| "Otherwise, you'd be better off going to your state school and getting a 4.0 GPA; unlike business/law schools, medical schools don't care where you went for undergrad, what counts most is MCAT score + GPA, with GPA being the most important."
with that being said, there is a correlation between going to a better school and getting a better MCAT score, considering you have a more rigorous curriculum as well as more conceptual and reasoning based questions on your tests. Also, don't forget that there is, to a certain extent, leniency to getting a lower GPA at harder colleges. WashU med school, for example, has an average GPA for those accepted as a 3.89 last year I believe. Most, if not all, of the state school students accepted probably had a 4.0, which means that if you're from a school such as MIT or WashU, you would probably "only" need around a 3.8ish to get in. That's not to say that that getting a 3.8 at washu is easier than getting a 4.0 at a state school, because it probably isn't, but at least you are learning more for "thinking based" questions on the MCAT. And no you don't have to be "insanely smart" to do well in premed at WashU. For example, I know PLENTY of people much smarter than me at WashU who have done worse than me because of their lack of effort.
Also, I believe that 12.5% on average of washu premeds get accepted to WashU's med school. Considering that about 270 ppl from WashU apply to med school (from the aamc website), that shows that about 30 get accepted...which really isn't that bad. |