<p>Well, to be fair, that doesn't mean she's a med student at HMS -- my PhD program is located in the medical school, so I could list HMS as my network if I wanted to. :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
wait sakky just wondering about something you said.. jhu is a BAD place for premed?? I thought it was one of (if not the) best place to go for premed in the country?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Note, I never said it was bad on an absolute level. Obviously JHU is far better than the vast vast majority of the more than 2000 undergrad programs in the country. So, in that sense, it's very good, just like MIT is very good. There's clearly no comparison between JHU (or MIT) and, say, Southeast Missouri State University. </p>
<p>But what we're talking about is how does JHU (or MIT) stack up again the very best programs like HYP, for the simple reason that those who are admitted to JHU or MIT are likely to also be strongly considering going to HYP, and are probably not seriously considering Southeast Missouri State. To that point, I would say that JHU has, frankly, the same problem that MIT does in terms of premeds - that the course grading, and especially JHU's premed course grading, is simply too hard. </p>
<p>JHU has an additional problem besides - they actually perform screening of premed candidates, in the sense that all premeds are required to include a letter from the official JHU premed committee, and if the committee does not approve of your candidacy, they will write you a bad rec, which is basically a kiss of death. MIT doesn't do this. So, at least in this regard, MIT is clearly better than JHU. </p>
<p>Premed</a> office guides students through application process - Features</p>
<p>Heck, if you want to get the full scoop on this issue, I invite you to come to the premed section of CC where this issue has been discussed at length. The bottom line is that JHU is probably not a great place to be for premeds, relative to the very top programs like HYP. In fact, I would argue that MIT may actually be better. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, what is undeniable is that JHU does in fact produce a quite large number of future med-school admittees, almost certainly because of cultural reasons: JHU's brand name for medicine tends to draw lots of high school seniors who are strongly considering being premeds, and the large premed contingent almost certainly encourages other JHU undergrads to become premeds too (i.e. when you see lots of your friends doing premed, you too tend to be drawn to premed). </p>
<p>But the bottom line is this: if you believe cellardwellard's logic regarding med-school "productivity", then even using that logic, you have no choice but to conclude that MIT is not that strong relative to some other schools (in this case, Harvard and JHU), which has been my point all along.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Although they do this for a number of reasons, one very common reason is that their records are not strong enough to present a good application right from college. So excluding those who apply as alumni eliminates many of the less strong applicants, and would distort comparisons.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I am afraid that I have to disagree. Not only must you include the alumni, you must do so for the very reason that you cited: that they probably didn't do very well as undergrads and hence need time to build stronger credentials. </p>
<p>In other words, the main reason why I don't think MIT is the best place for premeds (relative to other top schools) is simply that MIT is quite hard, and hence lots of students simply don't get the strong grades necessary to be competitive for med school. By eliminating the alumni, you are basically including only those students who actually did well, but now you're just sampling on the dependent variable. </p>
<p>Look, I have always agreed that those premeds who go to MIT and do well will have great opportunities. My question is, what about those MIT premeds who don't do well? What happens to them? I would argue (and I don't think anybody is seriously disputing) that many of them probably would have been better off if they had gone to another school. That of course introduces the ex-ante problem: how do you know whether you are going to do well at MIT or not? Obviously, you don't really know. Hence, the risk-averse choice is to not choose MIT in the first place.</p>
<p>Now, it is obviously true that some students at HYP also don't do well. Hence, this argument then gets down to a question of probability - how likely are you to not do well at a given school? I think we can all agree that MIT has harder and more rigorous grading than do those other schools, and that necessarily means that you run the higher risk of not doing well at MIT.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong. I like MIT for many things. MIT has great strengths in numerous areas, especially the Sloan School. But premed is, unfortunately, not one of those strengths, relative to its peers. I wish it was, but it's not.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Admissions committees do recognize MIT's unusual rigor, but if you have a 3.3 chemistry major from MIT competing against a 3.7 chemistry major from Harvard, they will most probably take the Harvard student even though they may be at a similar intellectual level.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Heck, it's even worse than that. For the purposes of med-school admissions, it's better to get a 4.0 at a junior college than a 3.5 at a top school. </p>
<p>Consider the following link. It was written for premeds at Stanford, but the logic is generalizable. </p>
<p>*Myth #11.
