<p>Please note that this is a hypothetical example that I'm making for the sake of settling a question between me and a friend. You could replace MIT/Princeton with any other school and my question still stands the same.</p>
<p>Say there are two pre-med students, one from MIT and one from Princeton. Both have 45s on MCATs. The MIT student has a 3.4 and is in the top 5% of his class. The Princeton student has a 3.6 due to grade inflation, and is also in the top 5% of his class. Assuming that both students have the same abilities, academic qualifications, and relative rank, will they have an equal opportunity of getting into med school?</p>
<p>So in applying to medical school, are students from different schools statistically compared to each other through values like GPA and MCAT scores? Would the Princeton student have a better shot at med school for the single reason of having a slightly higher (albeit more inflated) GPA?</p>
<p>There are way too many other variables to give an answer to that. There are the interviews, which ultimately differentiate between candidates, EC's, LOR's, any other hooks, etc. Even if you edit your statement to say theoretically that they both have the same EC's, LOR's, and everything else, with the only differentiating factor as the gpa, then you wouldn't really be asking a good question about candidacy but rather which gpa at which college is valued more than the other. Ultimately, I don't see how any answer will be of much help.</p>
<p>I guess my question is, are students in top schools stacked up among each other, or are they reviewed in relation to others at their own school to meet a certain number/quota for that school? My question basically comes down to, do med schools take into consideration a school's level of difficulty and grade inflation or lack thereof when admitting pre-med students? Because if they don't, or take little notice of it, then someone with an inflated gpa would clearly have an advantage over someone else who doesn't</p>
<p>As far as I know, the undergrad institution does not make a significant difference in most places. I can't speak about all medical schools by any means, but the Dean of Admission at my undergrad's med school said that they use a preliminary point system to initially rank applicants. Out of some 60-70 points (I can't remember exactly), students from more prestigious/"big name" schools get 4 points, students from mid-tier schools get 3 points, students from low-tier schools get 2 points. Or something along those lines.</p>
<p>The point is (no pun intended), the school made almost zero difference in admission outcomes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The point is (no pun intended), the school made almost zero difference in admission outcomes.
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That's part of my concern; of the top tier schools, some are harder than others, and some have more grade inflation as well. A student managing 3.6 at a school with grade inflation may face a lower gpa like 3.4 at a harder school with no grade inflation. </p>
<p>In that case, as the school makes no difference in admission outcomes, it would be a disadvantage for a pre-med student to go for the harder school and the lower GPA. Conversely, it would then be beneficial to attend the alternate peer school that has grade inflation.</p>
<p>^That kind of analysis ignores fit. MIT and Princeton are two very different schools so it is unlikely that the same kid would be equally at home at MIT and Princeton. </p>
<p>And, do you actually have any evidence MIT is more grade deflated than Princeton? MIT has a higher proportion of engineers so it is likely that the average GPA at MIT is lower than the average GPA at Princeton. But, if we were to compare apples to apples (a bio major at MIT to a bio major at Princeton, for example), do you have any proof that MIT grades harder?</p>
<p>norcalguy, please note that the schools I mentioned were purely for the sake of comparison. For all I know MIT could be easier and have more grade inflation than Princeton. I am not claiming by any means that MIT is harder and has less grade inflation than Princeton; I could switch the two and my question(s) would still remain. That is, grade inflation among peer institutions and the effect on pre-med students.
Also, my example was given with those schools because sakky made a similar point in the third post of [url=<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/19444-best-premed-programs.html%5Dthis">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/19444-best-premed-programs.html]this</a> thread<a href="a%20while%20ago,%20but%20still">/url</a>. I am not saying that his information is credible, nor am I saying it isn't.</p>
<p>My point is that I don't think that, among the 15 top colleges in the country, the grading differences are as drastic as some people think. Of course, MIT is likely to be harder than your normal state school but, if you control for major, I'm not so sure that there is much difference in the difficulty of top colleges.</p>
<p>I think the only schools, among the top schools, at which you might suspect grade deflation would be MIT, Cal Tech, perhaps UChicago. However, there's no evidence (outside of anecdotal) that grade deflation (relative to other top colleges) exist at these schools. Furthermore, they are so different from the other top schools that it's hard to imagine someone equally happy at MIT vs., say, Duke. So, these MIT vs. Princeton or grade-deflated school vs. grade-inflated school comparisons might have grounds only in purely hypothetical terms.</p>
<p>Correct, and my example comparison was hypothetical to begin with. I could have eliminated extraneous information to make myself clearer to begin with and avoid any hassle. </p>
<p>Among top tier schools, and other factors notwithstanding, is a pre-med student with a 3.7 from one school the same as a 3.7 student at a peer institution?</p>
<p>
[quote]
But, if we were to compare apples to apples (a bio major at MIT to a bio major at Princeton, for example),
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</p>
<p>But why do we need to make that kind of comparison? Premeds can come from any major. </p>
<p>In fact, that alone is probably a good reason to believe that Princeton is more grade-inflated for premed. If, for no other reason, you have a wider variety of easier humanities majors at Princeton than at MIT, and I think there is little dispute that, in general, humanities majors tend to grade easier than do technical majors. {For example, it's practically impossible to actually fail a humanities course as long as you do the work, but you can do all the work and still fail an engineering course.} In other words, a Princeton premed has more opportunities to load up on easier courses than does an MIT premed. </p>
<p>I'll give you another reason: MIT has more requirements. No matter what you major in at MIT, whether you like it or not, you have to complete the General Institute Requirements, which includes, among other things, multivariable calculus. Premeds at other schools like Princeton are not required to take multivariable calculus unless their major demands them to do so, and those who don't want to can simply choose a major that does not have such a requirement. Heck, some med schools such as UCSF don't require that you take any calculus whatsoever. But MIT makes you take calculus up to the multivariable level whether you like it or not. I doubt that too many people would say that calculus at MIT is easy. Hence, right there is another reason to suspect that MIT will be more difficult.</p>
<p>
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I think the only schools, among the top schools, at which you might suspect grade deflation would be MIT, Cal Tech, perhaps UChicago.
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</p>
<p>Grade deflation at Princeton is an institutional policy. A's and A-'s should account for no more than 35% of the grades given by each department.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if a policy where there are 35% A's qualifies as grade deflation. The policy was only instituted because Princeton (like every other Ivy League school) had runaway grade inflation in the first place.</p>
<p>Relative to its Ivy peers, Princeton is taking a pretty harsh line. And I guess it's all relative, but grades at Princeton have dropped significantly since the policy was put in place. I'm not sure how much you know about the subject, but you might be interested in this admittedly dated USA</a> Today article.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that grades at Princeton have dropped since the policy was instituted. But, doesn't that just speak to the grade inflation that was present at Princeton before the policy? </p>
<p>35% A's probably equates to a median GPA of around 3.2-3.3 (ie B/B+). While that's lower than Harvard or Stanford's 3.4, I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that a school with a median GPA of 3.2 is "grade deflated."</p>
<p>Seem like we have two different opinions of what grade deflation is. You see it as something objective. As in, there's some average GPA below which grades are deflated and above which they're inflated. IMO, the term needs context to have much meaning. As in, grades at Princeton are deflated relative to Harvard and Yale. Or as in, grades at Princeton are deflated relative to what they were in the 90s. I'm not saying either one of these interpretations is right or wrong, but it's hard to discuss the issue when we're talking about different things.</p>
<p>When people talk about grade inflation or deflation, it is usually in regard to the average median GPA across most schools in the United States.</p>
<p>The median for most schools is probably around a C+ (~2.3-2.7).</p>