<p>Are there alot of premeds at UChicago?</p>
<p>I haven't met too many, being one myself. Uchicago isn't very appealing to the average premed because of the grade deflation.</p>
<p>I know a decent amount of premeds (3, 4 maybe in my house?). And yes, it's true that GPA is very damaging to premeds.</p>
<p>thats dissapointing</p>
<p>The answers so far sound a little off. I know several current pre-meds, one of whom is my kid, and I've never gotten the impression that they think there aren't lots of others. </p>
<p>Look at the number of biology majors. Not all pre-meds are biology majors, and not all biology majors are pre-meds, but I suspect lots of those in one category are also in the other. </p>
<p>Look at how many sections there are of Gen Chem and Organic (honors and regular), compared to the number of chemistry and biology majors. If 400 people a year are taking the two basic chemistry courses, and there are only 300 chem or bio majors per class, you can bet your sweet bippy that 99 of the other 100 are thinking about medical school (in addition to a decent chunk of the chem and bio majors). (These numbers are made up, but any of the current students could probably make a pretty reliable estimate.)</p>
<p>phuriku,
[quote]
And yes, it's true that GPA is very damaging to premeds.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Can you back up your assertion with any data? I doubt it.</p>
<p>If you look at the actual admissions data, you will see that UofC grads do as well as their peers from other elite schools. And this issues has been debated a lot on these boards, so I ask that you do a little homework before spreading out such disinformation. </p>
<p>OP, to answer your question, yes, UofC has a lot of pre-meds, and they do fine in applying to med school. Is is competitive? Is it hard? yes, but no worse than anywhere else. In fact, as you would see if you read older discussions here, the culture at UofC is in some ways less competitive than at its peer institutions, especially in that students don't compete as much with each other for GPA as they do at, for example, Northwestern. Read the posts.</p>
<p>A lot of first-years in my house say they are doing pre-med; I don't think they are that committed to becoming doctors at this point, but rather they want to have an answer for every time somebody asks them what they are studying. </p>
<p>I would again emphasize that the pre-meds I know are not the crazy, grade-obsessed stereotype (just the way not all econ majors are mini investment bankers).</p>
<p>newmassdad, can I see your data on UChicago med school acceptances? </p>
<p>I've actually heard the rumor that Chicago's med school only accepted 1 applicant from UChicago undergrad, and I've heard it at least twice from different people, so I'm just slightly curious.</p>
<p>As a bio major (not premed) I know quite a few premeds, probably same percentage as other top universities, so don't worry.. you won't be alone.</p>
<p>^^ Unless you can show concrete evidence of that a student's chances of going to med school decrease because they graduate from the U of C, I really don't see a case for that argument.</p>
<p>Let's break it down a few ways:
1) Chicago's grades are not deflated, but rather students work hard for grades they feel they deserve. There are many discussions on this, some of which shore up some solid evidence. The Maroon wrote a while back that the average GPA (as of year 2000 or so) was a 3.26, which, in college terms, is far from low.</p>
<p>2) I've seen med school "ranks" before (again, the validity of these ranks are constantly under fire), but from even the data spewed out, it looks like Chicago graduates place pretty well into med school. Not the top school, but far from the bottom. I don't have a source for these ranks, but I'm sure somewhere on these forums you can find them.</p>
<p>I think students who are expressly concerned with med school admission probably don't jibe with the Core Curriculum and learning for learning's sake feels of Chicago and don't choose the school because it doesn't fit their goals rather than that it will ruin their case as an med school applicant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1) Chicago's grades are not deflated, but rather students work hard for grades they feel they deserve. There are many discussions on this, some of which shore up some solid evidence. The Maroon wrote a while back that the average GPA (as of year 2000 or so) was a 3.26, which, in college terms, is far from low.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>When you compare it to rival universities, yes, it is low. A difference of .1 or .2 can make a ton of difference.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think students who are expressly concerned with med school admission probably don't jibe with the Core Curriculum and learning for learning's sake feels of Chicago and don't choose the school because it doesn't fit their goals rather than that it will ruin their case as an med school applicant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I know people on this very forum who have debated with themselves (and me) whether they should come to Chicago due to GPA concerns. It is an issue. I do, however, feel that you're correct in saying that they wouldn't work well with the Core.</p>
<p>unalove (and phukiru?) you might note that the Maroon article referenced does not use any UofC data. It was based on the data from gradeinflation.com, which in turn references a hard to find pdf from another university. (Personally, I find it ironic that a quasi UofC source would quote an outside source of questionable provenance!)</p>
<p>So, we don't actually know what the true GPA is. We do know that about 1/3 of students make deans list each year, which requires a 3.25. Somehow, simple math tells me that if 1/3 make the deans list, then a 3.26 average GPA might be tough to calculate. Any UofC math folks to the rescue here? FWIW, my 1/3 figure could be off. </p>