I AM ALWAYS BEST OFF TAKING ALL OF MY
INTRODUCTORY PRE-MED CLASSES AT
STANFORD.</p>
<p>False. It is true that it is more difficult to get
an A in a Stanford pre-med class than it is at most other schools. This is easier to understand since you are
graded on a curve with some of America’s best
students. Consequently, an ‘A’ at Stanford can mean a
lot, particularly in science classes with a ‘C’ mean.</p>
<p>However, most of you won’t get A’s in every
class, and some of you certainly would have had higher
GPA’s elsewhere. It is also true that medical schools
know this and will take it into account.</p>
<p>However, this ‘forgiveness factor’ is not
infinite. Getting a 4.0 in your pre-med requirements at
a junior college will certainly make you a stronger
applicant than a 3.5 in your pre-med requirements at
Stanford. One admissions officer I spoke with
estimated the bump factor of attending a school like
Harvard or Stanford to be between 0.3 and 0.5 of a
grade point.
*</p>
<p>Here are the MD productivity numbers for some of the top private universities in the US from AMCAS.</p>
<p>This is tkane by dividing the number of applicants by the total undergraduate population. ( I removed Wharton and the school of nursing for Penn). </p>
<p>Only two schools, JHU and Duke have a greater than 5% applicant rate.</p>
<p>COLLEGE %
1. RICE 5.90%
2. JHU 5.65%
3. DUKE 5.39%
4. STANFORD 4.98%
5. HARVARD 4.77%
6. EMORY 4.70%
7. MIT 4.53%
8. BROWN 4.49%
9. UPENN 4.38%
10. YALE 4.22%
11. NORTHWESTERN 4.16%
12. VANDERBILT 4.08%
13. DARTMOUTH 3.97%
14. WASH.U. 3.79%
15. CORNELL 3.47%
16. PRINCETON 3.19%
17. TUFTS 3.16%
18. UCLA 3.01%
19. BERKELEY 2.97%
20. COLUMBIA 2.83%
21.MICHIGAN 2.71%</p>
<p>While the numbers could be adjusted further by taking into account admission rates, as opposed to application rates the overall ranking would not change very much. All schools claim 80-90% admission rates for undergrads and hardly any provide any data for alumni applicants. </p>
<p>The numbers drop dramatically for public universities. UCLA and Berkeley and Michigan have the highest rates at 3.01%, 2.96% and 2.71% respectively.</p>
<p>So, however one analyzes the data, the MD productivity rate at MIT will always come out at least among the top ten institutions in the country. So, while a few schools such as Rice, JHU or Duke send significantly more students to med school on a pro-rata basis, MIT is certainly competitive with all Ivy League schools except possibly Harvard.</p>
<p>Thank you for the analysis, cellardwellard, and I think it only goes to prove my point even further: that this notion of "MD productivity" is a poor metric. That is, unless you are willing to concede that schools like JHU or, apparently, even Rice or Emory, are somehow better schools for premeds than MIT (and I am certainly not willing to concede this point, especially when it comes to Rice or Emory). But, hey, if you truly believe in this metric, then looks like all of the premeds should be champing at the bit to go to Rice, right? Who here seriously believes that? </p>
<p>The major problem, again, that I see with the productivity measure is simple: it doesn't account for all of the students at a school who never have any interest in becoming doctors at all. While that figure is obviously not knowable exactly, simple deductive logic would tell you that the Ivies have a far higher ratio of arts-to-tech students than does MIT, and arts students are less likely to want to become doctors, relative to technical students. This would also account for the prominent position of JHU in terms of productivity, as the JHU brand name draws a disproportionate share of undergrads who are going to be premeds.</p>
<p>But, fair enough, for those who insist that "productivity" is a valid metric, then that still proves my point that MIT is not the best school to go for premeds, relative to other peer schools. The only change is that that group of peer schools now changes to include (apparently) schools like Rice and JHU.</p>
<p>
[quote]
arts students are less likely to want to become doctors, relative to technical students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is a misconception. Actually, statistically far fewer engineering students have an interest in applying to medical school than students in the humanities the natural or the social sciences. The national AMCAS statistics bear that out. This is why very few engineering schools such as CMU, Georgia Tech or even CalTech send students to medical school. It is just not on their radar screen. Most engineers unlike their counterparts in the sciences or the humanities can find well paying jobs right upon graduation. A biology major is pretty much stuck either going for a PhD (aka Mollie) or an MD degree. </p>
<p>The School of Engineering at MIT is over 50% of all students and except for a sprinkling of students in biological engineering and chemical engineering nearly all students applying to medical school are majoring in the School of Science which represents around a quarter of the total enrollment, a similar percentage to Ivy League schools. So, even adjusting for departmental referral bias, MIT would hold its own. </p>
<p>My point was not to show that MIT was the best school for premeds *, but that it definitely was *among the top ten and held its own compared to all Ivy League schools. It does actually better than all of them except for Harvard. </p>
<p>As far as Rice, JHU or Duke, it could be argued that they all have a built-in advantage from their affiliation with a medical school. Rice sends a large number of students to Baylor Medical school with which it has a joint program. If you remove the 10% or more of their matriculants in the program, which are pre-admitted to Baylor on admission to Rice, the number is more in line with other top 20 schools. </p>
