<p>I'm sure this has been bought up multiple times but please just hear me out. Right now I'm enrolled as a Molecular Biology/PreMed major at UIUC, which is traditionally harder than many other schools. My friends on the other hand are enrolled at DePaul and Loyala in Chicago. Now besides pining to live in Chicago, I know that these schools grade easier, which in turn means having a higher gpa. Since a higher gpa is what most top notch med schools care for then I'm better ending up at one of these places. The fact the classes may not be rigorous and may not prepare me for the MCAT doesn't matter since I'm a big fan of self study lol. Also being in Chicago allows me to conduct medical research unlike UIUC where such opportunities are few and far between. Therefore, with a completely open mind I'm asking you all to let me know your thoughts on whether I should transfer to either DePaul, Loyola, UIC, maybe try to apply at Northwestern or stick to UIUC for the whole four years.
P.S. It may be interesting to note that while I'm receiving no financial aid at UIUC, I'm perfectly eligible for merit based aid at most of the City schools I'm considering.</p>
<p>I go to school with people from Loyola, DePaul, UChicago, UIUC, and SIU-edwardsville. It's silly to say that a certain college will get you into a med school. YOU get you into med school. The rest doesn't matter as much as people seem to think it does.</p>
<p>I'm not sure DePaul or Loyola would be the easy way to med school. If you look at Northwestern Feinberg's incoming class this year, around 11 students (10% of the non-HPME's) are from UIUC while there is not a single student from DePaul or Loyala.</p>
<p>umm... don't some colleges have crazy grading like MIT. My concern was that I may be a little intelligent but I know I won't get a 4.0 at UIUC but if I'm at DePaul or Loyola I can still hope. Btw I was talking about transferring to NW not entering their med school, both of which aren't probably possible for me. So any further insights?</p>
<p>I realize that you weren't talking about getting into NU for med school. My point was that Feinberg is a med school located in the city and yet neither of the two Chicago schools have a student in the matriculating class at Feinberg. To me, this is far more interesting than the supposed grade deflation at UIUC. Have you bothered to research the premed resources provided by Loyola and DePaul beyond simply the grading?</p>
<p>I personally believe students (especially on CC) tend to blow grading differences b/w different schools completely out of proportion. For example, here is the "crazy" grading at MIT:</p>
<p>If you look on page. 35, you will see that A's account for just about 50% of the grades given out to sophomores, juniors, and seniors...in 1999-2000. Grades should be even higher now.</p>
<p>thanks norcalguy, but maybe the graduates of Loyola end up at Rush or Chicago Hospital system i.e. "lesser" medical schools, which again I don't have a problem ending up at. Also UIC has a nice medical program, which I might have a better chance at if I attend UIC (because I'd probably have a higher gpa). I want to be a doctor and I'm possibly up for it but a 35 on the ACT or high AP exam scores mean nothing when it comes to college. Only GPA, MCATs and EC's matter and I'm gonna go down trying to do my best.</p>
<p>Firstly, I would definitely echo NCG's thought that grade inflation/deflation is strongly overblown on this forum. Unless you're at MIT or a similar program, you won't get any sympathy, and odds are good that no one outside the people who go to your school think it's grade-deflated; in general the idea is garbage and it's usually just a case of students rationalizing poor performance.</p>
<p>Secondly, i would actually be even more concerned by NCG's Northwestern example than he appeared to be. Even the most competitive programs generally have a couple of representatives from less-prestigious local colleges in the incoming class. Columbia usually has a couple CUNY and SUNY students; Penn usually has one or two from Temple, WashU probably takes a SLU students not infrequently. That these relatively prominent local schools are not represented at all at NW would lead me to be pretty concerned about the health of their premed programs in general, despite the relatively small sample size. Even if, as you suggest, that the students may go to places like Rush instead, every school out there has a few academic all-stars each year who will apply and be accepted to more competitive programs, and I'd wager that the competitive med schools geographically close to these schools are most likely to accept these students from lesser-known colleges because they are more likely to have a relationship with the premed advisors and a past history of accepting students from said colleges into their program.</p>
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thanks norcalguy, but maybe the graduates of Loyola end up at Rush or Chicago Hospital system i.e. "lesser" medical schools, which again I don't have a problem ending up at. Also UIC has a nice medical program, which I might have a better chance at if I attend UIC (because I'd probably have a higher gpa). I want to be a doctor and I'm possibly up for it but a 35 on the ACT or high AP exam scores mean nothing when it comes to college. Only GPA, MCATs and EC's matter and I'm gonna go down trying to do my best.
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<p>Well, your original post said prestigious med schools so I figured you'd be more interested in NU or Uchicago rather than Rush.</p>
<p>Again, you'd have a hard time convincing me that the grading differences b/w schools are that drastic. Personally, when choosing a school I look at premed resources (class size, research opps, clinical opps, etc.) and also personal fit (ie How happy would I be at this school?) with grading inflation/deflation being only a small to non-existent factor. If UIUC is indeed harder than Loyola, the schools that would know this best would be the local med schools (NU, Rush, etc.) because they see tons of applicants from these colleges. It just doesn't seem NU gives much respect to the Chicago city schools.</p>
<p>UIC on average grades harder than UIUC. UIUC has had a lot of grade inflation since the 1960s, but UIC's grade distribution has remained the same. So many people from UIUC believe UIC will be easier, but they end up putting their foot in their mouth.</p>
<p>Stay at your school. You'd be doing more damage to yourself as an applicant if you transferred solely based on your assumption that you might be able to get a better GPA at Loyola, DePaul, etc.</p>
<p>I agree that "grade deflation" is greatly exaggerated. Even the notorious MIT gives lots of A's. </p>
<p>On the other hand, you did list good reasons to transfer: You would rather be in Chicago, financial aid, and your belief that you would have research opportunities. I hope you have checked this last one out carefully. If it really is true, then that could help you medical school application. I doubt that the college itself makes much difference. Difference in numbers of students at NW med school- perhaps related to the size of the graduating classes at these colleges?</p>
<p>and it might look like u transfered cuz u couldnt handle uiuc.</p>
<p>well my dad works as a researcher at John Stroger hospital on new drugs, basically recruiting patients and monitoring the effects of medication and all that jazz. Does that count as research cuz I can get a ton of those studies and conduct them on my own. Also bigred you're right about the fact that it might look that I couldn't handle uiuc, its a feeling thats growing everyday.</p>