<p>Do admissions officers consider a 3.6 at a school like Yale or Harvard any differently than a 3.6 at another university? Or are GPAs weighed the same?</p>
<p>The rumor has it that there is not much difference – Some said the difference is at most 0.05 or so.</p>
<p>If you happen to be at a school like these, let me borrow a sentence from someone who posted here recently: Use it (it = the slight edge it may give you), but do not rely on it.</p>
<p>If that’s the case, why do schools like Harvard and MIT claim a near 90% percent acceptance rate into medical schools for their pre-med students? Is it just because of the students and not the school name? Does that cause the about 50% gap in the nations average and the average at MIT/Harvard? Then I’m assuming the research opportunities at those schools contribute to the increase in the average as well?</p>
<p>I worked in medical school admissions for a big state U. There was NO bump given to prestigious schools. And frankly, kids from those schools didn’t post higher MCAT scores so there wasn’t any real justification to do so. I suspect that the private medical schools do not look at it in the same way.</p>
<p>I can think of at least one factor that may influence the outcome as a group: Statistically speaking, more students from these schools tend to better at MCAT. I heard the average score from one of these schools is about 33. Also, those students who got into these colleges NOT because of their academic merit usually do not stay on the premed track. Out of a class of, say, 1400 to 1600 students, only about 200-300 students apply to medical schools. They are less than 20 percents of all the students. Many of these could be good at a standardized test like MCAT.</p>
<p>
debrockman, We have cross-posted. You are on the other side of the fence so you may have seen more data. Do you really not see more kids from these schools applying with a higher MCAT score? Sure, there are high scorers from everywhere including many from big states. Actually, in terms of absolute numbers applying with a high score, the big state may beat these much smaller school. It is a much larger sample. But how about the percentage of students who apply with a high score?</p>
<p>
This may be a good point. Arguably, in terms of percentage (rather than the absolute number), this may be the same for college application. (Those who go to a prestigious high school may think there are higher percentage of high achievers from these selective high schools – selective for both the families and the students!)</p>
<p>The med school I worked for was a very large school. The VAST majority of their applicants came from the two big state universities in the state, both of which had very strong science programs. To be clear, I am talking about Indiana, and the two big state schools are IU and Purdue. Many of those kids posted some pretty strong MCAT scores. It basically took a 3.7+ GPA with MCATs in the 10-12 range to get in. The state schools don’t play much politics with admissions because…well, they’re using public money, and they’ll be sued if they do. Legacies meant nothing, and the “brand” of the undergraduate school meant nothing if the student had completed the required classes and didn’t blow the interview. Truthfully, there were very few students coming in from top 25 schools. I anticipate that if your parent was willing to pay top dollar for a big name undergrad school and you had achieved a high GPA, you were more likely to be seeking a big name grad school as well. Ultimately, in pure numbers, the state schools produce far more professionals than privates, however. So if your goal is to become a professional, there is no advantage to a prestige undergrad. If your goal is a prestige grad degree, I anticipate that there IS an advantage to the prestige undergrad, and there is more “flexibility” of acceptable grades and test scores, but I can’t say I have experience with that.</p>
<p>Every medical school is going to have a slightly different interpretation, but overall, the advantage is absolutely no where near what people who obsess about the Ivies wish it to be. mcat’s “use it but don’t rely on it” is sage advice, but with the variation between schools, it’s quite possible that there will be nothing to use.</p>
<p>As for the variation between school specific acceptance rates and overall national rates, remember that MCAT and GPA are only components of the acceptance decision. Even taken together, they are not at all sufficient to garner an acceptance though they are necessary. Similarly the top undergrads don’t rely on just test scores and GPA’s. Thus it follows without any stretch of the imagination that the same skills, intelligence, time management, work ethic, volunteerism, and persistence that got students into the Ivy League initially would be associated in a positive manner with getting into medical school 4 years later. Essentially it’s selection bias…</p>
<p>If that’s the case, why do schools like Harvard and MIT claim a near 90% percent acceptance rate into medical schools for their pre-med students? Is it just because of the students</p>
<p>I would say, “yes”…it’s because of the students who go to ivies/MIT…these are kids who traditionally have high GPAs and super test scores.</p>
<p>I would suspect if the ivies/MIT closed down and these same kids were forced to go elsewhere, they’d get into med school at that same rate.</p>
<p>It should also be noted that some of these top 20 undergrads (I go to WashU) strongly discourage you from applying if you don’t have the stats to be competitive. They’ll tell you take a year off, do some research or a masters or a postbac or w/e. While WashU will do the committee letter thing for anyone who applies regardless of their stats, I have heard that there are some top 20 schools who won’t give that support if they think the applicant is not competitive.</p>
<p>*While WashU will do the committee letter thing for anyone who applies regardless of their stats, I have heard that there are some top 20 schools who won’t give that support if they think the applicant is not competitive. *</p>
<p>So, that protects their med school admissions stats.</p>
