<p>^^Well, I think the avg. GPA was 4.3 only for the senior year; I don't think that is the average cumulative GPA for seniors.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don't see how it is possible to have an avg. GPA that high considering the curves that I just mentioned, unless people took a ton of HASS classes. BTW, I was a course 6 major.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but insisting that there is no grade deflation devalues the MIT degree
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Since when does grade deflation equate with school pride or educational value? It is just plain silly. Rigor of curriculum and grade deflation are not one and the same. </p>
<p>
[quote]
A "B" at MIT is generally the same as an "A" at a peer ivy league university.
[/quote]
That simply doesn't match with the reality. Have you ever taken a science or engineering class at Princeton or Harvard? Two thirds of Harvard engineering student end up changing majors before graduation. Harvard has the hardest math class for freshmen in the country (Math 55), so hard in fact math majors at MIT sometimes cross register for it. At Princeton they have a newly instituted policy of no more than 35% of As in any class. No such limit at MIT. Over 50% of grades are As and a 4.3 (B+) average GPA hardly equates with grade deflation. </p>
<p>
[quote]
GPA in humanities classes was probably around 4.5/5.0
[/quote]
Actually the HASS GPA average was only 4.4. For seniors, the HASS GPA at 4.2 was lower than the average GPA across all subjects. HASS doesn't issue more As. It just doesn't issue many Cs. A is the modal grade across all schools not just HASS.</p>
<p>This doesn't mean there are not hard classes at MIT or that students can't get bad grades. Undergrads can take graduate classes if they wish. They can take classes way over their heads for which they have not met the prerequisites and many do. They can take 6 classes per semester and many do. Good luck getting a high GPA under these circumstances. But that is irrelevant to this discussion. Such students would have a very tough time getting in to medical school wherever they went. </p>
<p>The main point is that there nothing inherent to MIT that puts its students at a disadvantage relative to its Ivy League peers if they want to go to medical school.<br>
-It is not especially hard to have an acceptable GPA for those students that want to go medical school.<br>
-There is no weeding out of any kind. It is actually very easy to avoid disasters by taking an exploratory or taking advantage of very late drop dates, something not available at most of its peers.
-There is no noticeable difference in acceptance rates between engineers and science majors.<br>
-In the end, 86% to 90% of undergrads get in to medical school on their first try and 96% to 98% by their second try. </p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Aerospace is notoriously tough. Does it mean that the average GPA is that much lower? I don't know. Mollie would probably know as her husband majored in the department.</p>
<p>All I know is that chemical engineers, biological engineers and mechanical engineers have no problem getting in to medical school, and I don't believe they benefit from any significant grade inflation compared to the other engineering departments. </p>
<p>Chemical engineers, biological engineers (and a few mechnical engineers) at MIT pursue medical school because many are involved in biomedical engineering and such profiles are highly valued by top medical schools. They perform research that is relevant to the intended careers. Aerospace engineers don't go to medical school because there is virtually no overlap betwen their discipline and medicine. Similarly, Sloan grads don't apply to medical school, even though they are supposedly in the "easiest" major. That self-selection pattern is consistent with all other schools with engineering departments. Duke and JHU send significant numbers of engineers to medical school, precisely because they have large biomedical engineering departments, not because of grade inflation.</p>
<p>@cellardweller: </p>
<p>"No curved classes"</p>
<p>********. I took 7 sophomore level classes last year as a freshmen, and 6 of them were curved (the one that wasn't curved was actually curved, just nicely because it was the first time they taught the class). </p>
