge.
So the question on GPA from elite vs state schools - it can’t be too far away. As an example, a 3.7 from state school vs a 3.6 from UChicago probably even out, but if GPA from UChicago is below 3.5 then the 3.7 state school wins.
To answer the question about the importance of GPA vs MCAT score: at my school, they are weighted equally. And, unless an applicant has a TRULY incredible comeback-from-adversity backstory, the caliber of applicants is SO strong these days that both have to be very high to even be granted an interview. Even a perfect GPA does not offset a low MCAT score (or vice versa).
To the issue of the high med school acceptance rates published by selective schools: as other posters have said, these schools have strong gatekeeper pre-med committees. Schools will only write LORs for the ‘approved’ applicants, and without the LORs the applications are dead in the water. No one ever sees the true denominator.
I also have the anecdotal experience of having attended an Ivy League undergrad in which a full 50% of my class started off as premed. Guess what? The vast majority washed out long before they reached the application process, since at least back in those pre-grade inflation days, the grading curve was brutal. I’ve always suspected many of them would have fared better at less competitive schools. (I understand this has changed somewhat since grade inflation has becomes so rampant at some highly selective schools).
And to the question of whether students from more selective school are better ‘prepared’ for the rigors or medicine: Hogwash. Any student who can score high enough on the MCAT to get admitted has an adequate fund of knowledge (and is good enough ‘test taker’) to do well in medicine. MCAT scores alone are very good predictors of success in medical school and board passing rates later on.
And again, anecdotally, I was no better prepared for med school as an Ivy grad than my classmates who had attended less selective schools. One of my smartest med school classmates (who went on to a match into a highly selective subspecialty) had done her first two years of undergrad at a community college because that was all her family could afford.
A generation later, I see the same pattern in the applicants. Applicants from more selective private schools are more likely to come from highly educated, upper middle class backgrounds (and we know because we ask about family background and income). Applicants from less selective schools often hail from more middle to low income backgrounds. They are no less smart or prepared.
@UpNorth2019 thank you for your reply. And yes the committee letters are something we just learned of last year. Definitely deceiving when looking at the acceptance rates from these schools. My D had a good meeting with her advisor who told her she was on track. Many, however, leave that same office in tears. It’s a tough road. Which leads me back to the OPs original question.
I actually wished for a long time that my D would find something else along the way. It’s one brutal path after another to become a board certified MD. It’s a long, difficult road to be sure. Some things to consider - no matter how well you are doing in HS, the sciences in college are a whole new level. My D said her basic level bio professor covered all of AP bio in less than 3 weeks. She is at a T20 school. I suspect the pace is similar no matter where you go. However, who you are competing on the curve with is not similar. Those who are admitted to UChicago will be a group of the brightest kids in the world.
My D likes to be challenged. She doesn’t, however, like to end up with illnesses so severe that she needs to go to the ER. Stress can do that. And it did it to her more than once. Finals are no joke when you are fighting for your grade against a class of very brilliant people. And, they are in fact very brilliant. Many kids who were bright enough to get into her school ended up dropping the class. So the kids who are left are the kids who were already at the top of the curve. Still, she says she wouldn’t want to be at any other school. The smaller classes, the student camaraderie, the research opportunities, and being in an environment where people thrive on challenge is what she was looking for and is what she found. She most definitely would have had an easier time at our state school. But I’m not sure the work and research experiences, which are unique to where she goes to school, could have compared.
Something else to consider, my D has heard several times over from alum who are current medical students that med school is easier than undergrad. Definitely was not the case for my physician husband who went to our state school. So there is that benefit (of having an easier time once you are out)… if you can make it to that point. Which, for my Ds sake, I hope is true for her. I hate to hear that all GPAs are weighted the same. Because darn it a 3.7 at one school is just not a 3.7 across the board! It all comes down to more than that and I do appreciate @UpNorth2019 for the info. I do believe all the accepted students are more than worthy of being there. If anything, it’s a shame that some of the T20 schools seem to work pretty hard at weeding some really bright kids out.
Sorry, but I don’t care what undergrad someone attends. Medical school is NOT easier than undergrad. It’s just not. The volume of information one must learn at a high mastery level is huge…really huge.
And when you finish the two years of constant classes…day in and day out…you get to do rotations where you are evaluated and tested at the end of each rotation. That’s not an easy time either.
Sorry…I just don’t agree. If someone says their undergrad was harder than Med school…they are just trying to make themselves feel better.
And getting back to OP’s original question-the reality is medical schools work very hard to keep their admissions process as inscrutable as possible. Yes, they’ll tell you that there are certain things they want, but are pretty vague about it and absolutely refuse to address whether a GPA from school x carries more weight than a GPA from schoo y.
So I am unaware of any medical school that offers specific information regarding OP’s question. And there’s no way to say that someone at a “T20” is smarter or better prepared than someone at a “T50”, so it’s likely that medical schools use past experience and the MCAT as a way to gauge the validity of an applicant’s GPA(but I’ve never heard a medical school admissions office state that). But in light of the fact that very few medical school students flunk out of medical school, the admissions committees must have a pretty good sense of who will do just fine as a medical student. https://www.aamc.org/system/files/reports/1/graduationratesandattritionratesofu.s.medicalstudents.pdf
And not sure it’s correct to say medical school is “easier”; probably would be more accurate to describe it as “different”. It’s a constant intellectual challenge, but there is the knowledge that the end goal is within sight. That can’t be said of the undergraduate experience.
@thumper1 - this is why I mentioned that I hoped my D would find another path. I’m well aware of the intense life that is med school. I married my husband while he was a med student. I also know what it takes to do well at my Ds school. I’m not looking to get attacked here. I believe her when she says med students have told her that the classes are easier to do well in in med school. And I believe the students that told her this. I suppose you can choose to not believe them.
@HalfMoon22 and @thumper1: Certainly, the volume and intensity of work in med school is more than in even the hardest pre-med courses. However, once you’re in to med school, you’re in. You know you’re going to a physician. Med schools invest a ton of $ in their students: they don’t want to lose any, and there is a ton of support for anyone who is struggling. And, at least at my med school, the atmosphere was much more collaborative than competitive: we were all trying to survive together.
Which felt very different than the pressure of needing to get ‘As’ in bio, chem, physics, and Ochem when only a few were given out (at least in those days).
Also, if you fail your boards, you take them again.
Whereas if you bomb the MCAT, you pick a different career. Your whole life’s ambition is basically decided in one day. So, I don’t completely disagree that being a pre-med was in some ways more stressful than being a med student.
Now, residency? That was a whole 'nother, deeper circle of hell.