If you are pre-health, pre-law, or have any intention of attending grad school, you should heavily reconsider attending a top school. Yes, there are threads out there about whether UG matters for med school, or whether HLS will take people from Cal State or what have you, but I want to specifically spell out the fact it is a poor strategic decision to attend an undergrad where you are not certain you will do well
Let’s first look at three reasonably competitive schools that many students here will apply to.
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Michigan.html
http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucla.html
While the data for all 3 are outdated, one can assume, given trends, that the GPA at the 3 of these schools sits at a 3.3- low 3.4.
For the schools,the average GPA of an incoming freshman is about a 3.8-3.9. The SAT is comparably quite high, to give you an idea of general student aptitude. Yet, students in these schools on average experience a drop in GPA by about 0.4-0.5, and the poorest performers presumably get a 1.0+ drop!
Bear in mind that these figures do not make up for discrepances in GPA. For pre-med students in general, it’s commonly accepted that undergraduate natural science courses at most large universities are curved to about a C+ or B-, with a more generous B to B+ curve for upper level courses (if only because the “weakest” students have been weeded out by that point). Realistically, given these curves, it appears the GPA for a biology, chemistry, and especially physics or engineering major at just about any school is far lower.
On a more personal level, I attend a top 30 school as a pre med. I have seen plenty of bright, hardworking kids get slammed with Bs, where they would have received As at other school. I transferred in from a far less prestigious institution, and I’ve personally noticed the difference as well. The kind person to attend a top school to study pre-med is generally pretty smart and hardworking. Yet, this sort of person is slammed with a B, becuase they are just talented and aren’t gifted at STEM subjects. 50% of students get seriously noncompetitive grades, and only about 20% will do very well.
Law school and medical school are two very number-based games. The median for an MD granting school, period, sits at a mid 3.6 GPA, and for every .1 below this, your chances of admittance generally get exponentially lower. And there is no evidence to suggest that schools will forgive a lackluster GPA just because you went to Harvard.
Though I have less experience with pre-law, everything I have heard is calling it a numbers-based game that is primarily a function of one’s LSAT and GPA - moreso than medical. You may be able to get by in an easy major at a top university and apply to law school, but even English lit at places like UChicago or Cornell probably isn’t a cakewalk and your classes will be filled with very talented writers.
If you’re looking for a business degree or a terminal engineering degree, by all means attend a good school - you’ll make the connections you’ll need when you hit the job market. But unless you are, realistically, in the top 25% of your school in terms of work ethic, carefulness, and intellect, you will probably not meet your goals at a university if you are pre-anything. It is probably a poor decision to attend your reach school, and it may be a poor decision to attend your match school as well.