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So tastyb33f you unknowingly hit the point home. Everyone here comes in from the top of their high schools. Logically, given similar grade breakdowns it is on average harder to get a higher GPA here than in a school which is filled with mid-tier performers in high school.
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<p>I knew it. Berkeley is only hard because people here expect to get the same grades as they did in high school. Little do they know, their high schools were awful and it didn't take much effort to do well there.</p>
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Health care reform does not affect doctor's pay, it is more about the health insurance industry.
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<p>Who do you think pays the vast majority of doctors? Could it possibly health insurance companies?</p>
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are posting extremely high GPAs (close to 4.0) at lower UCs
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Are they in biological sciences and engineering?
As an example, UC Davis only gives out 15% A/A- in biological sciences and the average GPA is about 2.5-2.6.</p>
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Who do you think pays the vast majority of doctors? Could it possibly health insurance companies?
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The insurance companies don't control the price. In a free market, the price is set by supply and demand. Unless the reform includes price control or massive import of doctors through immigration. The supply side in the US stagnates at 18000 to 19000 doctors a year. The demand side seems to be creeping up due to population growth and less healthy habits.</p>
Are they in biological sciences and engineering?
As an example, UC Davis only gives out 15% A/A- in biological sciences and the average GPA is about 2.5-2.6.
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<p>The point, I think, was that they aren't in fact in such hard majors necessarily, and it doesn't really matter for premeds.</p>
<p>Really, the point is you can go to an easier, but good school such as Georgetown, Brown, Lower-UCs, Cal-states, and [insert ez liberal arts]. Then pick an easy major and you are set. This is not just for med school--similar things apply for law school.</p>
<p>FYI the avg. GPA in biological sciences is not 2.5-2.6 at UC Davis. Maybe for lower-div classes, but thats comparable to lower-divs here. </p>
<p>The point here is that Berkeley (and some other schools) make it unnecessarily tough on its undergrads to succeed in the admissions systems of law and medical school. I truly believe that Berkeley's grading distributions are fair, but if everybody else is practicing grade inflation then we are at a significant disadvantage.</p>
<p>One "solution" I feel is to make a "pre-med major" and perhaps a "pre-law major" which practices significantly higher grading curves. This would probably not impact the graduate rankings of fine programs such as EECS, Physics, etc, and gives pre-professionals a fair game relative to other schools.</p>
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The insurance companies don't control the price. In a free market, the price is set by supply and demand. Unless the reform includes price control or massive import of doctors through immigration. The supply side in the US stagnates at 18000 to 19000 doctors a year. The demand side seems to be creeping up due to population growth and less healthy habits.
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<p>Ha, you'd be delusional to think the health care reform focused on health insurance will have very minimal impact on the health care industry. Seeing as how health insurance plays the risk as the middleman between the policy-holders and the actual health providers, a reform in health insurance will definitely impact the health care industry.</p>
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Not quite. The patients pay for their care through the health insurance companies, which pay doctors through their policy fees.
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<p>Patients pay for their possible care through paying premiums. It's not the individuals paying for it, in most cases, it's the collective pool of premiums paying for care based on careful actuarial work. Health insurance companies are essentially paying the vast majority of doctors. Unless, of course, you have saved up a rather sizable sum of money in case of accidents, then sure you can bypass health insurance.</p>
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so med schools don't take into consideration AT ALL what undergrad you attended? they only look at the GPA?
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<p>A 3.6 at UCR, ceteris paribus, is going to look better than a 3.0 at Berkeley, or pretty much anywhere else. They do care, but it's not to the extent where it will help you if your GPA is significantly lower.</p>
<p>i don't think it would be a good idea to have a "pre-med" major, everyone would be majoring in it (just like mcb) and it wouldn't let the undergrads follow their true interest in other fields as well.. i think the best way to pick a major is by how it matches your interests, not by which major gets you into X school or X GPA.. </p>
<p>one more thing, i don't entirely blame the students for having such a high preoccupation with their GPA. Although its harmful for their overall enthusiasm towards their studies, it's partly the med schools' fault for having such a restrictive measure - and it seems like the only thing med schools want is a high GPA and high MCAT - feeding into these fears.</p>
<p>Exactly. I have many friends who love EECS, Physics, and BioE but go into IB (relatively easier, but still not easy) or humanities for the grades. The med schools themselves don't encourage you to major in something challenging. </p>
<p>I think Law Schools have a near perfect admissions process. Weight the LSAT significantly more than GPA, and give a small boost based on your undergrad. Of course, Law doesn't stimulate me the way science does. </p>
<p>The bottom line: Its reasonable to say that GPAs can be off by 0.2 or 0.3 when you take into account schools and majors. Say, African Studies at Berkeley versus EECS at Berkeley.</p>
One "solution" I feel is to make a "pre-med major" and perhaps a "pre-law major" which practices significantly higher grading curves. This would probably not impact the graduate rankings of fine programs such as EECS, Physics, etc, and gives pre-professionals a fair game relative to other schools.
