<p>I am a football Player who has offers from these three school (I'm in). I am relatively smart (33 ACT / 4.3 on a 4.0 scale), but probably wouldn't be accepted to these schools sans football. My question is, where would be the best place for an aspiring doctor to study? As far as obtainable GPA while playing football, workload, research, cutthroatness, etc. I realize all three of these schools are difficult, but it isn't going to be easy anywhere. Any insight you would Have on any of the three schools would be greatly appreciated. </p>
<p>Thanks. I didn’t know if at JHU the rampant number of premeds caused a problem or anything if anyone knew. Or if anyone had insight at MIT premed. Thanks again</p>
<p>Personally, I would choose UChicago, just because I feel as though the best education can be received at UChicago vs. the others. </p>
<p>The problem with being a pre-med at JHU, is that there are a lot of pre-meds; which means you’re competing with a greater number of students for grades.</p>
<p>MIT does not have great admissions numbers, but that maybe due more to the students applicants. To wit, MIT students must have a higher average gpa. If anything, one would expect that MIT students could be accepted with lower than average numbers.</p>
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<p>Indeed, but Hopkins students still do quite well in admissions.</p>
<p>That is definitely not true. Admission rates for seniors have been in the 90% range these past few years. My D was a premed at MIT who graduated this past year. She was told all senior applicants were admitted in 2011. The modal medical school for admitted students is Harvard. </p>
<p>It is true that getting a high GPA is no piece of cake at MIT, although medical schools do take that into account. My D had a 3.5 GPA and was even offered interviews at some ultra-selective MD/PhD programs where 3.8/3.9 GPAs are the norm. </p>
<p>MIT is particularly convenient for premeds as you will have taken pretty much all your requirements by the end of sophomore year and can take your MCAT early. Many premed advisors at MIT are HMS professors and most students can volunteer at Mass General nearby.</p>
<p>Sure it is. MIT’s posts their numbers for all to see. As arguably the top science-tech school in the world, why do MIT grads have to have a higher mean gpa for acceptance? If anything, logic would suggest that the the opposite would be true. But it is not. Moreover, since MIT is a national private and accepts students from all 50 states, most of its grads have less competitive a state med school to which to apply (ignoring hotbeds like California).</p>
<p>For example, the mean gpa of MIT’s grads a 3.73, but nationally it’s ~3.6. The mean accepted mcat is a 35 from MIT, while nationally, it is much lower.</p>
<p>The only thing you can infer is that MIT applicants tend to have higher MCATs as a group (no surprise there) and fairly high GPAs (again not surprising as a large number go for MD/PhDs). </p>
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<p>There was only one candidate with a lower than 3.28 GPA. The lowest GPA of any applicant was a 3.2.</p>
<p>You can’t draw much of a conclusion on rejections since very few applicants are rejected. (94% acceptance rate in 2009, 88% in 2010, 100% (unofficial) in 2011). </p>
<p>For instance, 100% of MIT applicants with GPAs of 3.5 and above were admitted to medical school and so were 100% of MIT applicants with MCATs over 33. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to achieve at least one of these goals at MIT. The biology department, the most popular department for premeds claims that they have not had a single rejection in many years. The neuroscience department has not had one rejection since inception nor has the biologic engineering department. </p>
<p>Medicine is not a very popular destination for MIT students but pretty much everybody who wants to get into medical school eventually gets in.</p>
<p>If one looks at MIT’s numbers over time, the data points increase, and it becomes clearer that ~3.2 is the floor for its acceptances. Contrast that with WashU which has plenty of sub-3.0 acceptances. To me, those numbers make absolutely no sense (unless your comment below is correct).</p>
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<p>Perhaps true, but you have changed the terms of your response. The OP did not ask about acceptances to MD/PhD programs. He asked only about MD acceptances. </p>
<p>btw: if true that a large number do apply to MD/PhD programs, then MIT should so state on its website (IMO). Perhaps they do not since the numbers are so small in total, that it would ‘out’ the students. Regardless, MIT could footnote the applications with a comment: of our xx applicants, yy applied only to combined programs.</p>
<p>I have made that comment to MIT’s PreHealth Office before. Maybe they believe it is too fine grained an analysis. As far as the popularity of the MD/PhD route it is in part because of the joint Harvard-MIT HSTP program, where students get their MD at Harvard and their PhD at MIT. Those applicants will only apply to such joint programs which are much more selective than regular MD programs. </p>
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<p>But again as I said, there are no MIT premeds with GPAs below 3.2 so we don’t know if they would have been accepted or rejected if such students had applied. There is really no screening of premeds at MIT, so there is certainly no effort to discourage low GPA applicants from applying. It is assumed they can always get above a 32 on the MCAT with minimal studying and get admitted. Typically, the lower GPAs will be found in engineering at MIT, but it is extremely rare for engineering majors to show interest in medicine except for the biological engineering and some chemical engineering students. it does not make much sense for MIT engineers to go the MD route with the salaries and opportunities they get on graduation.</p>
<p>As far as the OP, if he keeps to the standard 4 course/semester workload, even with sports and research he should have no problem keeping a 3.5 GPA in most departments. Research is generally done for credit and helps boost the GPA. A common trick is also to cross-register for some of the premed requirements such as Organic Chem at Harvard and get a fairly easy A. With a 33 ACT he should also have a good shot at getting a 32 or better MCAT which will largely ensure his admission to med school even with a below 3.5 GPA.</p>
<p>Does MIT have massive grade inflation then? How is it possible for no applicant with a GPA below a 3.2 to apply in a given cycle? That’s not a god awful GPA by any means.</p>
<p>No, it is natural self-selection. MIT students that are interested in being premed do not have any serious difficulty keeping a decent GPA. </p>
<p>There is serious grade deflation in some of the engineering departments, but very few engineers are ever interested in being premed. Management majors also have on average lower GPAs but they did not graduate from Sloan to become premed. Also a low GPA in engineering (or management) has little to no effect on outcome after graduation. </p>
<p>The few low GPA premeds are nearly all in engineering departments such as ChemE and MechE. In the science departments (biology, neuroscience, physics, mathematics…) there is less grade deflation and you can compensate an occasional bade grade with research credits which are pretty much automatic As. Biochem and organic chem courses are notoriously tough at MIT, but you can always take those classes at Harvard, which does have serious grade inflation. </p>
<p>For some reason, 2/3 of premeds at MIT are female and they also tend to have higher GPA on average. The one sure way to kill your GPA at MIT is taking on too much work. There is only so many hours in the day and there are simply no easy classes. You can take challenging courses as exploratory (drop the class after the final) and all classes have very late drop dates, so you can somewhat control the downside.</p>