@ OP
I went to G’town a long time ago and was a science major though I had no intention of going to med school and instead proceeded to grad school at one of the Harvard/Yale/Princeton. I took classes with all the premed kids and knew at least 50 premed students both within my major and outside. These are my perceptions from looking at med school attendance for students within my peer group and also from other years. I know nothing of Notre Dame and Michigan, and I am always wary of using public data to form conclusions without actual experience of the university:
(1) You will not get into a top med school with just a 3.6 except you have something impressive going on such as multiple research publications including first author. This was the distribution I saw when I was in college:
3.7+: Top 15-30 medical school. You still need publications, 3.8-3.9 and a slew of ECs to get a shot at the top 10.
3.5-3.7: Top 30-35 medical school. Better chances if you are resident of a state with a good medical school
3.3-3.5: Osteopathic Medical School or Med school ranked 30-50.
3.3: Med school in the Caribbean or Australia
Research publications is king especially if you can get a first author. Schools like Harvard Med, Washington U, Yale and Johns Hopkins med are not remotely impressed by 3.9’s even from G’town. They have seen better. You need to show them medical publications and ability to do research.
(2) The students at Georgetown are very very sharp especially those who are focused on premed. Be aware the average student at a college is not usually Premed. You probably have the top 25% of incoming students concentrating on Premed.
For example, In my major class of 30 students, a sizable number of students at the bottom quartile of the class did not go to medical school but ended up at top PhD programs like Northwestern, Yale e.t.c. They were productive scientists in those programs. Another “weak” student took the LSAT and got a score that would easily get her into Harvard Law School if she had a better GPA and majored in something less difficult. She ended up instead at a top 20 law school.
Even the top students struggled to get into top 10-15 medical schools no matter their GPA or MCAT scores (see my opinion about perception on academics in my next note). You need to publish.
I had a lab partner who once memorized a 400 page biochemistry textbook in 2 days. He had a 3.89, and got rejected at nearly every top med school he applied to except Washington University and was placed on the waitlist. He got off the waitlist after he showed them a first author publication he submitted based on 3 years of research at the cancer center. He is asian though so …
(3) Perception versus Actual Academics: This is the only time I will talk about Notre Dame and Michigan. There is a high difference between the actual academics of a school and its “perceived” academics. I am clearly drawing my conclusions based on just anecdotes though the number of data points I have is > 50, which is convincing enough for me.
For one, I have noticed that decent students at schools like Notre Dame and Georgetown (3.5-3.6) tend to do as well in standardized tests (MCAT, LSAT, GRE e.t.c) or even better than students from top students from Public Research Virginia, Michigan, Berkeley e.t.c (3.8-3.9). They also perform very well in graduate school relative to these students. I am still skeptical about claims of grade deflation at public schools.
I understand standardized test scores tend to measure aptitude while G.PA. is somewhat correlated to work ethic and knowledge of course material, but I sometimes wonder if the claims about one school having stronger academics than the other can be really made without actual experience of the curriculum.
As someone who has TA’ed and graded exams for undergraduate students at a top 3 university, I can confidently tell you that there are not major differences at say HYP vs. Georgetown for the sciences. However, there is a huge perception that this is the case, and this will affect your chances of getting into medical school. It is far far easier to get into Med School or any Graduate school for that matter if you are from HYP even though the education is the same. Also you get the opportunity to do research with top faculty at a top school. I will wager that it would be the case for a school like Michigan which is well respected at the top-level because of perceived high academics as a result of the strength of its faculty (especially having one of the best medical research facilities). Personally, I will recommend that if you are confident that you are a top student you should go to Michigan and join a lab in the medical school asap. You will have a shot at a very good medical school.
(4) Pick your major wisely: Consider not majoring in the Hard Sciences for Med school whatever undergrad you go to. I noticed that students who were in Chemistry & Physics had a tough time getting into med school. Due to the need for diversity of majors, a lot of medical schools like students who studied Psychology, Anthropology, Economics, Math e.t.c. and did Premed as well research. They do seem to bring a new perspective to medicine. Also it would help your G.P.A trust me.