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<p>Another solution would be to allow Berkeley premeds the option to take some, or even all of their premed courses at some other school, i.e. a community college or a CalState, without restriction. Those courses may not be worth credit in terms of graduating from Berkeley, but students should still have the option to enroll in those courses to fulfill their premed requirements. </p>
<p>The purported rationale for why Berkeley's premed courses are graded so harshly is that not only are they are more rigorous and therefore supposedly provide better training for premeds to, for example, earn higher MCAT scores, but that med-schools also will supposedly understand the difficulty of those courses and then adjust their admissions standards accordingly. My proposal would let the students decide. Those students who believe Berkeley's argument and believe that there is value to the rigor of Berkeleys' premed courses are free to take them. But those who don't should be allowed the option of taking less rigorous premed courses elsewhere. In other words, Berkeley's premed courses should have to compete for students with premed courses at the community colleges and CalStates. If Berkeley's premed courses really do provide (perceived) value, then they'll win. But if they don't, then students shouldn't be forced to take them just because they go to Berkeley. </p>
<p>The above is in direct reference to the following rule:</p>
<p>You may not enroll simultaneously in the College of Letters and Science at Berkeley and in another institution.</p>
<p>Why does this rule exist? Why should Berkeley restrict what students be allowed to do with their free time? If students want to spend their extra time by taking courses at some community college, why does Berkeley care about that?</p>
<p>Premeds can take their requirements at CC over summer. Berkeley won't stop them and their major advisers will still accept the CC credit, but medical schools won't like what they are doing.</p>
<p>Berkeleys acceptance rate is consistently higher than the national average. In 2007, approximately 77 percent of senior applicants who obtained an overall GPA of at least a 3.4, and obtained a total MCAT score of 30 or higher, were admitted to a medical school.</p>
<p>ACCEPTANCE RATE<br>
National Acceptance Rate 46%
MIT Total Acceptance Rate 77%
MIT Undergraduate Applicants 49%
GPA Undergraduate Applicants<br>
Accepted Average 3.7/4.0**
Range of Acceptances 3.2-4.0**
Range of Denials 2.6-3.7**</p>
<p>MCAT- Undergraduate Applicants<br>
Accepted Average 35
Range of Acceptances 30-42
Range of Denials 23-36</p>
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Premeds can take their requirements at CC over summer.
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<p>Why can you do so only over the summer? Why can't it be anytime? Like I said before, why should Berkeley care what students do with their free time during the regular academic year?</p>
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but medical schools won't like what they are doing.
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<p>Yeah, well, medical schools really don't like when you take regular Berkeley premed classes and get poor grades, as many students do. As I've always said, when it comes to med-school admissions, it is better to not even take a difficult class at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Sad but true.</p>
<p>The question is, given the medical school system, what can Berkeley do to help its premeds? Allowing them to take classes elsewhere is not a viable solution since medical schools don't like that either. </p>
<p>To me there are two solutions.</p>
<p>1) As mentioned previously, make a premed major with curves reflecting those of other top institutions (Brown, etc)</p>
<p>2) Make Lower-div classes a lot easier, like Chem 3A, 3B, etc. And make the upper-div classes correspondingly more difficult. This benefits both premeds and actual majors (EECS, Physics, etc). Its better to instill a great work ethic in an upper-div class because those classes are one-time-only. By this, I mean you can always read a book in 3A or 3B and understand O-chem. But, on the other hand you can't read a book in many of your upper-div classes. You actually have to take the class and perform well. This system would give grades correlating to true knowledge.</p>
<p>Of course, both of these systems still encourage premeds to major in something easy instead of something that would stimulate them more, and possibly make them better doctors. Its pretty ridiculous that one student who spends four years studying American Studies is equivalent to another spends his four years in MCB or Chemistry given the same GPA. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Berkeley needs to have some kind of "major equality" such that you aren't penalized for taking major X. This would benefit students greatly. I mean, peer institutions like Brown and Stanford do it. If anything it should make Berkeley grads MORE successful and thus reflect well on Berkeley.</p>
<p>PS: SDTB, are your statistics referencing medical school admits (MD and DO) or MD admits? It <em>seems</em> like its MD since its the AMCAS info, but the percentages seem on the high side, probably due to reporting bias.</p>
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Allowing them to take classes elsewhere is not a viable solution since medical schools don't like that either.
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<p>It's still better than the current system. Like I said, while med schools may not like you taking premed courses elsewhere, they really don't like when you stay within Berkeley - and get bad grades. The relevant question is therefore: 'which is worse?', and I think there is little dispute that the answer is the latter. </p>
<p>Again, nobody would be forced to take classes elsewhere. If you want to take the regular Berkeley premed sequence, you are free to do so. But students should at least have the option of taking coursework elsewhere. This would serve especially well those students who know they are going to do poorly in one of the regular Berkeley premed courses, perhaps because they were receiving poor marks in them before the drop deadline. Those students could then drop those courses and, in a subsequent semester, take them at a community college instead. Better that then sticking it out and getting a terrible final grade.</p>
<p>That, if nothing else, would engender some competition amongst classes rather than having Berkeley's premed courses be foisted upon a 'captive audience' who have no choice as to where they can do their premed work (unless they want to do everything in the summer). It would also serve to advance your proposals as well. If enough of the students boycott Berkeley's premed courses, then they will be pressured to ease their grading standards in order to attract more students. Right now, there's frankly no reason for them to change. The classes are packed to the point of oversubscription. They have a captive audience and they can therefore treat the poor students as they please. </p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I support your proposals also. Heck, I've actually proposed them myself on many an occasion. I think that all of these suggestions should be implemented, as a comprehensive reform package.</p>
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PS: SDTB, are your statistics referencing medical school admits (MD and DO) or MD admits? It <em>seems</em> like its MD since its the AMCAS info, but the percentages seem on the high side, probably due to reporting bias.
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<p>Sorry, I don't know what DO means. I have no affiliation with anything medical. I was just interested by your statement earlier, so I went ahead and looked around the internet for some information.</p>
<p>I agree that there is some reporting bias because the survey has 117 data points. Do you know, roughly, how many 4th year pre-meds there are?</p>