<p>Windslicer, you want data? Go look at the data at MDApplicants.com.</p>
<p>wow at mdapplicants they all had >3.6.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, we don't actually know what the true GPA is. We do know that about 1/3 of students make deans list each year, which requires a 3.25. Somehow, simple math tells me that if 1/3 make the deans list, then a 3.26 average GPA might be tough to calculate. Any UofC math folks to the rescue here? FWIW, my 1/3 figure could be off.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Maybe if it were the median. It could be the case that the vast majority of the two-thirds not making the Dean's List consistently have GPAs between 3.0 and 3.25, which wouldn't be too outlandish.</p>
<p>beefs,</p>
<p>not at all. Here's the data:
01226 The University of Chicago, 30 MCAT, 3.28 GPA, applied 2004
00022 University of Chicago, 26 MCAT, 3.55 GPA, applied 2002
01539 university of chicago, 29 MCAT, 3.60 GPA, applied 2004
02582 University of Chicago, 36 MCAT, 3.14 GPA, applied 2005
03777 University of Chicago, 36 MCAT, 3.39 GPA, applied 2006
00617 University of Chicago, 35 MCAT, 3.68 GPA, applied 2003
04730 University of Chicago, 33 MCAT, 3.73 GPA, applied 2006
00324 University of Chicago, 37 MCAT, 3.75 GPA, applied 2003
00678 University of Chicago, 33 MCAT, 3.11 GPA, applied 2002
00935 University of Chicago, 35 MCAT, 3.05 GPA, applied 2004
00601 University of Chicago, 33 MCAT, 3.24 GPA, applied 2002
00718 University of Chicago, 31 MCAT, 3.73 GPA, applied 2003
01784 University of Chicago, 28 MCAT, 3.05 GPA, applied 2003
03189 University of Chicago, 33 MCAT, 3.58 GPA, applied 2005
05525 University of Chicago, 36 MCAT, 3.70 GPA, applied 2007</p>
<p>The AVERAGE was 3.43, with three 3.11 or below, each of whom got in, and decent schools to boot. Go see 1784 for a real surprise.</p>
<p>Maybe this data is not representative or not reported accurately. I don't know. But it seems to compare well to other schools.</p>
<p>pkuriku, for your explanation to be accurate, the grades would be in one strange curve, which I doubt. But who knows. </p>
<p>What is amazing to me is how tight lipped the U is regarding grades, grade distribution and such. I've hunted far and wide for info. NADA.</p>
<p>So the 3.26 figure is faulty, and any sort of concrete data on grades is shady. </p>
<p>I don't know about the other posters, but I get the impression that Chicago kids are satisfied with their grades. This is something difficult to measure, for sure, because many of my friends study in different fields, many of them have different work ethics (some study religiously, others are pretty much self-avowed slackers) and all have different expectations on what a "good" grade is. </p>
<p>Of all of the ridiculous conversations I've had and of all the people I've had them with, I think I've heard a person once-- maybe twice-- bring up a grade that he or she earned. This makes me think that either a) the vast majority of UChicago kids, pre-meds or not, are happy with their GPA's, b) the vast majority of UChicago kids don't focus so much on grades, or c) the vast majority of UChicago kids don't like to complain, even if they are unhappy with their grades.</p>
<p>Option C is out, because I know a lot of people who like to complain. Students complain that the school is too nerdy, that the school is not nerdy enough, that there's an annoying student in one of their classes, that the food is gross, that it's cold outside, that the girls/guys here are either ugly, taken, or don't play for their team, that the Reg is a scary place to study, that the sun doesn't shine, that the Class of 1994 clock by the Reg never tells the right time, that the shuttles don't run often enough, that the front desk clerks are snippy, etc. etc. etc. etc. There are lots of things to complain about regarding any situation, so I imagine if students weren't getting grades they felt they earned, I would hear a lot more about it.</p>
<p>Again, I think that Chicago's strength as an undergraduate institution is not in how it launches students into prestigious professional fields, but rather that it provides an amazing intellectual playground for the mildly disenfranchised. It also provides a lot of drinking buddies, tennis partners, bandmates, high-class alumni contacts, and letter of recommendation writers, but so does any school. Where I think Chicago really stands out lies in the quality of education and the type of student who is attracted to the kind of experience we (purportedly, some would say) offer.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I imagine if students weren't getting grades they felt they earned, I would hear a lot more about it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Then again, there's the 'embarrassment' factor. I find it incredibly difficult talking to my parents about my grades (even though I have a pretty high GPA relatively) because they expect me to earn straight As (they're paying $20k/year for me to get an education, not to slack off!), when at this school, it just isn't as possible as it was back in high school. This even applies when I'm talking about it to people at other institutions.</p>
<p>I imagine it could be tough to measure your grades next to your friends' grades, if your friends are attending peer institutions that are grade-inflated relative to Chicago. </p>
<p>I haven't really experienced that myself, because 1) I made it very clear to my high school peers that my grades and SAT scores were not matters of public discussion, and 2) I distanced myself from people who discussed grades and scores frequently. When I talk to my friends from home who are tending a variety of "inflated" and "deflated", "prestigious" and "junky" schools, everybody seems to be doing well in the ways in which they do well and everybody seems to be having a jolly time.</p>
