<p>I agree that U Mich does not consider Berkeley or MIT better than Harvard or Stanford. But the reasons for lower grades at Berkeley are different from the reasons for MIT.
Engineering programs are known to be tougher and to grade more toughly than other programs. That is the case of MIT. Berkeley has a wider range of students than private schools which typically have fewer students and a more grade-homogeneous student body.
I don't think that graduate (as opposed to professional) programs will take into account the <em>average</em> GPA in the applicant's institution; all that matters is the applicant's own GPA (the exception is for Oxbridge where a recommendation might read that the applicant is a "solid student who did acceptable work on his Tripos").
Ariesathena has gone through the experience of applying to law schools with an engineering degree from a top-tier private school. She has argued that the lower GPA is a detriment in law schools admissions.</p>
<p>I was saying that the average GPA of an institution is probably not much of a point of consideration with regard to its quality, as the average GPAs at MIT and Berkeley are far below Harvard and Stanford. By the way, both MIT and Berkeley have significant amounts of students in engineering and the sciences, but sure, Berkeley does have more students outside of these, and more students overall, althought that doesn't strike me as particularly relevant. Does the "grade-homogeneous student body" refer to those from high school or those graduating? Coming in, it's fairly homogenous, really. Going out, it's more spread out, but the averages are around 3.25 or so.</p>
<p>"Ariesathena has gone through the experience of applying to law schools with an engineering degree from a top-tier private school. She has argued that the lower GPA is a detriment in law schools admissions."</p>
<p>Are there any conclusions from this experience? The engineering GPAs are typically a lot lower than other majors and I'm wondering what the impact is when applying to a non-engineering grad major (law, med, etc.). It can be far tougher to get a 2.8 in some engineering majors for example than a 3.8 in some much easier majors such as poly-sci, etc. (I don't mean any offense by this) so one would hope this would be taken into account - it's sort of the same as grade inflation/deflation but within a school depending on major.</p>
<p>It seems that generally, fairly little is altered with respect to the GPA. Perhaps some schools do some things, but I haven't seen any data that reflects it. Where engineers win is standardized tests- if they're so much smarter than their poli sci (it's not polymer science ;)) brethren, they will ace the LSAT/MCAT/etc. As for graduate schools (not majors! :)), business schools seem to me to to be more popular with and favor engineers for different reasons. And I think different law schools adjust things different, different med school adjust things different, and law and med schools tend to adjust things differently enough so that thier grouping is only somewhat productive, but maybe they're closer than I imagine, or it's more helpful than I think.</p>
<p>According to Ariesathena, grading practices in engineering do not seem to be taken into account. She used this as an example that law schools are GPA-driven and that this puts engineering graduates at a disadvantage. I believe she was arguing from a wider range of experience than her personal one (perhaps now that school is over, Ariesathena will take a look at this thread and post). </p>
<p>My understanding is that graduate programs in the arts and sciences look mostly at the grades in the major. For example, a student applying into an English or anthropology or history program may have a lower GPA owing to poor grades in math and sciences; but what will count will be the grades in the major. If they are strong, that will be more important than the overall GPA (students' resumes often list both overall GPA and GPA in the major for that reason). Different departments, and different members of the same committee will also interpret GREs differently.</p>
<p>But as I said, law schools and med schools are more stats driven and I have not seen evidence that they take into account the issue of grade deflation. They DO take into account a school's reputation. So a student from Harvard or Stanford or Berkeley will, with the same stats and general profile (recs, essay, writing sample, and so on) will have an easier time than a student from Podunk U. </p>
<p>I know of a couple of cases where students from unknown colleges got admitted into a top graduate program. The students' GPAS, GRES, recommendations, essays, writing samples, were all stellar--and they had to be. So instead of making allowances for grade deflation, it is possible that the admitting graduate programs held the applicants to higher expectations than applicants from better-known institutions.</p>