<p>MIT is actually the only school in the top 15 without a medical school affiliation which makes its numbers even more exceptional. You have to go all the way down to Princeton at #16 to find the next unaffiliated university. </p>
<p>This raises a separate issue which is the benefit of attending a university with its own medical school. The numbers would certainly seem to show a higher MD productivity rate for such universities (which the lone exceptions of MIT and Princeton in the top 20). But again, is that higher MD productivity rate due to significant referral bias or any inherent advantage. Premeds are drawn to colleges which matriculate a lot of medical school students. In the end, it may actually result in a vey competitive environment for premeds which are left to sink or swim. The weeding out process for premeds at Johns Hopkins for instance is well documented on these boards.</p>
<p>The last issue, seldom addressed, is where you end up going to medical school. While you may not necessarily make more money attending a top 10 medical school, it is very hard to get into the most selective specialties without the right pedigree. If you want to get accepted into Johns Hopkins' medical school, you may be better off going to college at Harvard, Stanford or even MIT. Good luck going to a CC (or even most top public universities) and getting into a decent medical school. If your only objective in life is working in private practice as a GP fighting with Medicare and your local HMO go for it!</p>
<p>In the end, the statement from the Stanford office is largely in line with my own discussions with the MIT premed office. Plenty of students at MIT get into to top medical schools with GPA in the 3.5 range. GPA is only one element of the picture used by top medical schools. Medical schools will give an MIT student some credit for a slightly lower science GPA. The reality though, is that getting a very high science GPA is hard at any of the top schools and none offer a cakewalk to medical school admission. Those who think they can sail through organic chemistry at Harvard and getting an easy A have obviously never taken a class there. Shellshocked premeds at Harvard are a dime a dozen.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, statistically far fewer engineering students have an interest in applying to medical school than students in the humanities the natural or the social sciences. The national AMCAS statistics bear that out.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is that right? I'm not aware of any AMCAS statistics that show this. What I see is a breakdown of AMCAS data by general undergraduate field, but nothing that strictly delineates engineering specifically.</p>
<p>AAMC:</a> FACTS Table 18: MCAT and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical</p>
<p>What I can see is that engineering may be classified within either "Physical Sciences" or "Other". So let's be conservative and go with the former, because it is the smaller number. In 2007, about 4800 "physical sciences" undergrad students applied to med school. Let's conservatively estimate that 25% of them are engineers (the rest being chemistry or physics majors). I think that figure is far too low, but I am being conservative here, so let's go with it. Hence, that means 1200 engineering undergrads applied to med school in 2007. Yet there are only about 80k total engineering bachelor's degrees granted by US colleges every year.</p>
<p>Hence, the ratio of "likelihood" of an engineering student to apply to med school is 1200/80k = about 1.5%</p>
<p>On the other hand, consider all of the humanities bachelor's degrees that are conferred. According to the Census data, adding up just Visual/Performing Arts and English language/literature gives you about 130k total such students, and that's not even counting some of the other categories that are also probably humanities (i.e. foreign languages/literature, area/ethnic/culture/gender studies, philosophy/religious studies, and surely part of the general "liberal arts" category). The AAMC reports that about 1500 humanities students applied to med school. </p>
<p>Hence, the humanities likelihood is therefore 1500/130k = 1.1%</p>
<p>What that means is that, even using highly conservative and skewed estimates, I show that engineering students are significantly more likely to be applying to med school than are humanities students. The bias would almost certainly widen the gap, because I haven't even bothered to include all of the US Census humanities categories and because I think the share of engineering students within the AAMC "physical sciences" applicants is quite conservative, a notion that is bolstered by the fact that the US Census shows that there really aren't a lot of physical science bachelor's degree graduates anyway (the ratio of engineering to physical science bachelor's degrees conferred every year is more than 4:1). </p>
<p>Hence, the evidence strongly indicates that engineering students are significantly more likely to apply to med-schools than are humanities students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My point was not to show that MIT was the best school for premeds , but that it definitely was among the top ten and held its own compared to all Ivy League schools. It does actually better than all of them except for Harvard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And again, I don't show this at all for the simple reason that I question the entire premise of your logic: that "productivity" is such a great way to measure success, precisely because of what I said before: those schools with lots of humanities students are going to tend to produce fewer premeds anyway simply due to lack of interest. But their presence is hardly evidence that the school is not "productive" in terms of what really matters: helping those students who actually want to go to med school be able to do so. </p>
