<p>Wasn't sure where to post this but here goes:</p>
<p>So I'm looking at three in state schools as my primary option for undergrad: UGA (ranked 54) Georgia Tech (35) and Emory (20).</p>
<p>UGA seems like a solid option, its just ranked a bit lwoer than the other two</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is a good school, but the grades are deflated and that could hurt my chances of getting into medical school later.</p>
<p>Emory is probably the best school but it is fairly tough to get into and it is also quite expensive. </p>
<p>Between these three, will med schools see much of a difference? How about between just Georgia Tech and UGA?</p>
<p>From what I understand, GPA is the single most important factor with regards to admission, so Georgia Tech's deflation is a major detracting factor for me. </p>
<p>Undergrad school choice is a complicated matter. Much goes on during these 4 years beyond the class room. The other factor is money. If you are planning on med school and finances are an issue, a state school may be the best option. If you are going to go into debt, better it be for a med school. Both UGA and GT are good choices but even though GT may have more ‘prestige’, the difference is negligible, especially when you consider where you are going to be happier spending your four years. The campuses and student body differ quite a bit. The ‘fit’ is far more important. If you are unhappy on a campus, keeping a good GPA is that much harder. </p>
<p>GPA is one of the most important factors that a med school admissions committee looks at but they also look at where the GPA was obtained, the major involved, and other factors that could occur during a 4 year period (personal illness,etc.). </p>
<p>Bottom Line: Pick a school where you think you will be happiest, i.e., a good fit, and you can best afford. Let the prestige thing go.</p>
<p>The other factor is ‘opportunities’ offered by the individual college. Emory has gobs of money and research opportunities per capita. Sure, first dibs tend to be offered to the stronger students, but there is plenty of trickle down. The real unknown, is how much trickle down is available at the other Unis that you are considering? </p>
<p>btw: Emory also offers great need-based aid, smaller classes…</p>
<p>Per capita of general student population - sure this is true, but at a state school, there is going to be a much smaller % of students interested in research opportunities, perhaps to the point that student strength is irrelevant.</p>
<p>The biggest difference between most private schools and large public schools that I’ve found over the years has nothing to do with number of opportunities, or prestige or anything else commonly cited as a pro or con for each. What it comes down to is how the same opportunities are presented to the typical pre-med. Your large state publics are more than likely going to have way more opportunities, but you have to go out and find them - by reading the campus paper, knowing where applications for organizations get posted, talking with the right people. Meanwhile at smaller private universities, those opportunities are presented frequently to students, almost on a silver platter, there’s little effort needed to find them. Neither method is perfect for the typical pre-med - at state publics, the onus is on the student to find the opportunity but that means the competition is less because few people have put in that effort, while at the small private, you have to stand out amongst a sizable group of students who all heard about the same thing. Some students are going to thrive in one environment but not the other (Personal truth - I did really well at my State U putting in initial effort then subsequently doing okay in a small applicant pool, but I’m not uber competitive and would have done poorly in a place where I really had to stand out), other students will excel in either while still others are doomed no matter where they go (won’t put in the effort and not strong enough to stand out in a competition).</p>
<p>In the end, what this all means is that knowing yourself and really searching for the right fit is vitally important. The school that allows you to succeed the most academically, socially, physically and emotionally is the right one.</p>
<p>bluebayou, this is a random question, but from your other posts on this and other forums, you seem to know A LOT about my school. Do you have kids that go here?</p>
<p>Just be aware that schools with reputations for grade inflation and deflation are often not actually deflated or inflated. Remember, a pool in which there are more A’s among a larger proportion of very smart students is not, in and of itself, a good indicator that you can expect a higher GPA.</p>
<p>I see what your saying, but I do not think that is the case here, Mike. I feel fairly confident in saying that the student body, as a whole, at Georgia Tech is smarter than that of UGA, yet the grades at UGA tend to be higher for the most part.</p>
<p>^^^^ I agree, just because some top ivy league schools like Princeton, Harvard, have high average gpas (when compared to other schools) for its undergrads, does not mean that they are grade inflated. It could be because there is just a larger portion of the student body there that does work that deserves an A… I mean think about, if you go to princeton or harvard, or other top ivy league schools, you are pretty much surrounded by some of the brightest kids in the country…</p>
<p>^^OTOH, it is practically impossible to flunk out of Stanford (no F’s, and D’s are rare), but rather easy to do at some public unis, where the science curve essentially mandates D’s and F’s in Frosh classes. So yeah, A’s might not be “easy” at LSJrU but a ‘Gentlemen’s C’ ain’t too hard. :D</p>
<p>^^^^ I guess what I am saying applies to pre-med classes that aren’t curved. I honestly thought it was where you pretty much got the grade you earned, it just happened that the class average in a pre-med class happened to be in the C+/B- range at top ivy league schools while the pre-med classes at worse schools happened to be D/F. If this were the case, then it would def. be because the student body is brighter. Now if they did use a lot of curves then what I am saying is bs, but if they didn’t use curves then what I am saying is mostly true. The only pre-med class that I think is universally curved is orgo, as far as the other pre-reqs are concerned, I don’t think they have curves associated with them…</p>
<p>colleges, I think the difference is that at some schools, where the curve is strictly enforced, by definition only xx% will receive an A, based on a normal distribution. Thus, if the mean of the the test is a 90, that score becomes a C+. That same score at a college without a mandated curve might mean that the average course grade is an A-. (@ Brown, for example)</p>
<p>Perhaps Emory does not have obvious curves in the intro science courses – I say obvious, bcos a Prof can harden a test to ensure that only a few % earn a 90+ – but some/many publics have strict curves, in what become “weed-out classes”.</p>
<p>the only pre-req that I have taken that has a curve is orgo. but the class is never curved down, in other words, if everyone in the class made 93+ on the exam, then the prof would give everyone As, but this obviously never happens. The orgo classes are usually curved to a C+/B-, depending on the prof, and the exams have averages in the high 50’s, low 60s. Highest grade on any given test, is usually a B…For my orgo class your grade depends on the class average, in other words if you score a 79 and the class average was like a 67, then you can assume you got like an A on the exam, but scoring 13 points above the class average takes a lot of work.</p>