<p>I also have only a hint of an idea of how my housemates and friends do academically. Again, though, their academic performance relative to mine and to each other doesn't interest me in the slightest (I'd rather talk about the dust bunnies under my bed-- a lot accumulated over winter break and they're really not looking to leave!) and I think that some of my least work-oriented friends are some of my most intelligent friends.</p>
<p>(By work-oriented I mean how devoted, both in time and energy, somebody is to studying. I have friends who love to study and I have friends who would rather skip most of the studying and go shopping or go to lunch. The more work-oriented people are not necessarily more concerned with grades, more intellectual, or more stressed out-- they just really like a certain work rhythm).</p>
<p>A few observations:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You can actually square the Dean’s list numbers (less than 50% per year) to the median GPA (very well established at a 3.25 year after year based on the honors numbers) fairly easily. Due to the upward trend in grades for the average pupil, the presence of wash out sequences (e.g. biochemistry), and very heterogeneous secondary school preparation for the core, you tend to get a lot of people who hit the list two or three times but not all four years. Something akin to earning a 3.4 (redundant courses in core), 3.0 (tentative math major sinks in real analysis), 3.2 (traversing the sciences), 3.5 (takes off in chemistry) is pretty run of the mill for an honors student. Few walk through with uniform grades. </p></li>
<li><p>Even if students place well for medical schools, it has to be in spite of the grading scheme. There is no logical way it could be a boost to one’s application. I would point out though that medical schools have far more nuanced admissions procedures on average than law or business programs, which allows UChicago students to stand out more if they are motivated beyond the classroom (lab work, volunteering, foreign travel). </p></li>
<li><p>Aggregate admissions percentages to professional schools, i.e. 65% of school X’s premedical students got accepted to an AMA approved MD program, cannot be given too much weight as they are seriously influenced by the preferences of the student body. University of Chicago students are much more likely than graduates at peer schools to accept spots at mediocre programs in order to attend somewhere, rather than pass on the idea of becoming a MD / JD / PhD altogether despite their insufficient performance. This is reflected in the WSJ elite program placement survey which showed that Chicago, even while shipping off huge numbers to graduate school second only to JHU nationally, sends them at a disproportionately lower rate to the more vaunted institutions across the board. Strikingly, it has an abysmal per capita entry rate to Harvard, Yale and Stanford for law, yet simultaneously according to the ABA places markedly high numbers of students into seats at accredited JD programs broadly. In contrast, I think you see a much more market oriented approach by students at UChicago’s main competitors, where applications go out to the well known graduate programs in fields with the supposition that if the student does not get in, then they will just do something else (mainly get a job). This bias is reinforced by the large numbers of majors at Chicago in soft liberal arts, which find that if they don’t continue on with their education, their best hope in the working world is something like copy editor or paralegal since they have no discernable private sector skill set.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>uchicagoalum,</p>
<p>
[quote]
This is reflected in the WSJ elite program placement survey
[/quote]
surely you're not drawing conclusions from this survey? It's methodology is so strange that it can hardly be called a "survey". If you have a link to the article, I'd be happy to show you the problem. </p>
<p>Your conclusions may or may not be correct. I don't know. But your data source does not really back up your statement, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Update to previous. I found the article. The link is here: University of Chicago students are much more likely than graduates at peer schools to accept spots at mediocre programs in order to attend somewhere, rather than pass on the idea of becoming a MD / JD / PhD altogether despite their insufficient performance.</p>
<p>Here is its "methodology"
[quote]
We focused on 15 elite schools, five each from medicine, law and business, to serve as our benchmark for profiling where the students came from. Opinions vary, of course, but our list reflects a consensus of grad-school deans we interviewed, top recruiters and published grad-school rankings (including the Journal's own MBA rankings). So for medicine, our schools were Columbia; Harvard; Johns Hopkins; the University of California, San Francisco; and Yale, while our MBA programs were Chicago; Dartmouth's Tuck School; Harvard; MIT's Sloan School; and Penn's Wharton School. In law, we looked at Chicago; Columbia; Harvard; Michigan; and Yale.
[/quote]
Because the numbers are small and the results shown for all disciplines together, let's count the geographic location of the schools: 11 from the east coast, 3 from the midwest and 1 from the west coast.</p>
<p>I would argue that UofC did remarkably well (#14) considering the geographic bias of the study. Most curiously, Chicago's "rate" (i.e. placements divided by student body), 6.22%, is almost double Northwestern's (3.69%), and ahead of Penn and Georgetown, both of which have reputations for being far more pre-professional. </p>
<p>Uchicagoalum, maybe you are talking about a different WSJ survey? If so, please provide the link. You make some pretty provocative statements in your post. It would be helpful if you let the rest of us see your data source.</p>