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also, an applicant from a place like MIT isn't at a disadvantage in applying to med school any more than an applicant from an "easier" state school is at an advantage. grad schools and employers are very good at viewing grades in context--moreso than you would think. a 4.0 GPA at MIT on their 5.0 scale (the equivalent of a B average), is considered very respectable. (my fiance was an undergrad and now grad student at MIT).
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<p>Nice try. Yet the truth is, MIt suffers from an unusually low premed placement rate, relative to peer schools. Moreoever, the GPA's of admitted MIT premeds shows little difference between that of admitted premeds nationwide. You would think that if med-schools were really viewing MIT grades in the proper contest, then they would realize that MIT is a tough school and would therefore provide 'grade compensation'. No such evidence exists that this occurs, and in fact much evidence exists that this does NOT occur.</p>
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brown doesn't boast a higher acceptance rate to med school because brown students have better GPA's. lot's of great schools have lots of great students with good grades. brown gets more students into med school because med school's view them as more desirable for a variety of reasons (broad liberal education, high MCATs, extracurriculars, etc.)
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<p>Even if that were true, then that only changes my thesis somewhat. It just basicaly means that premed are better off going to Brown than going to MIT. Whether it's because of the grade inflation at Brown or whether it's because of something else at Brown, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, Brown seems to be better. </p>
<p>It's a sad thing for me to say, because for personal reasons, I happen to like MIT a lot. But if MIT doesn't fare well in the premed war, I have to call it the way I see it.</p>
<p>I simply happen to think that the culprit is grade inflation. After all, think of it this way. You talk about how Brown students have lots of EC's and can pursue a broad liberal education. I would argue that all of that is inherently dependent on grade inflation. For example, a student at a difficult school has no choice but to spend a lot of time studying in order to keep his grades up, which clearly cuts down on the EC's he can do. Such a student may also want to take a bunch fo broad liberal arts classes, but simply doesn't have the time, again, because the grade deflation forces him to study hard for the classes he does have. Hence, again, it's the grade deflation that is the central issue. Without grade deflation, that student would have a lot more time to pursue EC's, to pursue a broad education, in short to make himself a "better " candidate. But the med-schools don't care about that. If what you are saying is true, then the med-schools just see that this person didn't pursue the EC's and broad education that they want. They don't care WHY that student didn't. They just see that he didn't. </p>
<p>However, even if grade deflation, is not the direct culprit, it is still a 'fellow traveller'. In other words, you still would rather go to a grade inflated school like Brown instead of a grade deflated school like MIT in order to maximize your chances of getting into med-school, even if grade deflation is itself only a correlating factor and not the true source of the problem. Yet the advice is still the same - you should avoid grade deflated schools. It doesn't really matter WHY you should avoid grade deflated schools, it only matters that you should avoid them.</p>