<p>At the end of the day, I think what you have conceded (because you no longer argue the point) that other schools like Princeton held a clear premed admit rate advantage over MIT. Princeton does not run a committee screening process of which I am aware (although if anybody at Princeton wishes to disagree, I am all ears). Nor is there any evidence to show that Princeton premed courses weed out a disproportionately high number of students (although, again, if any Princeton people want to disagree, let's hear it please). Barring any such new evidence, I think we have to conclude that MIT doesn't stack up so well. </p>
<p>
[quote]
As far as Rice, JHU or Duke, it could be argued that they all have a built-in advantage from their affiliation with a medical school. Rice sends a large number of students to Baylor Medical school with which it has a joint program. If you remove the 10% or more of their matriculants in the program, which are pre-admitted to Baylor on admission to Rice, the number is more in line with other top 20 schools.</p>
<p>MIT is actually the only school in the top 15 without a medical school affiliation which makes its numbers even more exceptional.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't view this as contradictory to my argument. At the end of the day, like you said, premeds want to go to a place that will help them get to med-school, and if MIT indeed suffers because of a lack of its own med-school, then that's just another reason for premeds not to choose MIT. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The weeding out process for premeds at Johns Hopkins for instance is well documented on these boards.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Exactly - which calls your notion of 'productivity' into question. Your productivity metric would lead people to believe that JHU is a great place for premeds, yet I (and apparently also you) would say that this is not so. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The last issue, seldom addressed, is where you end up going to medical school. While you may not necessarily make more money attending a top 10 medical school, it is very hard to get into the most selective specialties without the right pedigree. If you want to get accepted into Johns Hopkins' medical school, you may be better off going to college at Harvard, Stanford or even MIT. Good luck going to a CC (or even most top public universities) and getting into a decent medical school. If your only objective in life is working in private practice as a GP fighting with Medicare and your local HMO go for it
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ha! Your presumption here is that those physicians in the most selective specialties also don't end up fighting with bureaucrats any more so than GP's do. In fact, I could make the case that the exact opposite may be true - as those in specialties may actually have to engage in more justifications and more paperwork with bureaucrats. But in any case, this is a topic that we might well take to the premed section of CC and hash out there in front of people who know more about this issue: do specialists actually end up having to deal with bureaucrats more so than do GP's?</p>
<p>But that's just a minor point. The far larger point is that the marginal benefit of getting into a top med-school is minor, compared to the large drop-off of not even getting into med-school at all. It's like the playoff structure in sports. What really matters is making the playoffs. Once you've made the playoffs, yeah, you'll get some minor benefits by getting a higher playoff seeding which will allow you to get more home games or more bye weeks. But the real goal is to just make the playoffs, and you can still win the championship even from a low seed, and still lose the championship even with a high seed as the last Superbowl demonstrated. Similarly, you can go to the lowest ranked med school and still get to top specialty.</p>
<p>But you have precisely zero chance of winning anything if you don't even make the playoffs. Similarly, you can't be a doctor at all if you can't even get into med-school. That's where the big dropoff happens. </p>
<p>
[quote]
In the end, the statement from the Stanford office is largely in line with my own discussions with the MIT premed office. Plenty of students at MIT get into to top medical schools with GPA in the 3.5 range. GPA is only one element of the picture used by top medical schools. Medical schools will give an MIT student some credit for a slightly lower science GPA. The reality though, is that getting a very high science GPA is hard at any of the top schools and none offer a cakewalk to medical school admission. Those who think they can sail through organic chemistry at Harvard and getting an easy A have obviously never taken a class there. Shellshocked premeds at Harvard are a dime a dozen.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Nobody has ever said that Harvard or any other school will allow you to sail through your premed courses.</p>
<p>But I think there is little dispute that certain schools are indeed easier than others. Furthermore, there is painfully little evidence that MIT students get any significant break when it comes to their GPA, as admitted MIT premeds seem to have the same GPA as premeds from other schools. </p>
<p>What that implies is that because MIT is difficult, it is probably not a great place for premeds, a notion that it seems that numerous posters (including myself) now concur. Sad but true.</p>
<p>
[quote]
At the end of the day, I think what you have conceded (because you no longer argue the point) that other schools like Princeton held a clear premed admit rate advantage over MIT.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I never conceded such a point. By every objective measure, premeds are better off at MIT than at Princeton.
