<p>Are there any pre-meds who get into top medical schools, despite Vandy's harsh grade deflation? I've heard that Vanderbilt is a horrible place for pre-meds because of the bad advising system and tough science classes. I find it hard to believe that it's impossible to excel at Vanderbilt and go to a great medical school, even with these factors. Isn't there ANY pre-med who has a great gpa at Vanderbilt? Aren't there MCAT courses and classes to take in Nashville? Or are we all really just confined to our state schools?</p>
<p>There is a new pre-med advisor who, in my opinion, is much, much better than Dr. Oeltmann ever was. He has established "office hours" and was a former member of the admissions committee for Vandy med school. I've had a few meetings with him and he is very helpful and very knowledgeable (and not scary!) The science classes can be tough because of the lack of grade inflation here, but they're not unmanageable. If you work hard, you shouldn't have a problem getting B+/A-. A's, unfortunately, are a bit harder to come by, especially in classes like BSCI 110 (Intro to Bio). Even taking this into consideration, there are many students who do very well and go on to excellent medical schools (Vanderbilt med school included). I don't know what you consider a "great" GPA, but I don't think I would call mine abysmal. And if I can do it, I'm sure you can too. </p>
<p>There are myriad MCAT courses in Nashville. The pre-med society here has them come in usually once a year and it's a showdown between Kaplan, Princeton Review, and TestMasters. Don't worry at all about finding a class to prepare for the MCAT; if anything, worry about how you'll decide which one to take.</p>
<p>So, overall, although I would say that Vanderbilt's premedical program may not be as exemplary as, say, Johns Hopkins's (from what little I know about theirs), it is not a black hole in the middle of the institution into which pre-meds disappear without ever to return to a top tier medical school. Like anything, it will depend on you (your GPA, your MCAT, your research experience, your service work, your leadership positions, etc.) more than the school. Take my word, however, that Vanderbilt will not be a hindrance to your application.</p>
<p>Great info. I definitely feel relieved to hear about a positive pre-med experience at Vanderbilt! Thanks a lot.</p>
<p>Do they limit or effectively "cap" the percent of student with med school legitimate GPAs? Do they limit how many kids can receive a 3.5 GPA or a 4.0 GPA?</p>
<p>overall? no, you get what you get. if you earn a 3.5, you'll get a 3.5. Is that what you're asking?</p>
<p>Yeah. Thanks.</p>
<p>Slipstream99 -- What do you think are the best courses for premeds to take freshman year at Vanderbilt? Also, what is your major?</p>
<p>People generally take:</p>
<p>1st semester
BSCI 110A/111A
CHEM 102A/104A/106A
Calculus (whatever level you place into)</p>
<p>2nd semester
BSCI 110B/111B
CHEM 102B/104B/106B
Calculus</p>
<p>You fit your first year seminar in there either first or second semester and then one or two more classes for AXLE or a second major, and you're all set. There are a minority of people who don't take BSCI their freshman year, but I think it's better to take it first year; gen chem and bsci aren't that impossible.</p>
<p>I followed the above schedule with my first year seminar first semester and a spanish class and honors class second semester.</p>
<p>I'm double majoring in Molecular and Cellular Biology and Spanish w/ emphasis on Linguistics.</p>
<p>Let me know if you have any more questions - I'll be happy to answer them.</p>
<p>IDK if this is the right thread for this but I was just wondering about highschool statistics just as ACT, SAT, GPA, Class Rank for anyone who is successfully making it through the vandy pre-med program. There is a lot of threads about grade deflation and weeding out and am curious if I would be competitive at this school and could make it through the pre-med track if I stayed focused and worked hard. I also am curious about the validity of grade deflation or if you put in the work you can earn an A.</p>
<p>Anyone who works hard can make it through. It’s not that people fail out of courses, it’s that they get discouraged by taking hard classes and getting Bs/Cs and just quit the program.</p>
<p>Pre-med isn’t really a program. You just have to get into Vandy. Anyone can do “pre-med”-- it just means taking the courses required for med school. You have a separate major, usually science related.</p>
<p>I’m definitely not premed, but that’s not really a thing anyway. I’ve taken all the classes one would need as prerequisites for med school, anyway (majoring in bio/geo).</p>
<p>Answering Qs in the order they appear: plenty get into great med schools, yah. I’m not sure where all this talk of “grade deflation” is coming from, people whine about it on here far more than they do in person. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard the term IRL, actually. Essentially all intro science classes are adjusted post-hoc to give an average in the Bs (and not C/C-, which I’ve always thought of as the mean of a standard grade distribution. If anything, we’ve rampant grade inflation here). Upper level classes usually have averages between a high B and high A, in my experience. Like someone else said, working hard is enough to get you to the A- range, even if you’re not academically inclined. That seems quite cushy to me.</p>
<p>Advisors are what you make of them. Go talk to them frequently and they’ll help you. Better yet, don’t be a lazy, coddled sack of **** and seek out your own opportunities. God.</p>
<p>Lotsa “premeds” (or hard science majors) have great GPAs. I don’t know of any 4.0s, but plenty 3.9Xs.</p>
<p>Err, high school specs are pretty high for most people I’ve spoken too. Vals and sals and all sorts of ****. Also, we have the best doggawn class the 20th year running, so there’s that.</p>
<p>I dunno about med schools, but science grad programs don’t really care about your GPA – research is way more important. Find someone good to work with and author a few papers and you’ll probably be fine with middling (mid-3s, say) grades.</p>