<p>Hi. I'll be attending college in the fall. I know WashU has a great medical school but does that translate into success as an undergrad? Also, how well do pre-meds do at Harvey Mudd and CMU since both are known to be more computer science/engineering schools? And is UCSD good for pre-meds despite the fact that there are a million students to one professor?</p>
<p>Also, is maintaining a high GPA easy/hard at these schools?</p>
<p>It does not translate, but WUSTL <em>does</em> happen to have a good undergraduate program. UC’s in general are bad options.</p>
<p>a high gpa will definitely be tough at WashU, you’ll have to work really hard. UCSD has great biology programs but the size can be a turn off. Although CMU has a great engineering school, the Mellon College of Science is great as well and earning a high gpa there will probably be easier than at WashU. Harvey Mudd seems intense only because it’s meant for people with true passions in science/engineering. I’m not sure how concerned they are with pre-meds.</p>
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<p>Well only 6 students in HMC’s history have graduated with a 4.0 GPA. Don’t go there if you are pre-med.</p>
<p>Er, good news! You don’t need a 4.0 to get into med school.</p>
<p>Yeah, really. The average nation-wide is what, 3.6? 4.0 is almost overkill, especially if you could be spending the time to bulk up other parts of your application.</p>
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<p>Yeah because the fact that it’s near impossible to get a 4.0 at HMC doesn’t imply anything about the overall difficulty of getting a high GPA or (lack of) grade inflation in general. Bravo!</p>
<p>Of course in the hypothetical, one might expect some kind of abstract connection in most cases. But upper-tier schools routinely have large clusters of students around the 3.3-3.8 bracket. I’m not arguing that HMC is that way, only that it’s very possible.</p>
<p>One data point doesn’t make a trend.</p>
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<p>No, HMC is actually one of the hardest schools in the country with some of the lowest GPAs for top tier schools. It’s known for not practicing grade inflation. There have been dozens of “should I go to HMC for premed?” threads and the answer is always a resounding no. And pray tell how the proportion of students getting a 4.0 is one data point. It’s based on about 5,000 (total number of people ever go to Mudd) data points. It’s pretty well known that GPAs follow a decent normal distribution at most schools (since grades in individual classes tend to follow normal distributions), so I don’t know how you think this is an “abstract connection.” Seems to me to be a logical connection based on knowledge of statistics.</p>
<p>And HMC is not like the rest of the top-tier, grade-inflating, schools in any way. It’s similar to Caltech and MIT, not HYPE and the like.</p>
<p>I refuse to believe any school is grade deflated until I actually see statistical evidence. Cornell, WashU, Hopkins, Swarthmore, MIT, etc. are all supposed to be grade deflated but when you look at the numbers posted on the web, that’s not the case. Cornell’s avg. GPA is 3.4. MIT, after freshman year, gives out 40%+ A’s. Swarthmore’s average GPA is 3.5. Yet, their students are all under the delusion that they somehow have it tougher than students at other top schools.</p>