<p>The question I had concerned the tie-in between public schools educating the majority of URM students and their having lower GPAs. I'll have to read the information in the link DRab provided before I feel I have been persuaded one way or the other that graduate and professional schools take lower GPAs at public schools into account in order to give a boost to URM applicants.</p>
<p>before you put so much faith in the data on gradeinflation.com, take a look at their data sources. The data for Chicago, for example, comes from a no longer available PDF from the U. of Miami. I had looked at this PDF when it was still on line a few years ago, and it appeared to be purely anecdotal data. </p>
<p>In general, gradeinflation.com seems to be a mix of hard data direct from institutional research of a specific university and soft data of anecdotal quality.</p>
<p>Ugh. Maybe I should not bother to pore through the data then.<br>
I still do not see the connection between URM admissions and average GPAs at certain institutions.</p>
<p>"Mini, maybe you're correct. Even given such charts, though, one would have to calculate costs to students (fin aid and scholarships obviously included) and other things to see things more clearly."</p>
<p>No you wouldn't. The hypothesis is based on the idea that colleges are first and foremost in the business of satisfying their list price customers.</p>
<p>"if they're so much smarter than their poli sci (it's not polymer science ) brethren, they will ace the LSAT/MCAT/etc" </p>
<p>The MCAT and LSAT test how well you can prepare for a field-specific standardized test. Many people will devote an entire semester to studying for these exams, lightening their course load, which you can imagine is going to be difficult for an engineering student to do. So I'd expect engineers to do less well on these tests than other students. Where engineers have an advantage, as far as law school, is the option to do IP. </p>
<p>Within medicine there are a small number of research intensive specialties where an engineering background would be an advantage. Overall, the GPA disadvantage of being in engineering in terms of admissions far outweighs the extra doors it opens. If one can get a high GPA than engineering is a great door into investment banking; here the advantage is a bit higher because the people engineers compete against for these kinds of positions were also in GPA deflated majors like math. </p>
<p>For graduate school (PhD) admissions, at least in science, research experience and potential (rec letters) matter a whole lot more than grades. </p>
<p>As for the public school arguement, I doubt URMs play much of a role. The group of students who apply to PhD programs tends to be pretty homogenous (white and Asian) yet different grading at different places is taken to account in the admissions process.</p>
We know from Grutter v Bollinger that the UMich Law School admissions committee considers the difficulty of the applicant's major and the strength of the undergraduate institution in making admissions decisions. It seems likely to me that an admissions committee will also factor in whether the institution has grade deflation or grade inflation. On the other hand, you might be right. Perhaps law school admission committees are overwhelmed by a Harvard, Yale, etc., degree regardless of the strength of the applicant's undergraduate major or the relative merit of the applicant's GPA.</p>
<p>I am afraid that may be true. I do not think this is confined to HYPS. I took a look at the admissions stats at some law schools a couple of months ago. Graduate of top schools (not just private but also top public schools) dominated admissions.</p>
<p>Take a look at the article on Harvard MBAs in today's NYT. The grads seem convinced that their Harvard MBA opened a lot of doors.</p>
<p>Yes, but representation alone does not tell us what the admissions committee considers. How many applicants can there be from your Podunk U to Yale Law School? It seems likely to me that students who excel at HYPS, et al., or at the top public universities are far more likely to apply to elite law and medical schools. By that level, there is an enormous amount of self-selection happening.</p>
<p>You may be right but if the admissions committee is going to evaluate the quality of the applicant's undergraduate institution, why be so superficial? Surely there are differences between colleges and majors that academics (especially) would be familiar with. Why not factor those into the equation? My guess is that the top-tier graduate programs do consider variables when it comes to close calls between similar applicants.</p>
<p>Yes, indeed, there is a tremendous amount of self-selection. And it results in some schools being better known than others, and the latter being though of as "risky." So a graduate of a supposedly grade deflated state u that is not well known (I'm not talking Berkeley or UCLA here) is at a double-disadvantage vis-</p>
Yes, but representation alone does not tell us what the admissions committee considers. How many applicants can there be from your Podunk U to Yale Law School? It seems likely to me that students who excel at HYPS, et al., or at the top public universities are far more likely to apply to elite law and medical schools.
