54% A's, 21%B's and 4% C's and most Cs probably morph into "S"

[i_wanna_be_Brown]

@fenwaypark‌ you glossed over this other nugget of advice from norcalguy (although I disagree):

Keep in mind, Cornell has one of the weakest student bodies in the Ivy Leagues. So, you are competing against weaker competition. So, it would be fair for Harvard to be curved to 3.5 while Cornell to be curved to 3.4. That’s the only way to equalize the GPA’s when the students are of different quality.

I had a pretty easy time at Cornell, even as a premed science major. I averaged over a 4.0 my last 5 semesters at Cornell and graduated with close to a 4.0 overall. Then, I went to med school where most of my classmates are from peer schools (like Harvard, Yale, Duke, Notre Dame, Northwestern, etc.) and I am barely above average. Don’t think for a second that a 3.9 at Cornell is more difficult to achieve than a 3.9 at Harvard or Dartmouth.

Ironically, my GPA had me outside the top 20% at Brown and below my med school’s average but I was generally in the top 15% of my med school class on exams.