<p>Prof. Toomre for example, regularly explains how grading is done in 18.03 and even gives out a handout: "the top 25% of the class will get an A, the next 25% will get a B, the next 25% will get a C, and the rest of you... well I hope you don't have to worry about that!"</p>
<p>In 6.041, getting an A was widely understood to be 1.5 std dev's above the average. </p>
<p>So yes, perhaps in the higher level classes where you only have like 10 students, there isn't a curve, but for a huge number of the freshmen/sophomore/junior foundational and post-foundational courses, there is indeed a curve. </p>
<p>Also, no offense to Mollie, but Mollie is a single data point. If you want to use Mollie for comparison, you should also get data from other students in courses 6, 18, 8, 16, 2, etc who were admitted to MIT's PhD program after an MIT undergrad degree.</p>
<p>Also you should keep careful note about the difference between "technical GPA" and "overall GPA." The two are different, and the overall GPA includes HASS classes, making that GPA higher generally. But from what I've seen, many very technical programs and job interviews asked specifically for your technical GPA.</p>
<p>"God only knows what her GPA could have been had she tried to maximize her grades!"</p>
<p>Again, no offense to Mollie, but a lot of classes at MIT aren't as simple as put more time = perfect GPA or whatever. Once you get to the top level, you start competing with super geniuses, and have to put in way way way more time. This is why people do UROP's, because getting that last 0.5 of a GPA isn't worth the effort when they could be learning so much more through a UROP.</p>
<p>"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?"</p>
<p>You don't have to. You just make the material so hard that you can seperate out the wheat from the chaff. I'll just assume you aren't suggesting that there are actually classes considered difficult where students routinely get 85+% on exams.</p>
<p>Differential:</p>
<p>I am not arguing that there are no hard calsses in which getting an A is difficult. This whole thread is about premeds and how hard it is for them to maintain a good GPA.</p>
<p>All the Courses you mentioned (2, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18..) have essentially no premeds. Whether it is because getting a strong GPA is harder in these courses or whether these students have no interest in medicine, I would argue the latter.</p>
<p>What really matters is that students in Course 5, 7, 9, 10 and 20 are not faced with difficult odds in getting to med school. As far as the data shows and there is no evidence they have to take a number of required courses that have particularly severe grading. Whether 6.001 is hard to get an A in is irrelevant to them.</p>
<p>"That simply doesn't match with the reality. Have you ever taken a science or engineering class at Princeton or Harvard? Two thirds of Harvard engineering student end up changing majors before graduation. Harvard has the hardest math class for freshmen in the country (Math 55), so hard in fact math majors at MIT sometimes cross register for it. At Princeton they have a newly instituted policy of no more than 35% of As in any class. No such limit at MIT. Over 50% of grades are As and a 4.3 (B+) average GPA hardly equates with grade deflation. "</p>
<p>Yes, I have taken science classes at Harvard. Have you taken a single undergrad class at MIT? I also took classes at another top 10 school. I also took a significant number of chemE classes at MIT. I've taken more classes than any person should, basically. It's almost embarassing.</p>
<p>Typically, the bottom 40% got C's or lower in ChemE, at least in the core classes. (I didn't take the electives.) The curve was slightly easier than the curve for course 6, but Chem E is still a tough path. I only took a couple of non-engineering classes on grades (18.03, 8.03), but the mean was similar or harder. I wasn't paying attention to the curve for the GIR's because it was pass/no record.</p>
<p>Other than HASS classes, I've never took an MIT class that was anywhere close to having the mean value being near the A/B borderline.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, no offense to Mollie, but Mollie is a single data point.
