<p>Hi,
I am a prospective student and I really want to apply to Johns Hopkins. I am interested in pre-med and i was wanted to know how hard a pre-med major is at Johns Hopkins. Is it true that there is grade inflation? thanks</p>
<p>Here is an excellent thread on Pre-med in general: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/202936-good-pre-med-schools.html</a></p>
<p>There is no premed major at Hopkins. You can major in anything and be premed. You just need to take the prerequisites required by medical schools. If you major in the natural sciences, you will take most or all of the prerequisites anyway to satisfy your major. If you are majoring in something like English, then most of the prerequisites will be outside of your major’s requirements. </p>
<p>In terms of difficulty and grading, you will hear different stories and perspectives. The required premed prerequisites classes (Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biology, Physics, etc) tend to be large lecture classes with much smaller sections and laboratories led by graduate student teaching fellows. The same is pretty much true at every other research university (if you go to a SLAC, the lecture will be somewhat smaller and sections and labs probably led by an advanced undergraduate since most SLACs don’t have graduate students). In terms of difficulty of subject matter, these classes tend to be challenging and require a lot of work. But if you are smart enough to be admitted to Hopkins and are willing to work hard, there is no reason for you to not understand the material and have the ability to do well. These classes will be much harder than you would find at a community college, harder than you would encounter at a typical state university, but on the same level of difficulty that you would find at other highly selective private research universities such as the Ivies.</p>
<p>Because of the size of the class, the grading will be curved to assure a standard distribution of grades. Curving grades has its pluses and minuses. On the one hand, it means that not everyone can get an “A”. On the other hand, it often means that a “50” on an exam may be graded as a “B”, depending on how well your classmates did on the test. Often times, you find students who receive a “B” in a course complaining about the curve because they are “certain” that they otherwise would have gotten an “A” but for the curve. But other students get "C"s when they otherwise would have failed. So it can work both ways. </p>
<p>By the way, most other top research universities also curve these course, and for the same reason. But the curves may not be the same. Some schools, such as Hopkins and Cornell, are reputed to have tougher curves. But I know of no empirical evidence to support that, and it may partially be urban myth. Certainly some schools, such as Harvard and Brown, have the reputation of being highly grade inflated. Others, such as Princeton, were concerned about grade inflation and made the curve tougher in recent years. Whatever the truth may be, medical schools are aware of the curves at the top undergraduate institutions and, I have to believe, take them into account. Certainly, Hopkins students have always done very well in medical school admissions irrespective of its reputedly tough grading curve.</p>
<p>It is probably true that attending Hopkins is not the easiest path to get into medical school. Most Hopkins students would probably have significantly higher GPA’s if they had attended a second rate school, and your GPA is probably more important than the prestige of your undergraduate institution in medical school admissions. But you will likely get a much better education at a place like Hopkins. Education wise, Hopkins is about as good as it gets. So what is more important to you?</p>