Hey guys, I’m a junior and i was wondering if i could get input on these schools. I need to decide a top 3 from these because my dad said we can only go visit 3 of these schools. I want to have a top 3 that i can eliminate to a #1 that i can potentially ED to. I’m leaning on applying to Stanford EA but i feel like i have a better shot at these schools applying ED. I will be applying to all these schools regardless i just need find an ED school that i truly love and know where i will be happiest at. So which school will prepare me for Med School and the MCAT the most? Which school is easiest to get at least a 3.7 at? School with most grade inflation? Which one gives lots of research opportunities? Which one will help me get into a top 25 medical school? I’m undecided on my major but i like HUM BIO at Stanford but i’m not 100% sure yet on the other schools, maybe Biology. At which school will be able to have the true college experience with the rigors of pre med? At which school can i party, go to sporting events, and attend other social and school functions in my free time? I don’t want to join a frat but i still wanna be able to party once a week. Will i be able to have free time on the weekends at these schools? Which school is the most collaborative because i HATE competition between students. My plan in college is to “work hard, play hard” as you can tell lol. Thanks to all those that give me input because i will have to decide my top 3 by the end of April so i can make those college visits and decide my favorite school. i will be posting this on other forums.
I don’t know quite as much about the other schools, but I can tell you that Vanderbilt fits basically all of your criteria, except it doesn’t really have grade inflation. From what I got from visits and info sessions, Rice and WashU didn’t seem to have great social scenes, but again that was just my perception.
@collegebobollege Do you attend Vandy?
All are wonderful U’s and meet your requirements. I would talk Dad into more visits if possible. Getting into a top 25 med school is a challenge. Some are state affiliated so your chances depend on your home state. The others are private have a 1.5% admission rate.
Vandys got a big greek scene and a great neuro program. My friends at wash u and northwestern have a great social life but they’re also in fraternities/sororities
@hamzag I’ll be there next year 
I think WashU has one of the stronger neuro programs (but I believe it is selective for certain tracks in it…as in you must do a certain number of courses and then apply), Duke has VERY strong biology programs, Rice is strong in STEM but is more known for physical sciences (including chemistry) and engineering. As far as I’m concerned, all can prepare you for MCAT and give great social, EC, and co-curricular opps, but WashU may be a bit less pre-med friendly curriculum wise than some of the others with its unusually rigorous general chemistry sequences (unless they recently reversed it, Gen. chem 1 there was more reminiscent of the version at Caltech full of the real quantum chemistry, not just the basics) and organic sequences and usually chemistry sequences at selective schools are the ones that push students aside (and even Stanford has earned a bad rep. for this). WUSTL also has a pretty rough biology sequence for freshmen and so does Duke (annoying multiple choice tests that are basically only testing higher ordered cognitive skills. Those level questions in multiple choice format is the worst scenario one can ask for grade wise but is MCAT-like I suppose). Rice, I have not investigated as deeply, so can’t say. I just know that they have a lot of cool things going on with certain parts of the science curriculum that may benefit pre-healths. I would argue that I like Vanderbilt for neuro more than for only the biology or MCB concentration/major as it seemed as if it stressed more critical thinking and application which is critical on something like the MCAT. Biology there seems to have too many courses that were more about remembering large volumes of content until you hit some of the very upper-range seminar like courses. Overall, I would consider it pre-med friendly while also having enough challenge so that you get what you are supposed to from the courses. Perhaps some of the rougher sequences at Vandy are math and physics I guess (as in, if compared to other solid private schools).
Also, let’s be careful about judging “social life” at other schools. Again, what appeals to one student body may not appeal to the other. Like Rice students often seem happy(they are also often rated as a very happy school despite being known as more “nerdy” one) being on the more quirky end of things and many are comfortable not being party animals. It isn’t our say to suggest that they aren’t having a good time. Same goes for WUSTL. Also, the intensity of WUSTL for something like STEM can explain a good deal (known for lower GPA’s matching higher MCAT scores than peers).
Lastly, you should not ED based on where can get in. You need to ED to the place you like the most regardless of your chances. If it is a more unpredictably selective school like Stanford or Duke (or really any of those you named), fine as you should be able to get into some other good schools RD if your application is theoretically deserving of admission to such places (note that being deserving doesn’t mean you get in).
@bernie12 in regards to your response about Rice and WashU, as I said those were just my perceptions. And based on the OP, it seems @hamzag would be less interested in the environments like those which you described for Rice and WashU anyway.
As a side note, I could be wrong but because Vanderbilt does not do grade inflation I believe the lower GPA to higher MCAT exists there as well.
@bernie12 I don’t think social life at washu is lacking in what the op is looking for. I do agree with rice because I know a few people from my high school who go there and they don’t look like they engage in the type of partying my washu friends do
Vanderbilt does grade inflation, but in STEM, not as much, it grades like the following classes of schools which are considered less generous than many peers: WUSTL, Duke, Rice, Emory, USC, Berkeley, UCLA, Cornell, Northwestern, and Chicago (maybe Columbia?), Hopkins. These all typically curve (with professors that choose to give fairly difficult exams-talking 50-70 or worse averages. Sometimes it is the caliber of the test and sometimes it is the teaching, but regardless, they curve when this happens) or have averages (for profs. that give not particularly difficult but trick or challenging enough to yield exam averages below say, 80-85,and they simply do not curve at all…this pattern seems more common at Vanderbilt so it means you have little room for error with most professors if you want a strong grade. Again, exceptions seem to be some of the math and physics sequences taken by some pre-healths but at other schools where those give pretty hard exams. At other schools, it is usually chemistry and even biology that have many professors who give the exams loaded with questions that require higher-ordered thinking so they tend to yield lower averages than normal.) pre-med STEM cores to either C+/B- or B-/B at best. The only issue with WUSTL is that its pre-med cores, like some super elites are unusually difficult in terms of the exams written and level of material covered. Vanderbilt’s score vs. GPA breakdown looks more like the other schools than they do WUSTL.