[/quote]
No offense taken, and Mollie would not mind if her GPA were a less frequent discussion point when everybody argues endlessly about this topic.</p>
<p>^lmao !</p>
<p>
[quote]
Probably, the most stunning statistic is just about half of all grades (49%) issued to upperclassmen at MIT are As.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Exactly - 49% of upper-classmen get A's. But what about those who are not upper-classmen, what happens to them? </p>
<p><a href="Freshmen%20get%20fewer%20As%20but%20most%20of%20their%20grades%20are%20hidden">quote</a>.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Uh, "most" of their grades are NOT hidden. The P/NR record is in effect for only the first semester of your freshmen year, and an A/B/C/NR policy is in effect for every semester after that, including the 2nd semester of your freshmen year. </p>
<p>Hence, half of your freshmen grades are effectively hidden. But, then again, if you apply to med-school straight from undergrad, at least half of your senior grades are also effectively "hidden" because the final grades of your final semester will be given out months after the med-school adcom has decided to admit you or reject you. And in fact, your grades from the first semester of your senior year may also be 'hidden', because med-school applications start becoming due around October-November (with a few stretching to December) and decisions to invite people to submit secondary apps (which meant that survived the initial cutoffs) and invitations to interview come shortly afterwards, which means that the adcom may not see the fall grades of your senior year before deciding not to invite you to submit the secondary app or the interview. </p>
<p>Now, I agree that MIT alumni will retain the benefit of revealing their entire senior year's grades. But I think we also agree that MIT alumni, despite that advantage, still seem to suffer from a conspicuously low relative rate of admissions to med-school. </p>
<p>Hence, if MIT really wanted to helps it premeds, it should do the exact reverse of how it does now - it should provide grade inflation to the premed lower-*classmen. MIT can use tougher grading for its premed *upper classmen, especially for the seniors, but it won't really matter because the adcoms probably won't see those grades before they have to make an admissions decision anyway. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Over 50% of grades are As
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, see above. First off, it's not "over 50%". 49% is not "over 50%". Secondly, you were talking strictly about upper-classmen grades. Lower-classmen grades are harsher. </p>
<p>
[quote]
All the Courses you mentioned (2, 6, 8, 12, 16, 18..) have essentially no premeds. Whether it is because getting a strong GPA is harder in these courses or whether these students have no interest in medicine . I would argue the latter.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would actually argue that one causes the other. Specifically, when you start getting a low grades, you start losing interest in medicine because you know you probably can't get into med-school. </p>
<p>
[quote]
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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I have to profoundly disagree. The difference is almost certainly statistically significant. A 0.1 between applicants and admittees probably means about a 0.2 difference between admittees and rejectees (because rejectees will obviously have a lower average GPA than the entire applicant pool). A 0.2 difference in GPA is huge when you're talking about nearly 200 data points (as, this year, 194 MIT premeds applied), a 0.2 difference is almost certainly going to fail a two-sample t-test and hence reveal statistical significance.</p>
<p>Now, of course, I don't know that for sure, because I don't have information about the variances of the GPA's. But with that many data points, and a 0.2 GPA delta (when the entire range of GPA's who even apply stretches from 2.4 to 4.0, hence only a 1.6 GPA total range), it is hard for me to see how it wouldn't fail the t-test and hence reveal statistical significance.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yes, I have taken science classes at Harvard. Have you (cellardwellard) taken a single undergrad class at MIT?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ouch. </p>
<p>It's interesting that cellardwellard accused me of not ever having been at MIT, when he may not have went himself. See below.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What really matters is that students in Course 5, 7, 9, 10 and 20 are not faced with difficult odds in getting to med school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh really? Course 10 students are not faced with difficult odds in getting to med-school? Is this some kind of a joke? MIT Chemical Engineers (course 10) are not faced with (significant) grade deflation? Really? Is that so? </p>
<p>
[quote]
Also, no offense to Mollie, but Mollie is a single data point.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I completely agree that mollie is a single data point. So let's use the entire data set. What do I see but only a 74% chance for MIT premeds to get admitted to med-school. What happened to the other 26%? </p>
