I am not saying it may not exist, I am only stating where it doesn’t. In the pre-med classes, the tests are made insanely difficult by asking for obcsure facts and information that only a student who read the entire textbook (and there are some that do this sacrificing any social life) can do well. The tests average in the 40-50% range and then it is curved to whatever the professor deems to create the low percentage of A’s. I don’t need to read about in the NY Times as I see it first hand from my son.</p>
<p>I only comment about this so aspiring “pre-meds” don’t select to attend Yale based on some misconception that it is a GPA booster. Would my son regret his decision to attend? Not in a million years but it’s because of the people and the culture, even if his GPA has to take a hit in the process.</p>
<p>Kdog, because of the "vibe and “network” and mind blowing resources from the world’s second largest endowment ,Yale is the exception to BA/MD rule. It would be fascinating to have students who took Orgo at Yale and P disclose the percentage of A’s allowed after the curve. In no way was it my intention to imply that that Orgo was easy at Y.</p>
<p>Percentage of students earning As might indicate how challenging it is to get an A but not how challenging the course material is. Don’t students go to these schools to learn or only to compete for As?</p>
<p>Several years ago, one of our Penn undergrads posted data showing that the average Penn undergrad who went to medical school had a 3.35 GPA. There’s no need to get all A’s by any means.</p>
<p>A lot of pre-health offices at top schools seem to sell these claims, which fly in the face of MSAR stats. My son’s school claims that “medical schools notice the rigor” of their curriculum and that a student with a GPA of 3.3 stands greater than 80% chance of getting admitted into a medical school. But they also, seemingly in the same breath say, to be competitive one needs to have greater than 3.5 GPA.</p>
<p>But getting all As in UG is NOT such an outrageous goal by any means. Those who achieve it in HS pretty much know what needs to be done. It does not have to be, but setting low goals is not a good idea at all. Why not to set a goal of all As and just go for it? It could be achieved at any UG and still require less effort than simple passing grade at Medical School. Might as well set yourself up for high standards, while in UG.</p>
Can you speak for every school on how difficult it is? Maybe it required simple effort at your daughter’s UG but not all schools are the same. Do you think my son set out NOT to get all A’s. :o</p>
<p>Also, only 25% of all MS applicants had a 3.8 or higher GPA. How many of those do you think had a 4.0?</p>
<p>The competition is not same across schools. If one did well in high school and went to college where there are only 20-30% top achievers who might be peers one can continue to get As. However, in schools that are highly selective, everyone is a peer and there are only so many As to go around on a curve.</p>
No. Unfortunately, even the individual undergraduate programs don’t publish those complete stats. They only seem to put out there, half truths that make them and their programs look extraordinary.</p>
<p>MSAR publishes the 10th and 90th percentile GPA and MCAT scores along with the median scores of matriculated students. USNWR publishes the averages of accepted students. According to these stats, Not even the nation’s youngest colleges, like our own Cooper school of medicine, admit kids in the 3.3 GPA range. According to AAMC stats the national average GPA is ~3.65 with an SD of ~.2. </p>
<p>Given the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, it’s hard to believe “you don’t need all A’s to get in to medical school” line, just based a few anecdotes like “I got in with a couple of C’s and my friend got in with a 3.3 GPA”. No, you don’t need all A’s, but you definitely need enough A’s to maintain the GPA in line with the averages, if you want to give yourself a statistically significant chance of getting in.</p>
Sorry, but I have to disagree with that. At the highly selective colleges, only the cream of the crop from the high schools get admitted. These super stars suddenly end up in the midst of a class full of super stars. They are not used to getting anything but A+ grades in high schools. Suddenly they are in some serious competition, for those paltry <20% A grades, with literally their own clones.</p>
<p>Because of my proximity to Princeton University, I play host to some of the kids from the various places around this country, that my rather large family is spread around. I remember one kid talking to me about this very issue. Apparently, in their large Econ 101 class, the professor asked how many of them scored more than 1500 in their SAT. He told me there hardly any kids who didn’t raise their hands. Princeton introduced a strict “no more than 35% As” policy in early 2000’s to combat grade inflation. In my son’s college, in most classes there are no more than 20% A’s with the curves set to C’s.</p>
0.193 in GPA (based on median GPA for accepted students last year)
2a. 2 points in MCAT (based on median MCAT for accepted students last year)
2b. Multiple MCAT attempts without penalty
Obligatory ECs
Interview
1/2 undergrad tuition
AMCAS application: time, fees, and travel costs</p>
<p>These are what you may give away:
