Hi CC,
So as a highschool senior, I’m highly considering going to a less rigorous school for a high gpa.
My reasoning for this, is that I am planning on going to graduate school (dental school to be specific), and thought it would be a good idea to take an easier major at an easier school, so I can focus on the prerequisites for dental school and study for the DAT.
How is this idea?
Thank you.
Dental schools know the "easier’ colleges and will evaluate your GPA there for what it is.
Are you sure about this?
Maybe not all, but I thought most Dental Schools just look at the prerequisite classes you’ve taken, and the grades received in that class.
Attending an easier school won’t necessarily lead to a higher GPA either. Your own motivation is a better determination of your grades than the “easyness” of the school. Will you be more motivated at the easier school? Will you be happier and therefore more willing to put in the work? Will the easier school prepare you as well or better for the DAT?
Dental school is expensive. Which undergraduate school will cost more?
You don’t have to answer the questions here. They’re just to give you something to think about to help you make your decision.
Sometimes “easier” schools have bigger classes. You might find fewer students who care enough to form study groups. Instruction may or may not be high quality. There is no guarantee you will get better grades at a lower ranked school.
Agree. Need to especially pay attention to graduation rates - probably use 6-year. If it’s lower than 60% then you may feel like the school is just spinning through students that really don’t want to be there.
National graduation rate average for public colleges is around 50% and there are less than 100 public colleges which graduate more than 67% in 6 years -this would be a good list to focus on if affordable. To give you some reference, the top colleges graduate 85+% in 4years and 95+% in 6-years.
I would double check that the school you are considering had a good placement outcome for students who have done what you are planning. I wouldn’t assume too quickly that a lower ranked school is necessarily easier as sometimes I think they have more grade inflation and hand holding. Depending on your high school experience, that may or may not matter for you.
@mom2twogirls, agree that Graduation Rate AND Outcome are very important. There are some fairly highly ranked private schools that don’t do as well expected, especially given cost.
there is no bumper-sticker answer here. You need to look into class size, advising, type of student the schools attract, understand how likely it is that you’ll study on the weekend when most of the kids around you have put the books aside, etc. That said, the overall idea is a good one. I know a guy that was accepted to all the UC’s including Cal, but deliberately chose Riverside because he was premed and figured he’d get better grades there. He is a doctor today.
Graduation rates are closely related to admission selectivity, so saying that “top colleges” (i.e. most selective colleges) have high graduation rates does not indicate very much, since they start with the strongest students.
A strong student considering a more and less selective school may see a significant difference in the schools’ graduation rates. But his/her personal risk of failing to graduate is likely not much different (if at all) between the two schools (assuming other factors like affordability and any important-to-the-student “fit” factors are similar).
There may be some components of graduation rates that are actually treatment effects of the schools, but one must separate them from the dominant selection effects (based on admission selectivity). One would have to estimate expected graduation rates based on entering student characteristics and then compare actual to expected graduation rates to see if there are significant treatment effects.
Whether this is a good idea probably depends upon the details. It is possible that it might be a good idea. The most important thing may be to remember that even if you do go to a slightly “less rigorous” school, you should still expect it to be difficult and still plan on working hard.
Finances also matter.
If you give us more detail it is likely that we can give more informed answers.
It is a valid strategy. There are some decent LACs that appear to specialize in pre-professional preparation. Check out places like, e.g., College of Wooster, De Pauw, Denison, Centre and Wittenberg. I guarantee you that there are practicing physicians and dentists today who would have been weeded-out at some of the “most selective” institutions.
@ucbalumnus, agree and from a 50,000 ft view that’s the reason why one would want to eliminate as many variables as possible by going to the most selective school one can be admitted to and afford.
@ucbalumnus, the attached Payscale ROI Index seems to confirm a general correlation between graduation rate and outcome https://www.payscale.com/college-roi?page=1
@BasicOhioParent, several of those schools are quite good. That said not certain that I understand how one would engineer that outcome with much certainty as MCAT and GPA are treated equally - it would seem difficult for a student to be happy and successful at a school that profiles well below their potential. That’s aside from the rigor of one’s undergraduate program also being taken into consideration. Furthermore given most students change their major, how does one reconcile the final 2-3 years at a such a school. Not saying that one needs to squeak into a school, but I also don’t think a school that’s outside of one’s academic profile makes sense - IMHO.
Some of the most selective schools may actually underperform their expected graduation rates based on their student inputs.
Such a correlation is mostly due to the selection effect – stronger students means more likely to succeed at college and beyond, regardless whether or not the college is better.
However, other effects can be seen in this list:
- Schools with lots of engineering and CS majors do well (including some that are not that selective).
- State maritime academies do well (these are not necessarily that selective).
@ucbalumnus, Aside from the maritime academies which help provide needed ship captains which like airline pilots get paid fairly well, I don’t think anyone should be surprised that generally the most highly selective schools, whether public or private, have the highest graduation rate and ROI (need to make sure “with financial aid” is utilized in the analysis as a school’s ability to proved need based aid is an important equalizer in life for many) - IMHO.
However, that does not necessarily mean that a student’s personal chance of graduation and ROI will be better if s/he chooses a more selective school over a less selective school.
@ucbalumnus, agree that at the end of the day it’s all about fit - 4 years of one’s life can be magical or like Siberia if fit is wrong.
It’s interesting that ROI rankings can have substantially different results. The methodology between Forbes and PayScale is slightly different, and Forbes excludes the maritime colleges but still…
Forbes …PayScale
Amherst 16…224
Barnard 37…771
Bates 59… 390
Bowdoin 51 …350
Bryn Mawr 124…1306
Carelton 58…737
Colby 66…396
Connecticut C 165…603
Davidson 47…993
Dickinson 85…872
Grinnell 69…1198
Harvey Mudd 103…2
Haverford 29…294
Kenyon 91…1117
Middlebury 46…377
Mount Holyoke 123…1245
Pitzer 101…1467
Pomona 27 …257
Skidmore 122…773
Swarthmore 54…106
U Chicago 28…275
Wellesley 25…632
Wesleyan 57…611
https://www.forbes.com/value-colleges/list/6/#tab:rank
https://www.payscale.com/college-roi
Re: #18
The colleges’ mix of majors is probably the biggest influence on the PayScale ranking. It is no surprise that Harvey Mudd, with a very large percentage of students in engineering and CS, does well in the PayScale ranking, while many of the other schools with no engineering and relatively few CS majors do not do so well.
The women’s colleges also do not do that well, presumably reflecting gender differences in various aspects of school and employment (which may include undesired gender discrimination).