<p>Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office</p>
<p>Look, I harp on this point simply to illustrate that I think we do have a problem here. For whatever reason, there seems to be a relatively large (compared to peer schools) cohort of MIT premeds who, for some reason, can't get into med-school. Look, I'm a reasonable guy. I'm not asking for a 100% admit rate. But I don't think it's unreasonable to inquire as to why MIT doesn't seem to enjoy the kind of premed success rate that its peer schools do.</p>
<p>
[quote]
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
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Look, I can agree that MIT premed is not "pretty much impossible" and that MIT premeds do indeed have a strong history of success. In fact, one would be stunned to expect otherwise, considering the sheer raw horsepower that MIT students bring to the table. I have never once argued that MIT is "bad" for premeds on any absolute level.</p>
<p>But that's not the interesting question. The interesting question to me is where is the best school for a future premed to go, especially one who is good enough to get into MIT? The truth is, if you're good enough to get into MIT, you're good enough to get into other top schools, and if you're going to be a premed, you may well be better off at one of those other places. I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. </p>
<p>The other interesting question is, how can MIT be made better for premeds (assuming that that is, in fact, a desirable goal)? One quick fix is to simply get more advisors. Like I asked before, and still have not received a relevant response, why aren't there enough premed advisors for everybody who wants one? Now, sure, I can agree that if you ask for an advisor early in the process, you will are very likely get one. But why is that even an issue? Why should it matter if you're late? MIT has a $10 billion endowment, and yet not every premed can get an advisor? Come on, really, what's up with that? That seems to be just a trivially easy thing to fix. You never hear premeds at MIT's peer schools complaining that they can't get an advisor no matter how late they ask for one. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Exactly - 49% of upper-classmen get A's. But what about those who are not upper-classmen, what happens to them?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, freshmen don't fare much worse than upperclassmen. </p>
<p>Fall semester 2007 freshmen had the following distribution of grades (1997 in parentheses):
-A - 30% (24%)
-B - 38% (31%)
-C - 15% (19%)</p>
<p>Spring semester 2006 (1996) freshmen grade distribution was
-A -44% (24%)
-B -36% (38%)
-C -11% (24%)</p>
<p>Effectively, for the first semester where grades are recorded on the GPA, As have nearly doubled and Cs cut by more than half over the past ten years.</p>
<p>In addition to the fact that the average MIT student is probably better prepared than ten years ago (especially the bottom quartile), three other factors have contributed to the upward creep in GPA.</p>
<p>-Elimination of P/NR for the second semester freshmen year. Many fewer students are taking upperclass courses for which they are not qualified. (6.001, 6.002, 2.001, 5.60,..)
-Much better tracking and advising of students with failing grades (5th week flag)
-Elimination of curved classes as a matter of official MIT policy in 2002.</p>
<p>The last element has had a major effect for all undergrads and has contributed to an upward creep in average GPA for sophomores, juniors,and seniors.</p>
<p>Sophomore grades have also been creeping up since the introduction of the exploratory option. the average sophomore GPA is now 4.3 as compared to 4.1 as late as 2001.</p>
<p>All of this detailed in an internal report accessible to all within the MIT community at:
<a href="https://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/mitonly/P-NRandExp.pdf%5B/url%5D">https://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/mitonly/P-NRandExp.pdf</a></p>
<p>With an average GPA at 3.3/4.0 (B+) and rising it is hard to claim that MIT has any grade deflation any longer (if it ever had any). There has been close to a full one third of a grade increase in less than ten years. </p>
<p>The median GPA is significantly higher than the average GPA, (90% of all recorded grades are As and Bs) and is around 3.5. </p>
<p>Princeton quotes a slightly lower GPA average of 3.23. It is hard to see with their 35% maximum A policy how it could rise. If anything it will drop. Surveys of Harvard students claim a 3.4 GPA average not significantly different.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's interesting that cellardwellard accused me of not ever having been at MIT, when he may not have went (sic) himself.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To put the record straight-</p>
<p>-I did go to MIT as a graduate student. Course 1. Took classes in Course 6, 14, 15, and at Harvard.
- I have been an active alumni for over 25 years and have a number of people I graduated with on the MIT faculty.
-I have a daughter currently enrolled as a sophomore in Course 9.