Better medical school (whatever your definition of “better” is)
Better medical school financial aid package
Less competitive as a med school applicant if you don’t make it (I’m assuming that you’ll spend most of your energy on achieving 3.8/36)
Better career opportunity if you change your mind about medicine</p>
<p>To put the numbers in perspective: You can achieve a 3.8 with 70% A- and 30% A, but to climb to 3.93, you’ll need 25% A- and 75% A. As for MCAT, an improvement of 2 points is considerably harder at the top end of the score range.</p>
<p>Unless you’re a special snowflake, 3.8/36 with the usual ECs probably won’t land you an interview at WUSTL.</p>
<p>A 3.7 and 37 did. I am no sure about her snowflake rating, but she graduated from Duke. She withdrew, post-interview, once she got admitted into UPenn medical school.</p>
<p>What data are you looking for, exactly? I’ve never seen any reason to question the mean GPA data that my school (Duke) used to publish (they’ve since stopped). Stanford, Penn, and MIT all used to publish such data as well, and again I never saw any grounds to question their credibility (MIT’s data was quite bad, for example, so I’d think they’d try to hide it if they weren’t being honest).</p>
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<p>First off, I had a C (and some B’s) while maintaining a GPA that was still 3.8+, so the point is even a 3.8 doesn’t require “all A’s.”</p>
<p>Second, I wasn’t offering an anecdote. The University of Pennsylvania reported that its undergrads who got into medical school had a mean GPA of a little less than 3.4; this is old data and was reported on the boards here by phillysaser08.</p>
<p>Is it so hard to believe that Penn would have above average MCAT scores, get a little (not much) leeway from admissions committees, and have a mean admitted GPA of 3.35, a few years ago?</p>
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<p>Why am I arguing about this? Because I think you’re significantly overstating the importance of an admissions “guarantee,” and in particular I think you’re overstating the relief granted by not having to earn the numbers. I’m telling you that even quite low GPAs – 3.3, for example – still have good chances at medical school, particularly if they’re the sort of kids who do well on the MCAT and attend Ivy League undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, these numbers are hard for most kids. But the sort of kids who would be choosing between a guaranteed track and an Ivy League aren’t like most kids.</p>
<p>I second that, especially considering the fact that Rice/Northwestern are still elite privates. Having those experiences you mentioned at a elite school is probably more intellectually enriching than the typical premed experience that includes resume padding at HYP. </p>
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So far, you made some bold speculation that is difficult to prove or disprove. But I am very sure there’s no way Yale could send 1200+ to med schools that are as good as Northwestern/UCSD.</p>
<p>You speculated that the reason behind the low number of applicants is that “because they’re so good at keeping ‘more desirable’ options open”. How do you know that for sure? Which investment banks hand out offers to people who are still juniors in colleges? A more sensible reason, IMO, is that many of them just didn’t have the grades to get into any semi-decent med school. In fact, getting into some low-tier med schools would very well make their other options look more desirable, especially for Yalies that are not used to settling to anything mediocre. So they just never apply at the first place. Of course, there are always those that never get into any (~10% from schools like Yale) even if they apply.</p>
Well, that’s true. There’s probably only 2500 or so spots like the ones you’ve described in the country, and I’m sure a medical school wouldn’t be happy having half their class from Yale. (You’ll find I’m not so opposed to programs like Northwestern’s, Rice’s, or WUSTL’s because they’re affiliated with great undergraduate programs that a student might want to choose anyway.)</p>
<p>My underlying point has been – and remains – that the value of a “guaranteed” spot tends to be overestimated, because the sorts of kids who win those spots are the ones who are going to be getting into medical school at the end of their four years anyway. A guarantee certainly is not worth greatly compromising your college choice for. I see too many kids giving up Ivy League or equivalent spots in order to attend schools they would never have chosen because they have incorrect anxiety about how hard medical school is to get into.</p>
<p>Back in 2006, when my D was accepted to Yale UG, I questioned the low number of med school applicants/acceptees (by percentage of the student body) compared to many other schools (and way low compared to some pre-med factories). I was told that Yale undergraduates eschewed medical school for greener (or at least different) pastures. More could have applied, they just chose not to apply. Made sense to me, both then and now.</p>
<p>Edit: I agree that one of the better “un-answered prayers” of my D’s life was when she was not selected from the 10-12 finalists for 4 spots at a Texas program. It would have been difficult to turn down.</p>
Do you think my son set out NOT to get all A’s. :o</p>