<p>Hi. So I am strongly considering premed at Princeton and I know they have a grade cap type system, (35 percent As etc). I am just wondering how much this effects how competitive the premeds at Princeton are and what chance a Princeton premed has of getting into Princeton?</p>
<p>I may have read your message wrong, but Princeton DOES NOT have a med school.</p>
<p>On the other hand, from Princeton adcom directly, 90+% of Princeton permed graduates have been successful in their med school applications.</p>
<p>I am an entering premed at Princeton. I chose Princeton because I felt I could flourish here intellectually. I did not consider grade deflation because while it hurts, I hold faith in that top medical schools and many of the state ones are well-versed in the policy so that a 3.5 at Princeton would be considered with the same weight as a 3.7 or 3.8 at Harvard or Yale. I chose Princeton for the experience, not for whether I thought my grades would suffer. </p>
<p>The grade deflation system applies departmentally and only impacted the humanities to any significance. The natural science classes were already heavily curved and so was engineering. So if you’re looking at those type of majors, then it wouldn’t matter where you went - grades are heavily curved in the sciences pretty much at all top schools (the other one I was considering was MIT, which already had grade deflation in practice, not in policy). Also, because the policy applies departmentally, intro courses will see a heavier curve while upper departmental classes are more lenient to “look out for their majors” so to speak. Because upper division classes give out more A’s, lower classes have to give out fewer to bring the departmental average to 35% or so. </p>
<p>Also, you have to get into the mindset that you’re not going to be the best at everything at a top school like you were in high school. There’s always going to be somebody who is better than you, who won more accolades in high school, who naturally know the material better. At top schools, many intro courses are designed as “weeder” courses so that only the top students in that specialty get the coveted “A” - a lot of the time, these people are those that major in that department. So get out of the mindset that you’re going to get A’s across the board. B’s here and there won’t hurt you that much. </p>
<p>As for how competitive premeds are at Princeton, you can look at the statistics offered by the University (depending on how well you trust them to not skew statistics). Medical school admissions rates haven’t gone down since the imposition of the grade deflation policy. In fact, Princeton premeds boast very good chances at getting into top medical schools and the vast majority get into a medical school. Princeton also sends a pamphlet with the transcript that describes its grade deflation policy to help admissions committees distinguish a Princeton GPA from other GPAs. Whether this makes a significant difference is not known by me. </p>
<p>Finally, a Princeton premed has the same chance of getting into Princeton as all other applicants. Princeton does not require you declare a major upon entering - you don’t do that until your second year (or freshman spring for engineering, I think). Thus, they don’t consider any major different from others since most students switch anyway. There is also no set pre-med major - you must find another major and take the pre-med required classes. </p>
<p>The bottom line is: do not choose a university based upon its grading policies and what you perceive your GPA to be. Choose a place you love. If you don’t, you may become so miserable that you couldn’t reach your full potential and your GPA would suffer as a result. Keep in mind that though you think you are certain that you want to do the pre-med track, many students change after taking a few “weeder” courses - I’ve heard that Orgo separates the haves from the have-nots. That said, best of luck to you and I hope you choose Princeton!</p>
<p>Top medical schools do not cut any slack for Princeton graduates when they are compared with applicants from other top schools such as Harvard or Yale, because they are generally in the same pile for consideration. However, Princeton graduates do have slight advantage over second tier schools. The definition of “top tier schools” varies among medical schools. If your GPA and MCAT are not up to the top quartile of peer applicants in the pool, it will be a problem. Mid-tier medical schools may be more willing to take in low GPA Princeton graduates. Since USNWR ranking is the common yardstick to measure medical school success, it will have negative impact on ranking if a medical school takes in too many low GPA or low MCAT applicants. I notice that the average GPA from Princeton graduates of science majors is not competitive for medical school admission. When you have a GPA of 3.4-3.5, you are at the bottom 10% of most medical school matriculants. Other factors, such as strong EC, health related activism, research, leadership and strong references, need to come into play to stay in the game. Actually, regardless grade deflation or not, there is no lack of high GPA applicants from Princeton.</p>
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A 3.5 at Princeton does not hold the same weight as a 3.7 or 3.8 at Harvard or Yale so you thought wrong. I’m sure Tiger alums and students are going to accuse me of being a ■■■■■ or whatever but Princeton is much less represented at the top medical schools than Harvard or Yale. In fact, I would say is is less well represented than Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Penn.</p>
<p>Its just not one Princeton’s strong suits, though as pointed out earlier the vast majority of Princeton graduates are admitted to at least one allopathic program.</p>
<p>Wash U Medical School Historically
[Who</a> Chooses WU](<a href=“http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx]Who”>http://medadmissions.wustl.edu/HowtoApply/selectionprocess/Pages/WhoChoosesWU.aspx)</p>
<p>Harvard: 88 alums
Duke: 79 alums
Stanford: 72 alums</p>
<p>Yale: 46 alums
Princeton: 41 alums
JHU: 37 alums
University of Pennsylvania: 36 alums</p>
<p>I"ll post the enrollment at other medical schools when i get a chance.</p>
<p>You can’t simply look at raw quantities. Princeton is smaller than Harvard, Stanford,… You can’t even consider just percentages on their own since you can’t assume Princeton and say, Stanford (purely hypothetical example) attract the same percentage of pre-meds. It would be like saying Caltech isn’t that great because they (probably, taking a guess here) have so many fewer med school matriculants than Harvard. Never mind that Caltech has an entering class of less than 250 each year and typically attracts techies… If you wanted to do a thorough analysis, you’d have to actually look at lots of information that isn’t readily available and try to estimate the treatment effect (nearest-neighbor matching comes to mind but I’m not an econometrician).</p>