- MIT has a 90% admit rate for undergrads, identical to the Princeton rate.<br>
- Far more MIT students apply to medical school than Princeton students, despite the smaller class size at MIT and the fact that very few engineers have an interest in medicine. </p>
<p>You can argue all day long about the value of the MD productivity rate, it is undeniably a better measure than the admission rate that everybody agrees (except apparently you) is meaningless. You can adjust the productivity rate by the respective sizes of the science department or any other criteria, it won't change anything. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Princeton does not run a committee screening process.
[/quote]
Neither does MIT. I don't know where you may have gotten that idea from? If that were the case there would relatively fewer applicants, not more.</p>
<p>MIT has admittedly one of the very best prehealth advising systems of any school, whereby it matches each student with a medical professional in the community during sophomore year. It is a strictly optional system, although no student has ever been denied an advisor who applied sophomore year. The advisor acts as a mentor and will also write an individual recommendation letter to the medical school, very different from the standard composite letter written by other schools. Prehealth</a> Advisors - MIT Careers Office</p>
<p>Princeton has no equivalent advising system at all. Applicants just get a standard committee letter following a one hour interview. Health</a> Professions Advising - Princeton University</p>
<p>The value of the unique advising system at MIT is one of the reasons the 70% of MIT premeds are ready to apply during their senior year, while two thirds of Princeton premeds take a gap year before applying. (According to their own carrer office.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
if MIT indeed suffers because of a lack of its own med-school, then that's just another reason for premeds not to choose MIT.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, the evidence is clearly that MIT does not suffer because of a lack of its own med school. In many ways it has its own back door to HMS, explaining the much greater success of its applicants matriculating at Harvard compared to any school expect Harvard itself. The MD productivity rate speaks for itself. </p>
<p>
[quote]
But you have precisely zero chance of winning anything if you don't even make the playoffs. Similarly, you can't be a doctor at all if you can't even get into med-school. That's where the big dropoff happens.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That issue has been completely overblown. The whole premise that somehow there is a significant group of MIT students who really want to but fail to get into medical school is complete nonsense. According to MIT's premed office, student who fail to get on their first attempt have at least a 76% chance on their second attempt. If they use the Health Advising Office their chances are 86%. This translates into more than 96 to 98% of MIT applicants eventually admitted. That should pop that balloon once and for all! * MIT student who want to go to medical school will get admitted. *</p>
<p>If anything, far fewer of the entering premeds are discouraged from eventually applying than virtually any other school. Surveys of incoming students bear that out. MIT does not have 25% of the entering class aspiring to be premeds unlike places such as Duke or JHU. If anything I would be surprised if more than 5% of the admitted MIT students declared themselves as premed on matriculation. A number of the eventual medical school applicants weren’t even premeds when they first started, but developed an interest in a healthcare career while at MIT. This is especially true of the MD/PhD applicants. </p>
<p>Premeds at most other schools are generally weeded out when they fail their science classes. While it certainly possible to get a failing grade in a science class at MIT, there are enough safeguards to make that scenario easy to overcome for serious premeds. Extensive tutoring, late drop dates for classes, ability to take a class as exploratory (so that a bad grade can be dropped after the final exam) allow MIT student to navigate the premed science requirements without having to worry about a sudden career shattering bad grade. Statistics at MIT also show significant increases in grades after the introductory science core so students can pad their science GPAs with solid grades in advanced classes, not counting the UROP for credit classes where you automatically get an A unless you fail to show up. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Furthermore, there is painfully little evidence that MIT students get any significant break when it comes to their GPA, as admitted MIT premeds seem to have the same GPA as premeds from other schools.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, completely false! You acknowledge that Stanford students get a break and you want people to believe MIT does not? It makes no sense. According to the MIT Prehealth Advising Office to whom I posed the exact question, medical schools are perfectly aware that MIT has a harder grading policy and give substantial credit for that fact. Just like Stanford the credit is substantial although not infinite. </p>