-I am an EC (educational counselor) for undergrad applicants and spend a lot of time with the admissions office, career office, faculty and administration, which I meet around once a month. The information I relay is generally current and validated with multiple sources.</p>
<p>
[quote]
All I know is that chemical engineers, biological engineers and mechanical engineers have no problem getting in to medical school, and I don't believe they benefit from any significant grade inflation compared to the other engineering departments.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think you're probably right for 14, 15, 7, 9, and 20, from what I've heard about how they grade, but you don't seem to be even close for 10 and 6 and 2 and "the other engineering departments". Although I've personally not taken a single technical class that was not graded on a curve here aside from Unified, (and I'm a senior), you could argue I'm just not in the right department. On the other hand, I fail to see how not being graded on a curve necessarily helps anyone. Sure it means that it's possible that everyone gets an A, but it also means it's possible that no one gets an A. The latter of which definitely became a problem real quick in Unified.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, freshmen don't fare much worse than upperclassmen.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But they are worse. Which only serves to reinforce what I was saying: senior grading does tend to be easier than freshman grading, but that doesn't really help you because, if you're applying as an undergrad, the adcoms won't see many of your senior grades anyway. And we have already established that, for some reason, MIT alumni applicants seem to experience significant problems in getting into med-school. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Princeton quotes a slightly lower GPA average of 3.23. It is hard to see with their 35% maximum A policy how it could rise. If anything it will drop. Surveys of Harvard students claim a 3.4 GPA average not significantly different
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yet at the end of the day, the indisputable truth is that MIT still has a lower premed admit rate than those other schools. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The information I relay is generally current and validated with multiple sources.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No more so than mine. </p>
<p>Hence, I invite the curious readers to do the following. Don't believe my arguments unquestioningly. And don't believe cellardwellard's arguments unquestioningly either. Instead, carefully examine both of our arguments, and also examine the data that we have presented to support our arguments, and then draw your own conclusion about what the truth really is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
With an average GPA at 3.3/4.0 (B+) and rising it is hard to claim that MIT has any grade deflation any longer (if it ever had any). There has been close to a full one third of a grade increase in less than ten years.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is ancient history so is possibly not relevant today, but there was a time when an 8.01 professor flunked 60% of the students. The administration tried to get her to reverse some of her decisions, but she refused, stating that the students had not performed up to her expectations. As she was a respected, tenured professor, there was no way to have her decisions changed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The information I relay is generally current and validated with multiple sources.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Having multiple sources does not trump a primary source. I know how the classes I took were graded. Same goes for pebbles.<br>
You could argue that I'm out-of-date but pebbles is a senior.</p>
<p>Another point is that I don't think the student bodies of many of MIT's peer universities are of the same quality in terms of academic strength--mainly because non-academic criteria are more prominent in their admissions process (even when they are selecting for potential science/engineering majors.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
All of this detailed in an internal report accessible to all within the MIT community at:
<a href="https://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/m...P-NRandExp.pdf%5B/url%5D">https://web.mit.edu/committees/cup/m...P-NRandExp.pdf</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wouldn't it more convincing if you choose a link that can actually be viewed by those who are not part of the MIT community (i.e. those who don't have a MIT web browser security certificate)? After all, this thread is supposed to be directed towards who are considering becoming - but are not yet - MIT students.</p>
<p>I don't know of any universities that post grade distributions on their web sites, especially for general access. </p>
<p>I don't believe it would be proper or even legal for me to download and repost an internal report. Under 'fair use' principles I can quote excerpts without infringing any copyrights. </p>
<p>I am currently compiling average GPAs for different departments from various sources. What seems to be emerging is that some of the highest average GPAs are actually in some of the departments reputed to be among the most "rigorous" such as Course 18 (Math), Course 6 (EECS) and Course 10 (Chemical Engineering), and the lowest in departments such as Course 15 (Management) which seems counterintuitive. Engineering majors as a group do not appear to have a deflated GPA as compared to other students, especially science majors. If anything the only department that seems to have any consistent grade deflation is Sloan.</p>
<p>Whether the higher average GPAs of certain engineering departments is due to a referral bias of higher achieving students and weeding out of lower performing students, or alternatively to tougher grading in departments perceived as less rigorous is hard to tell. What is clear is that average grades have been rising steadily throughout all departments for the past ten years, a process that has accelerated since elimination of curved grading in 2002. </p>
