You are absolutely correct. Med school choose its admits based on high GPA and high MCAT, prestige does little to the equation. That is why my advise is for premed hopefuls to select a school that his stats are in the top 25% of the entering class, hence that student will most likely maintain a high GPA in his college career as a result, the better chance to succeed in med school application.
To sum up, the following is on UChicago’s web site regarding the outcome of Chicago graduates in med school applications:
"When medical schools look at your GPA, they are evaluating the rigor of your undergraduate institution, the intensity of your course-load, and your overall grades. They DO recognize that UChicago is not a school that practices grade inflation, and take that into account—within reason. That is not to say that you can earn a 2.0 at UChicago and expect that to be held in the same regard as a 4.0 at another school. The mean GPA nationally for applicants accepted into MD programs in 2016 was 3.70. The mean GPA of UChicago students accepted into MD programs in 2016 was 3.58. Specific to the sciences, the mean accepted science GPA nationally was a 3.64 and the mean UChicago science GPA was a 3.51. It is clear from those results that the medical schools are valuing the rigor of the UChicago experience when they consider candidates. "
@sgopal2 It’s interesting that you regard orgo as a class heavy on memorization. It’s regarded as a class heavy on high level cognitive thinking and problem solving at my school and I’m sure there are other schools where orgo is taught at a similarly high level.
@BiffBrown since you’re on the UC forum, should we assume that you’re a student there and that you’re referring to the class at UC when you claim ‘heavy on high level cognitive thinking’? When I took orgo (or ‘organic’ as it was called in those days) at UChicago many moons ago, it was pretty heavy on memorization. Lots of terminology and reactions to learn etc. as it is first exposure to organic compounds and systems. No way around it.
@ihs76 I’m not a UC student. I’m a student at Emory where the intro orgo sequence emphasizes application of principles to new situations via problem solving. There is memorization required to some extent but the hardest part of the course is the application of concepts to never before seen situations.
There is a simple reason why orgo is looked at closely. It’s the only undergraduate class that has a vast amount of memorization. Most first year med school classes involve a lot of memorization (esp Gross anatomy).
Students who can’t engulf large amounts of material quickly will struggle in med school.
“The mean GPA nationally for applicants accepted into MD programs in 2016 was 3.70. The mean GPA of UChicago students accepted into MD programs in 2016 was 3.58.”
This factoid by itself does not prove that Med Schools take UChicago’s rigor into consideration. In fact I can come up with a scenario that exemplifies the exact opposite.
Suppose that Med Schools only accept GPAs 3.5 and higher. We can create a hypothetical where both top 5 students at Harvard and UChicago apply to med school. At UChicago the top 5 GPAs are 3.3, 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, 3.7 while at Harvard the top 5 GPAs are 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9 because there is grade inflation at the latter. All applicants from Harvard get accepted (averaging 3.7) while only the top 3 UChicago applicants get accepted (averaging 3.6, close enough to 3.58).
In this case, UChicago’s reputation has zero impact. The difference in GPA can be fully explained by the difference in the grading curve. And GPA would be the sole determinant of acceptance.
This hypothetical can also be used as a counter to the “as long as you’re top X or top x%, you are okay” argument… because 2 UChicago “top fivers” were disqualified by their GPA.
@sgopal2 Based on an informal survey of friends, other schools also emphasize problem solving rather than memorization in their first year orgo sequence. Examples that come to mind include Harvard’s and Princeton’s.
At my school (Emory), the intro bio course (1st semester) covers all of what is normally covered in AP Bio along with a lot of cell/molecular bio and genetics. There is a lot of memorization in the class along with lab work.
Upper division bio courses (the challenging ones) emphasize primary literature and problem solving. Here’s data. Come up with a cellular mechanism that would emphasize it.
@ihs76 Do UC bio courses emphasize memorization even at the upper division level?
@biffbrown that actually makes a lot of sense. Glad to see that Emory is doing this. However many schools still teach the brute force method where students have to memorize hundreds of reactions, reagents, etc.
But note that the first two years of a ‘basic science’ in a medical school has very little problem solving in it (apart from the small group sessions). Most of it involves courses like gross anatomy, biochemistry, microbiology, pharmacology, etc that involve a huge amount of rote memorization.
The problem solving comes in a bit later (during clinical years) and residency. So thats why med school admissions committees look at grades in these memorization heavy science classes so closely.
@sgopal2 Is there the same emphasis on memorization in the first two years of medical at the research heavy medical schools like Hopkins, WashU and Harvard HST (to name a few)?
Great point. Just also note that state medical schools look at things a bit differently. While they may look at the ‘top’ GPAs from a given college, they sort out the kids who are in-state. The out of state kids have a dramatic disadvantage.
For private med schools, the rank ordering system that you describe above is similar to what I saw. However keep in mind that the # of incoming spots at a private med school is very small. We were not sitting around saying “Oh we’ll take the top x at Harvard and top y at Stanford”. There are not enough spots to do that. Many times we would reject all the applicants from an entire Ivy League school because they didn’t have any students that fit our need.
Private schools have a lot more flexibility in building their class, but adjustment of GPA for rigor of a college isn’t something that I remember doing a lot (except in the cases of engineering students where we knew the curve was dramatic.
@biffbrown: To be honest its been a while since I closely looked at the curriculums. Most curriculums are fairly standard because of the USMLEs. The content in the USMLE is vast. The first two years of med school doesn’t leave enough time to cover each of the requirements in any depth.
Problem based learning in small groups has been emphasized a lot. But these skills are much more important for Step 2 of the USMLE. Step 1 of the USMLE is memorization heavy. There is no way to get around it. Even if you go to a school that de-emphasizes memorization, you’re still going to have to learn a lot on your own.
The Duke curriculum is interesting. They jam all of the basic sciences into one year, and then students start hospital rotations in year 2. Don’t know how they do it. I’m sure there are other interesting curriculums as well (Harvard HST comes to mind).
Once you’re in med school though, it matters very little. Just work hard and pass the USMLEs. Just getting in is the hard part.
To the OP: I majored in the sciences at UChicago a few years ago, and I’m now at a top medical school. If you or anyone else wants some insights into premed life at UChicago, please feel free to private message me.
Anecdotal evidence: UChicago is well represented at top medical schools.