<p>According to the premed office MIT student with GPAs as low as 3.2 get admitted to HMS and we are not talking URMs. Actually, the vast majority of MIT premeds are female and Asian, two groups hardly underrepresented in medical school admission. With private medical schools, there was hardly any correlation between GPA of MIT applicants and acceptance at all. The single biggest factor seemed to whether the applicant truly desired to be a physician. Honing one's interview skills was the one area where MIT applicants needed to spend more time to maximize their chances of admission. </p>
<p>The sole purpose of the science GPA is to establish that the incoming medical student can handle the first two years of medical school. That's it! You have the na</p>
<p>sakky I need to PM you...</p>
<p>"According to the premed office MIT student with GPAs as low as 3.2 get admitted to HMS and we are not talking URMs."</p>
<p>HMS is not indicative of other medical schools. I talked to the Dean of Admissions at HMS. He was a former MIT undergrad who graduated with less than a 4.0/5.0 GPA. He got into HMS but was rejected from every single other medical school he applied to.</p>
<p>Collegalum:</p>
<p>True. I used HMS as an example. According to the MIT Health Career Advising Office there was just no strong correlation between admission and GPA at any of the top tier medical schools except JHU. </p>
<p>State schools were much more numbers driven, but even there the single biggest factor was state of residence of the applicant. Most state medical schools take very few OOS applicants, so even a 4.0 is far from assured admission for an OOS applicant while an instate applicant may sail in with a 3.0.</p>
<p>The overriding factor for the admission of MIT applicants (and other applicants with a science background) seemed to be whether they could show a true interest for medicine. This is more a concern for engineering majors than biology majors. There is sometimes a lingering feeling that an engineer applying to med school may not be really as committed to patient care as some other applicants. This is typically overcome with significant volunteering or physician shadowing experience.</p>
<p>
[quote]
MIT has a 90% admit rate for undergrads, identical to the Princeton rate.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>False. MIT has an 83% admit rate for undergrads, quite different from the ~94% rate for Princeton. </p>
<p>What you actually mean is that MIT has a 90% rate for undergrads who obtain advising. But why is that an important distinction? Like I said, all Princeton students do not have any such distinction, because they all get advising. However, if Princeton did, then surely, those who did get advising would enjoy a rate of admission even higher than 94%. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Far more MIT students apply to medical school than Princeton students, despite the smaller class size at MIT and the fact that very few engineers have an interest in medicine.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And even fewer arts/humanities students show an interest in medicine, yet Princeton has more of those students than MIT does. </p>
<p>
[quote]
You can argue all day long about the value of the MD productivity rate, it is undeniably a better measure than the admission rate that everybody agrees (except apparently you) is meaningless.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I think everybody seems to agree that my metrics are better than yours, unless you want to somehow concede that places like JHU are better than MIT simply because they are more "productive". I certainly do not believe such a thing, but if you wish to, go right ahead. Then I would like you to argue with the same intensity that you have shown with me that prospective premeds should not be considering MIT and instead should be going to JHU. I'm not going to hold my breath. Either that, or you must concede that your productivity metric is flawed. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Neither does MIT. I don't know where you may have gotten that idea from? If that were the case there would relatively fewer applicants, not more.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, sure MIT does. It's the whole advising bit. You said it yourself - some MIT students get advising. Some don't. On the other hand, you seem to want to ignore those MIT students who don't get advising (because you keep quoting that 90% figure). So what that means is that you are using a screen in your analysis.</p>
<p>The fair analysis would be to compare all MIT undergraduate premeds vs. all Princeton undergraduate premeds, and to that, the difference is clear and stark: 84% vs. 94%</p>
<p>Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office</p>
<p>
[quote]
MIT has admittedly one of the very best prehealth advising systems of any school, whereby it matches each student with a medical professional in the community during sophomore year. It is a strictly optional system, although no student has ever been denied an advisor who applied sophomore year.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh huh, and what about those that don't apply in their sophomore year? What happens to them? </p>
<p>Woes</a> of a Premed - The Tech</p>
<p>
[quote]