[/quote]
Sure, but there are also vastly more students at all Podunk U's combined than there are at HYPS, and there are many more students at [not HYPS] who are just as talented -- think of all the kids who didn't apply, who applied but didn't get a winning lottery ticket, and who got in but didn't go.</p>
<p>I think there's merit to the idea that students who chose to attend top undergraduate schools are motivated and ambitious individuals, but I am sure there are many more students equally motivated and ambitious and intelligent at other schools. And, proportionally, more of the students from top undergraduate schools are admitted to top-tier graduate schools.</p>
<p>"It seems likely to me that students who excel at HYPS, et al., or at the top public universities are far more likely to apply to elite law and medical schools."</p>
<p>It is far more likely they will feel able to afford it. Not a single one of the so-called prestige law and medical schools will release their cohort of applicants/admissions by family income, and with good reason. In other words, simply find the schools where the students attending have the highest family median incomes, and you'll have a pretty good picture (with lots of exceptions of course) of prestige law/med school admissions. (Note: this doesn't hold true for grad schools/future Ph.D.s, which is why so many of the prestige colleges and universities don't come close to topping the charts in those departments.)</p>
<p>Mini, you said "this doesn't hold true for grad schools/future Ph.D.s, which is why so many of the prestige colleges and universities don't come close to topping the charts in those departments."</p>
<p>Why the difference? Is it the schools? Or the students that chose the professions? </p>
<p>
[quote]
Not a single one of the so-called prestige law and medical schools will release their cohort of applicants/admissions by family income... simply find the schools where the students attending have the highest family median incomes, and you'll have a pretty good picture (with lots of exceptions of course) of prestige law/med school admissions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't get it. If the schools do not release their cohort by income, then how do you know that the prestige schools have high income?</p>
<p>
[quote]
so many of the prestige colleges and universities don't come close to topping the charts in those departments
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, where is the data? I have seen data on overall rates of PhD attainment by undergraduate institution, but not on where these people got their doctoral degrees. Do you know of any?</p>
<p>"I don't get it. If the schools do not release their cohort by income, then how do you know that the prestige schools have high income?"</p>
<p>That's pretty simple, and in two ways: 1) number of legacies (it is possible that HYP alums are paupers for several generations, but highly unlikely), and 2) median income of A) the student bodies as a whole; and B) of those who receive financial aid. The second set of data is easily available; the first set has to be abstracted. But it isn't all that difficult to get a "feel" if you find the median point of those receiving need-based aid, and then look at the percentage of those receiving no aid at all. (There are also certain schools that receive median data.)</p>
<p>As to doctoral degrees: since in so many areas HYPS etc are neither the best nor most prestigious place to get such a degree, the institution awarding the degree is virtually irrelevant. </p>
<p>"Why the difference? Is it the schools? Or the students that chose the professions?"</p>
<p>Lots of bright sons and daughters of the petit bourgeousie (or of faculty themselves!) choose academic careers. Think Reed, or Swarthmore for that matter. Certain schools seem much more adept at reproducing themselves. (Nothing wrong with that, mind you, if that's where you hope to end up.) ;)</p>
Marite, I'm sorry if I gave you the impression that this was my point. I was using the Grutter case to "prove" (in the sense that I offered more than my opinion) that law school admissions committees consider the undergraduate institution when admitting applicants. In other words, I wanted to show that this was a factor that at least one admissions committee considered. I was not suggesting that UMich Law School changed it's procedures - far from it. The admissions procedures probably haven't changed at UMich Law School since Grutter. Nor was I suggesting that this relates to affirmative action. My sole reason for looking at Grutter was because we don't have to speculate about admissions at UMich Law School. The court decisions tell us what the admissions committee actually does.</p>
<p>
[quote=MollieBatMIT]
I think there's merit to the idea that students who chose to attend top undergraduate schools are motivated and ambitious individuals, but I am sure there are many more students equally motivated and ambitious and intelligent at other schools. And, proportionally, more of the students from top undergraduate schools are admitted to top-tier graduate schools.
Mollie, I agree with both these statements but perhaps it means something different to me than to you. There are motivated students at lots of schools. My point was that students at Podunk U may decide they aren't interested in elite law schools and thus they don't apply in large numbers. Think of it this way: Some of those superior students at large public colleges probably could have gone to elite undergraduate colleges, but they didn't for whatever reason. Maybe they didn't want to go, or maybe they couldn't afford to go, or maybe they thought they wouldn't be accepted. A few might decide to apply to elite law schools after graduation, but they also might not for the same reason that contributed to their undergraduate decisions. So I'm not convinced that there are significant numbers of applicants to places like HLS or YLS from graduates of non-Ivy League colleges, at least not compared to the percentage of applicants from Ivy League colleges. Perhaps they do apply in large numbers, but I don't know of any dependable statistics that would tell us the answer to this.</p>
<p>But let's assume there are large numbers of applicants to HLS, YLS, etc., from (for instance) large public universities. I still don't see how you can be sure that "proportionally, more of the students from top undergraduate schools are admitted to top-tier graduate schools" unless by that you mean that Ivy League college graduates comprise the largest number of each class at HLS, YLS, etc. I would agree with that but I would not agree that as a percentage of applicants, more applicants are taken from Ivy League colleges than from other types of colleges. For instance, what if 40 UVA graduates apply to HLS and 250 Harvard College graduates apply? If HLS admits 30 UVA graduates and 125 Harvard College graduates, UVA is better represented as a percentage of applicants even though Harvard College has a greater number of applicants admitted. How would you decide which program is more successful?</p>