<p>I bring up the "successful premed gpa=overall student gpa" index because I think that is the case at two places that publish stats on both - Amherst and Princeton. Not many colleges enroll such good students that one could ask the average undergrad to be a successful premed, but Stanford and Yale are two places where it might be reasonable.</p>
<p>The weeding issue is complicated. Imagine a student with a marginal gpa and mcat. She could get two opposite types of messages, formally and informally, from her college.</p>
<p>A. Look, kid, there is no realistic chance you are getting in medical school. Sure you can find someone with your record or worse who got in, but you may as well plan your future around hitting the lottery. Take time off, do some good research, with publications, pull your mcat up to 35, and then we will talk. Until then, don't waste your time or ours.</p>
<p>B. Well, I'll be honest, its an uphill slog for you. Most of your applications will result in rejections. To be realistic, you can forget about places like Harvard and Stanford for medical school. Most of our top students are rejected from those places- magna cum laude and mcat 40 would put someone in the running, but even they will probably be rejected. Apply to a couple of the top places if you want, but put your effort into schools that actually might take you. Every year we have students with records like yours get in somewhere. They are now on their way to being doctors. You could probably put together a stronger application if you took time off, but if you want to go for it now, we will help you. Let's look at where you should apply, select your letter writers carefully, and put your best foot forward. We're on your side. Good luck.</p>
<p>College A will have fewer marginal students applying, and a higher success rate. It will also spare the marginal students the large investment of time, money, and psychological energy in a losing proposition. Some of them will reflect on how difficult they found it to keep up in a premed curriculum and ask whether they want 4 more years of the same in medical school. Some will use this conversation as a start to, perhaps for the first time in their lives, really think about whether medicine is their goal, or their families expectation. Some will find themselves liberated from the weight of a lifetime of programming towards medicine and head off for something they really want to do. Is this bad? </p>
<p>It is easy to vilify the weeders until you see someone spend 3,4,5 years post college in a futile attempt to get into medical school, and live a long time thereafter viewing themselves as a failure. And this could be a solid student from a very good college. Feeding false hope is not a helpful thing to do. Is college A being discouraging and manipulative? Are they just being honest? There is no black and white here. </p>
<p>As BDM keeps saying, the success rate, in a vacuum, does not mean much. By the same token, one person's weeding out is another reality testing.</p>