The value of the unique advising system at MIT is one of the reasons the 70% of MIT premeds are ready to apply during their senior year, while two thirds of Princeton premeds take a gap year before applying. (According to their own carrer office.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Completely and utterly false. Once again, cellardwellard, you've been careless. Again, please read the data more carefully next time. </p>
<p>The MIT data clearly states that only 38% of the applicants are undergrads. In other words, nearly 2/3 of MIT applicants are alumni who have taken gap year(s). Hence, the MIT data is entirely comparable to Princeton's.</p>
<p>Again, before you respond, read the data more carefully. It says very clearly: the total number of applicants is 194, the total number of undergraduate applicants is 73, and it even calculates the percentage of undergrad applicants as 38%. Read the data.</p>
<p>Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, the evidence is clearly that MIT does not suffer because of a lack of its own med school. In many ways it has its own back door to HMS, explaining the much greater success of its applicants matriculating at Harvard compared to any school expect Harvard itself. The MD productivity rate speaks for itself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sure, the MD productivity rate would lead me to believe that I should go to JHU, right? After all, if I'm a premed, I shouldn't care why one school is more productive than others? All I should care about is that, for whatever reason, some schools like JHU are highly productive, right? </p>
<p>Or, maybe there is something wrong about relying on productivity as a metric? </p>
<p>
[quote]
Again, completely false! You acknowledge that Stanford students get a break and you want people to believe MIT does not? It makes no sense. According to the MIT Prehealth Advising Office to whom I posed the exact question, medical schools are perfectly aware that MIT has a harder grading policy and give substantial credit for that fact.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh? And where's the evidence of that? That evidence should be trivial to find: it ought to mean that MIT premeds, on average, should be getting admitted while having a lower GPA than what that med-school would generally admit. But no evidence of this is to be seen. The average accepted MIT premed has a 3.6/4, which is no different from the average GPA of accepted premeds at most schools. </p>
<p>
[quote]
According to the premed office MIT student with GPAs as low as 3.2 get admitted to HMS and we are not talking URMs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And at the same time, somebody from MIT with a 3.7/4 got rejected from every med-school he applied to. </p>
<p>But let's not deal with anecdotes, for outliers are not as interesting as where the data congregates. What is undeniable is that the average admitted MIT premed has a 3.6/4 GPA, which is an excellent GPA (especially coming out of MIT). Hence, med-school adcoms demand very strong grades from MIT premeds, despite MIT's difficulty. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The sole purpose of the science GPA is to establish that the incoming medical student can handle the first two years of medical school. That's it! You have the na</p>
<p>
[quote]
According to the MIT Health Career Advising Office there was just no strong correlation between admission and GPA at any of the top tier medical schools except JHU.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know about you, but the correlation is perfectly clear: of the "top 25" med schools that MIT premeds apply to, you need a certain minimum GPA to even be considered for admission. That minimum is usually somewhere in the low 3's (out of a 4 point scale) for most of those med-schools. </p>
<p>Yet the truth of the matter is that many MIT students don't have such a GPA. Heck, even a genius like mollie had only something like a 3.3 or 3.4/4. Many of those students would have surely gotten much higher grades if they had gone to an easier school. </p>
<p>Furthermore, like I said before, the average admitted MIT GPA is a 3.6/4, which is an outstanding GPA. Put another way, in order for you to just be the average MIT admitted premed, you have to earn a highly impressive GPA. </p>
<p>Now, surely, if there was no correlation between GPA and admission at all, then you would expect that the average admitted GPA would be much lower than a 3.6/4.</p>
<p>I have so few things to say here, but I will say them.</p>
<p>First, though the average accepted premed's GPA is 3.6, as I've said before, the average premed applicant's GPA is almost exactly the same. (They stopped reporting the applicant GPAs this year, but in previous years, the applicant GPAs were 0.1 under the accepted student GPAs.) This indicates that there is little selection for GPA going on, except that the extreme left tail of the GPA distribution.</p>
<p>Also, 3.6 is a very good GPA at MIT, but the average MIT senior has a GPA of 3.3 on a 4.0 scale (from statistics [url=<a href="http://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/subcommittees/pnrap/part3.pdf%5Dhere%5B/url">http://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/subcommittees/pnrap/part3.pdf]here[/url</a>], from 1996-2000 -- and I would be willing to bet the numbers are higher now; see pg 40 and also note pg 35). So while the accepted premeds have GPAs above average at MIT, they are not that terrifically above average. And of course the 3.3 average GPA is for all students, while premeds are almost certainly less likely to be engineering majors, etc. </p>