It is also partially major dependent. Like neuroscience (neurofolks at some schools are required to have a solid physics background and chemistry, all of that, so neuro majors typically have decent exposure to all major STEM disciplines in a fairly short amount of time) folks and those in the physical sciences (which typically have more stringent grading even beyond intro. courses) are known to score well on the MCAT relative to other sciences or majors do to the focus on problem solving in a majority of courses, however, often it comes at a GPA penalty, and this is especially at schools known for really challenging courses or instructors in such depts. In general physical science students are already competing with more well-prepared than normal STEM students (who are perhaps looking to go into that field and thus are not pre-health. Sometimes this means they invest less time in getting the grade but it also often means that many will invest lots of time into the material without really thinking about the grade as much…as they have talent in it or enjoy it a lot. It is hard to compete with higher numbers of intrinsically motivated learners) and then the professors in such depts are managing to find ways to even challenge the top among them.
@bernie12 grade inflation at Vandy? Not to my knowledge. It’s true that some of the majors are considered easier to have a higher GPA in, but it’s not because of grade inflation.
Yep. I’ve heard of grade deflation at Vandy but definitely not grade inflation…
What state are you located? For most medical students, their residency determines where they end up in medical school.
@Sophie1295 and @collegebobollege : Vanderbilt is no different than any other top public or privates in its tier. The other majors being easier is a product of historical grade inflation and instructors (whether full-fledged faculty members, grad TA’s, or post-docs) falling in line and choosing to grade easier because they want to keep enrollments up in those departments and classes (and when you look at humanities, they have fallen at most schools…note that even at places like H, people know that even when you take into account any increases in student body quality, that professors in such depts simply grade less stringently than they used to…the culture has changed in such depts since the 70s or 80s). Vanderbilts average graduating and per semester GPA’s have traditionally been in line with and still are in line with the schools I’ve mentioned (in fact, a couple may be a little lower). We all like to believe our schools are exceptional with things like this so that we can say it is harder in some way, but often that just isn’t reality.
This “grade deflation” that y’all speak of happens in STEM (and often in business and economics) at all of the schools I mentioned. They ensure that means in most courses do not exceed certain means by making exams hard and curving up to an arbitrary number, designing the exams and assignments so that the total course average goes to that number and it is common business school practice (among those that have B-schools for UGs in that list) to put grades on distributions, which yes, means many professors will curve DOWNWARD if the distribution of As,Bs, and Cs doesn’t fall in recommended brackets. The latter case is actual grade deflation and the former case is just the departments making themselves internally challenging meaning it is simply being adjusted in difficulty to give the smart students a run for the money. It isn’t truly deflation.
It isn’t like classes at “easier” schools yield higher averages. They are about the same or lower, but with easier content because the student body isn’t at the same level on average (and often isn’t the same traditional college student population). Selective school STEM depts typically challenge students as if students are good and are mostly traditional, so it is just hard from an objective level (as in, if you put your test side by side with that at a much less prestigious school, you may indeed see a HUGE difference)…that is all. Vanderbilt is no exception for STEM and is pretty stereotypical. Many other similar level schools have chem and/or biology courses that are much more killer for example as they grade similar but give much harder exams or work (the same could be said for the other STEM depts…but it is mainly those two where you see lots of variation. Likely has to do with dramatically different teaching and testing cultures in them at a per school level).
Grade inflation in Vanderbilt, I have not heard!!!
Excuse my time but me being kind of sick leads to a different sleep schedule
@bernie12, hope you will have a speedy recovery.
@maiju15 : Again, no one would admit to it, much like a Berkeley student would never (they love hollering about deflation but their grades, as an elite public, are quite similar to “lower” grading elite privates, with a mean over 3.3). Students love bragging about how “hard” their school is in some way and normally they pull the grade deflation card, but it just isn’t reality, especially outside of STEM. Inflation could encompass easy grading (which a student would never admit to because we love to assume that we worked hard and deserved all of our grades) or watered down content/easy assignments (content deflation is another mechanism of grade inflation. Just make materials really easy for the high caliber student body to tackle. We’d never complain and gladly welcome it).
I take all of this complaining with a grain of salt until I see the materials the student is working with and compare it to elsewhere. I just don’t trust when “perfect” students at a selective school claim their is super hard grading or deflation simply because not everyone makes A’s or worse, some even make gasp…C’s and lower. It makes more sense and is more accurate most of the time to say that elite schools are just much harder in comparison to most less competitive schools.
Definitely not bragging about Vanderbilt being hard. You can even make the argument that Vanderbilt doesn’t deflate grades per se, but to say that it inflates grades is exaggerating. Students who have worked hard all their lives with good grades and challenging AP courses have to put in extra effort in STEM courses at Vandy, especially the weed out calculus and chemistry classes. Surely not everyone has suddenly lost their chem/math skills after coming to Vandy! Gen chem has a notorious reputation for a reason, so much so that it was mentioned twice during Chancellor Zeppos’ address to the class of 2019 last year.
From my personal experience, even non-STEM courses don’t give easy As and don’t ‘water down content’ (Econ, writing courses). Some courses, such as those in the Managerial Studies department are definitely easy As, but you’ve really got to look hard for other easy courses. And even in those, averages aren’t A-/As.
Out of curiosity, what is your major at Vanderbilt, or some courses that you found inflated grades, @bernie12 ?