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What’s the overstatement? Once you get past the highest ranked schools, medical schools aren’t going to really differentiate between #30 and #80 like mom said. It will come down to GPA, MCAT, research experience, extracurriculars and the essays.</p>
<p>So you’re saying that a graduate of Cal-Berkeley will be looked at in the same way as a graduate of The University of Alabama if they have the same grade point average? Med schools aren’t fools either. They would expect someone from a weaker school to have a higher GPA than someone who attends a better one to be comparable.</p>
<p>“What’s the overstatement? Once you get past the highest ranked schools, medical schools aren’t going to really differentiate between #30 and #80 like mom said. It will come down to GPA, MCAT, research experience, extracurriculars and the essays.”</p>
<p>Because that is NOT what she originally stated. The #30 to #80 was added after I made my orginal remark.</p>
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No, the MCAT scores and research experience of the candidates will come into play here. If the Alabama student has a higher MCAT score and has a relevant clinical or lab position in Tuscaloosa, then he will get the nod over the Cal grad every time.</p>
<p>I agree that MCAT scores and other experience are very important of course and don’t dispute that. But the 3.7 from Berkeley is going to get the nod over a 3.7 from Alabama all things being equal every time. This is especially true at the top medical schools. To say that it doesn’t matter where you attended UG, after the first top 20 schools, is just simply untrue.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is right. Medical schools don’t care even about “the top 10-20 schools.” They’ll look at overall GPA, science GPA, and MCATs; and only secondarily at ECs and other honors. Where you went to school is pretty irrelevant. A graduate of Ohio State or Pitt will get the nod over the Harvard grad every time if her grades and MCATs are stronger. To be sure, Harvard grads do very well in med school admissions. But that’s partly because they’re all strong test-takers; that’s a big part of what got them into Harvard in the first place. And Harvard has one of the highest median GPAs in the country, so a heck of a lot of Harvard grads have the grades, too. But they’re getting into med school in large numbers because of their GPAs and MCATs, not because the med school adcoms are blown away by their Harvard pedigrees.</p>