<p>Yes, thats one of the ways these top colleges can say they have such a high admissions rate. Of course a much bigger reason is the caliber of the students.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Source, please? (Hint: they do no such thing.) And speaking of MIT, one has to have a HIGHER-than-national-average gpa to be successful in med admissions. (MIT is a 3.73, whereas the national mean is 3.67.) Obviously, there are many reasons for the variation, but the point is that MIT students do not appear to receive any gpa boost.</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html</a></p>
<p>debrockman mentioned that there were few applicants from the top colleges applying to IS medical schools in Indiana. I look it up just out of curiosity:</p>
<p><a href=“http://clubs.harvard.edu/university/indiana/media/HarvardClubNewsletterSpring2009.pdf[/url]”>http://clubs.harvard.edu/university/indiana/media/HarvardClubNewsletterSpring2009.pdf</a></p>
<p>According to this newsletter, there were 15 applicants who were admitted from this state in what was referred to as an extraordinary year.</p>
<p>I guess relatively few students from many states go to these top colleges. So 3-4 years later, relative few applicants from these colleges apply to medical schools.</p>
<p>Let’s use Indiana as an example: 12 out of 15 actually attended the school. Say, 25 percents, or 3 out of 12 ended up being premeds who actually apply to medical schools. Not many.</p>
<p>(BTW, what may be the attrition rate for premed students at H? My guess it is likely around 30-40 percents — definitely not 10-20 percents. In one year, I heard close to 50 percents of freshmen there were taking an introductory biology class. Hmm the number was 600+, so it was not quite 50 percents.)</p>
<p>My interpretation of this: Many very “good” students (for example, good at a standardized test) go to an IS college.</p>
<p>This is one data point only: DS was applying from another OOS top college. He actually did not know many fellow students/premeds from his state. And most premeds from other states do not apply to most state medical schools in his state. When he was interviewing at an IS medical school, it was like a high school reunion! (Most interviewees were from an IS college.)</p>
<p>Don’t think of the prestige of your undergrad as being tied into your GPA or MCAT. Think of it as a whole separate application category altogether. </p>
<p>For low and mid tier med schools and state med schools, undergrad prestige doesn’t matter much. Where it matters is in admissions to highly selective private medical schools (JHU, Harvard Med, etc.). It won’t cut you any breaks on your MCAT or GPA. You still need your 3.8/36. But, attending a prestigious undergrad allows the rest of your application to be less crisp. Your EC’s don’t have to be as impressive, your recs don’t have to be as impressive, your interview doesn’t have to be as impressive. This kind of stuff is hard to quantify exactly. From my experience, if you have a 3.8 GPA, a 35+ MCAT, with good (but not outstanding EC’s), AND you attended an undergrad like Yale or Duke, you can get into a top 20 med school. This is not the case if you have identical qualifications coming from a state school.</p>
<p>Applicants from schools known for grade deflation(Princeton) are looked at differently</p>
<p>Generally students from top colleges are more outstanding in everything they do…not just GPA and MCAT scores.</p>
<p>^ I do not know other achievement of these students, but DS, who went to one of these kinds of schools, once said he met many good (amateur) musicians. He believes some of them are likely good enough to get into some well-known conservatory. (DS is NOT better than many of them.)</p>
<p>In the three years around the year he was admitted there (I only know about these years), all students from his high school, without any exception, happened to be heavily involved in music-related ECs in high school, and all had won some competition at the state level – three of them almost every year instead of just one year in high school.</p>
<p>In DS’s personalized admission video made by a medical school, the admission officer congratulated him on his achievement. One of them he mentioned is his commitment to be a musician (not a physician, ouch!) I think they can easily see his passionate hobby on this.</p>
<p>“3.8 GPA, a 35+ MCAT, with good (but not outstanding EC’s), AND you attended an undergrad like Yale or Duke, you can get into a top 20 med school.”</p>
<p>-3.8 GPA, a 35+ MCAT, with good (but not outstanding EC’s), AND you attended ANY undergrad, including ANY state public, you can get into a top 20 med school … easily and more than one of them.</p>
<p>Norcalguy " From my experience, if you have a 3.8 GPA, a 35+ MCAT, with good (but not outstanding EC’s), AND you attended an undergrad like Yale or Duke, you can get into a top 20 med school. This is not the case if you have identical qualifications coming from a state school."And what is your experience?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>ummm…the fact I had a 3.8+ GPA, 35+ NCAT with good (but not oustanding) EC’s and attended a top undergrad and got into top 20 med schools. </p>
<p>When I said, “from my experience,” I literally meant, “from MY experience.”</p>
<p>The second half of my statement is a conclusion made from the gestalt of profiles I’ve seen online or met in person. My gut feeling is that if you have solid stats and the rest of your application is just “good” but you come from a prestigious undergrad, you will still get a decent amount of interviews and sneak into a top med school or two. You certainly won’t run the table and get into every top med school you apply to. However, I’ve seen many similar solid applicants from state schools who did not get the same quantity of interviews from top med schools. The superstar applicants with prestigious awards and out of this world stats still got into top med schools. But, the second tier of applicants from state schools did not fare as well as similar applicants from top undergrads. </p>
<p>Generally, top med schools accept applicants in this order:
- Superstar applicants from top undergrads
- Superstar applicants from state schools
- Solid applicants from top undergrads
- Solid applicants from state schools/3rd tier applicants (with flawed GPA’s or MCAT’s) from top undergrads</p>
<p>Generally, a medical school can’t fill its class from categories 1 and 2 alone. And in the end, it seems to come down to the 3.9/37 applicant from the state school vs. the 3.6/36 applicant from Duke, which is a toss up in my opinion.</p>