<p>So, if certain engineering departments don't send any applicants to medical school it is not because they are penalized by a deflated GPA. A more reasonable explanation is that certain majors offer very few electives making med school preparation difficult.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So, if certain engineering departments don't send any applicants to medical school it is not because they are penalized by a deflated GPA. A more reasonable explanation is that certain majors offer very few electives making med school preparation difficult.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, whatever it is, the point still stands. As I've been saying throughout this thread, something has to account for the conspicuously lower premed success rates that MIT students have, compared to students at peer schools. We can quibble about the reasons until the end of time, but the bottom line is that the difference in the numbers is still there, whether we like it or not. </p>
<p>Personally, I think that the easiest and quickest 'win' for MIT, the truly low-hanging fruit, is to simply provide advising for every premed who wants it. I've said it before and I'll say it again - why is this such a problem? You don't hear students at peer schools complaining that they can't get premed advisors. Maybe I'm missing something, but is it really that hard for MIT to get enough advisors for everybody? Really?</p>
<p>Woes</a> of a Premed - The Tech </p>
<p>
[quote]
What is clear is that average grades have been rising steadily throughout all departments for the past ten years, a process that has accelerated since elimination of curved grading in 2002
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Curved grading has been eliminated since 2002? Oh really? Are you sure?</p>
<p>Current MIT students, what do you have to say about that? Are any of your courses curved?</p>
<p>Seems to me that Laura N, '09, thinks that there are curves.</p>
<p>*Test grades are generally curved... *</p>
<p>MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: "Tests @ MIT"</p>
<p>So does Scott, '10.</p>
<p>*P.S. How curved is the average course grade?</p>
<p>It varies. A lot.</p>
<p>For example, the average grade on my last 7.013 (introductory biology) exam was in the mid-eighties--probably a lot like what you remember from high school. 3.091 (solid state chemistry) tests were the same way; a significant fraction of the class would get perfect scores, or close to it.</p>
<p>In contrast, there was one VERY memorable exam last fall in 8.012 (the more difficult mechanics class) where the average was somewhere around 40%.</p>
<p>In general, the latter is much more meaningful--if you look at the grade distribution, you see a nice, symmetric bell curve. This is a good thing. In a class where the grades are bunched together at the top of the spectrum, it's really hard to tell who <em>really</em> understands what's going on.</p>
<p>(On that 8.012 test, it turned out that if you did better than one standard dev. below average, you got a C. On pass/no-record, that's all we cared about.) *</p>
<p>MIT</a> Admissions | Blog Entry: "A Blog Entry About Transition"</p>
<p>Hmm, so if curving has stopped since 2002, well, apparently, somebody forgot to tell those students that.</p>
<p>Well, curving at MIT is supposed to be done in such a way that it only helps students, not hurts them -- that is to say, if the class average is high, you're supposed to straight-scale, but if class average is low (as is typical for tests at MIT) you're supposed to curve.</p>
<p>I believe that is a formal MIT guideline. I never had a test with a class average above 80 that was curved. (And I took vanishingly few tests with a class average above 80.)</p>
<p>I've been sort of hoping this thread would die, but apparently not. So here's a slightly different perspective on the issue, and a question.</p>
<p>What would be considered a "safe" school at which to study pre-medicine? I know that at Stanford, many freshmen begin with this major, only to drop out because the work is so difficult. On the other hand, at some liberal arts colleges, the retention in pre-med classes is quite high, probably because the work is not so challenging or intense. And because the work is not so challenging or intense, relatively few graduates gain acceptance to medical schools, especially when compared to research universities like Stanford or MIT.</p>
<p>It seems to me that there's risk both ways. </p>
<p>If a prospective student is interested in scientific research, engineering, economics, or any of the other fields available at MIT, he or she can switch to an area of study that will still lead to an interesting career. And MIT offers one benefit over Stanford, Princeton, or Harvard that hasn't really been addressed in this thread: the opportunity to study science among a critical mass of others interested in science/mathematics/engineering. Yes, the courses are hard, and yes, maybe you'll suffer. But you'll all suffer together, and in some ways, I think that actually helps students persist and learn to succeed in science and engineering. IHTFP/IHTFP.</p>
<p>CalAlum:</p>
<p>I agree that there is no probably no such thing as a safe school for premeds. There is no evidence that there is a college picking strategy that substantially increases your chance of admission to med school whether it is an Ivy, top public, LAC or more science/engineering focused school or going to your local CC. </p>
<p>In relation to the size of its undergraduate population, only six schools do better than MIT and by only small margins. Comparing the number of students claiming to be premeds with actual number of applicants also puts MIT near the top. There is absolutely no weeding out culture for premeds at MIT. Median GPA now approaches 3.5/4.0 and average MCAT scores of MIT applicants are well into the 90th percentiles in all sections. Science and engineering majors do just as well in getting admitted. Course 9 (BCS) claims an uninterrupted ten year 100% admission rate and Course 10 (Chemical engineering) admission rate is nearly as high. Finally, based on statistics compiled by the Career Office, virtually all MIT medical school applicants eventually get in. If you are good enough to get into MIT, there are much harder challenges than being accepted to med school.</p>