<p>Hi i recently read some posts in this forum about grade inflation and the role it plays when applying to graduate school. So i began to wonder what roles this plays in the schools i want to attend. I soon found something interesting as i looked for the acceptence rate in medical school from the schoools i want to attend. I was suprised to see that the acceptance rate to med school from vassar college was much higher than MIT.<br>
Vassar -85% while MIT- 74% .
Vassar</a> College || After Vassar
Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office
Now from what i know MIT is a lot harder to get it into. They have much higher average sat score and lower acceptance rate than vassar. So this made me wonder if this is due to grade inflation at vassar or maybe grade deflation at MIT. If anyone knows the reason for this i would really appreciate ur response. Is it possible that MIT is just not as good place to prepare for medical school? Or is it possible that Vassar just restricts or discourages the number of applicants so that their acceptance rate is higher? Also if you know or can find the acceptance rate from columbia to medical school i would also appreciate it. Thanks</p>
<p>Med school acceptance rates are a terrible metric to use to gauge how good a school is for "premed". What you should look at is less tangible: premed advising. Check out the premed forum for more info. Check out the FAQ thread too.</p>
<p>Thanks for ur reply i appreciate it ... but why would the acceptance rate not be good indication of their pre medical program.. doesnt it in some aspects show what my chances would be to get in to med school from their program. Its also that MIT and vassar have produced these results consistently over the last couple of years. Despite MIT being harder to get into and more well known for its academics it seems to be lower in their med student matriculants. From what i read from one member of college confidential was that its because of their hard grading. I just want second opinion on that. It seems to me like if thats the case and vassar is not just inflating or exxagerating their stats it would be better for me to go there</p>
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Thanks for ur reply i appreciate it ... but why would the acceptance rate not be good indication of their pre medical program.. doesnt it in some aspects show what my chances would be to get in to med school from their program.
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You are starting with a mistaken assumption, that the med school acceptance rate reflects how much attending a particular school "helps" a person get into med school as opposed to another school. Now if we had a college system were kids were assigned at random this might be true although there are good reasons to doubt it. </p>
<p>For one, how do you know that Vassar isn't screening kids? Many colleges do this; when you see some obscure college that has a 90%+ admit rate you haven't found an undiscovered gem, you've likely found a school that screens. If a college offers what is called a "committee letter" (and most outside of large publics do) then you are required to submit it. So to get a high admit rate all you need to do is tell your weaker candidates that your letter will say they are "recommended with reservations" or "not recommended". Given the competition to med school, either is a death knell and anybody smart enough to be considering med school is smart enough to know that its not worth shelling out 1 grand in app fees to be rejected everywhere you apply. If you look on the Vassar website you'll find this
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Obviously we cannot recommend each student equally; however, we will recommend as strongly as we can depending upon the individual's performance and characteristics.
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Tells you something about the letters they write, doesn't it?</p>
<p>Colleges can screen in other, more subtle ways. They can have stiff grading in classes that are required for med school, coupled with an advising system that starts steering kids with less than top grades in these classes away from med school sophomore year. When your 50-something advisor smiles gently and says he's been doing this since before you were born, the grades you are getting just aren't going to give you much of a shot at med school, and suggests that while you don't need to make any quick decisions you ought to start exploring other areas (and that he's already set up an appointment for you with Sally down at the career center who will take care of you, that you're lucky to be at a private where they're looking out for you and not a large public where you're just a number and nobody cares) -- how many 19-year-olds tell him to shove it, you're sticking it out?</p>
<p>Bottom line, you're going down the wrong path if you thing admit rates tell you much of anything. It isn't the school you attend, its what YOU do in school that matters. I'll leave the final word to an excerpt from a med school advising document from Anherst (that you ought to read in its entirety)
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Amherst College has no magic touch that automatically elevates a student's chances of entering medical school simply by virtue of the student's coming to Amherst; no college or university has that kind of magic touch. What does elevate a student's chances is to go to an institution (1) that energizes and challenges that particular student academically, while providing good teaching and academic support so the student can meet the challenge satisfactorily; and (2) that provides opportunities for accomplishment and leadership in extracurricular areas. Of course the student must take advantage of these educational and extracurricular opportunities - in the end it's the student's accomplishments that count, not the name of the institution.
Amherst</a> College Premedical Guide
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