<p>The question in the original post was "So pre-med at MIT is pretty much impossible?" I think we can all agree that, while students should seriously consider whether premed at MIT is the best path for them, premed at MIT is not "pretty much impossible", and MIT premeds have a strong history of success in medical school applications.</p>
<p>**Probably, the most stunning statistic is just about half of all grades (49%) issued to upperclassmen at MIT are As. <a href="Freshmen%20get%20fewer%20As%20but%20most%20of%20their%20grades%20are%20hidden">/b</a>. </p>
<p>These are the official statistics from the year 2000 from the Registrar's Office and the numbers have edged up slightly since that time.</p>
<p>MIT is going out of its way not to penalize students with bad grades that will blot their transcript. It actually works very hard at removing the pressure of grades so that students are more willing to experiment and take some risks. Among the various safeguards:
-P/F first semester
-A/B/C/NR second semester
-Very late drop dates
-Exploratory options
-P/F classes junior and senior year
-No curved classes
-No + or - grading</p>
<p>MIT will never restrict the number of As given in a class. There is no B or B+ average policy as there is at many other schools. As fas as MIT is concerned, all the students can get an A in a class if they all perform to the expected standard. Why penalize a student who works hard and gets satisfactory results just because some other students did even better? Since MIT has no ranking or honors, there is no need to sort out the superachievers from the solid achievers. </p>
<p>For most core science classes getting an A requires at most 85% and sometimes less if the instructor feels the grading is too harsh. Is that hard to do. Obviously if at least half do, it is not THAT hard!</p>
<p>So, how come if half of all grades are As that the average GPA is around 4.3 (3.3 on a 4.0 scale). </p>
<p>It is certainly possible to get a C (or worse) at MIT but in over 90% of the time the problem arises in one of two scenarios:
-Taking too many classes in a single semester
-Not meeting the pre-requisites for a class</p>
<p>Mollie was a double major, had a horrendously busy schedule, very limited AP credits, took UROPs for pay rather than credit, never elected an exploratory class and STILL managed a near 4.5 GPA, the average GPA of premed applicants. God only knows what her GPA could have been had she tried to maximize her grades!</p>
<p>This whole idea that MIT has significant grade deflation is largely a myth. Students at MIT work hard, but they generally get rewarded for their work, not penalized.</p>
<p>According to the premed advising office, the major distribution for the latest premed applicants was as follows:
-Biology (46%)
-Neuroscience (19%)
-Chemical Engineering (16%)
-Chemistry (6%)
-Biological engineering (3%)
-Other (10%) </p>
<p>It is not surprising that well over 80% of MIT premeds are majoring in either the life science or chemical engineering (home of the Langer Lab, the single largest biomedical engineering lab in the world). Another 10% were in the natural sciences, mostly chemistry. </p>
<p>There is virtually no interest in applying to medical school from many of the larger engineering departments at MIT. EECS, aerospace and civil engineering had zero premeds, which makes sense. Neither did the Sloan school. </p>
<p>Premeds are a small but highly concentrated community at MIT. 90% of premeds come from departments which represent only around 20% of total enrollment. As the life sciences are now the fastest growing areas at MIT, spurring new departments such a biological engineering, the number of premeds is also growing.</p>
<p>"This whole idea that MIT has significant grade deflation is largely a myth. Students at MIT work hard, but they generally get rewarded for their work, not penalized."</p>
<p>You have no idea what you are talking about. It is not a myth. You may have good intentions, but insisting that there is no grade deflation devalues the MIT degree.</p>
<p>In nearly all of my engineering classes, the mean was the B/C borderline. Occasionally, the B/C was relaxed so only the bottom 40% got a "C" or lower. I'd estimate the avg. GPA in humanities classes was probably around 4.5/5.0, so that could boost people's overall GPA's a few points.<br>
When I went there, which was not all that long ago, the avg. cumulative GPA was 4.1/5.0. Having taken undergrad classes at peer universities, I can tell you it is much, much harder to get good grades at MIT. A "B" at MIT is generally the same as an "A" at a peer ivy league university.</p>
<p>I guess MIT could have gotten a whole lot easier in the past 5 years, but I doubt it. Also, you mention that aerospace e. doesn't have a lot of premeds as proof that they are not interested in medicine. That's probably true, but I suspect that after being "unifried" medical school wasn't an option for many.</p>
<p>^I don't know if the average cumulative GPA for everybody when you were there was a 4.1, but for seniors it was a 4.3 -- the PDF I linked in post #76 uses data from 1996-2000.</p>
<p>I wholeheartedly agree that it's really tough to get good grades at MIT, but at the same time, I'm not sure that an average 4.3 GPA, with A being the modal grade given, is consistent with the idea of grade deflation.</p>