<p>“5. abcdef claims Cornell screens on the basis that it has a committee that writes rec letters for its applicants. He accused ND of the same thing. His reasoning is that any school with a high(er) acceptance rate than Berkeley (ie acceptance rates in the 80’s and 90’s) must have screened. Clearly that is a wild accusation with no basis in reality.
And, yes, some schools do screen their applicants. Not Cornell.”…</p>
<p>…yeah, i already corrected myself about Cornell having a committee…and I NEVER REASONED THAT JUST BECAUSE A SCHOOL HAS A HIGH MED ACCEPTANCE RATE IT MUST HAVE A COMMITTEE. Where did you pull that one out of?</p>
<p>“#4 was just an note. It’s not even up for debate. I just found it interesting because I attended a premed panel of seniors this week at Cornell and then came back to read another thread discussing the premed senior panel at Berkeley. If I had attended the panel at Berkeley, I would’ve noted the fact that none of the seniors were going to med schoool right out of college as interesting as well”…</p>
<p>…WHY DOES IT MATTER AS YOU AND I AND YOUR COUSIN’S FRIEND’S MOTHER’S BLIND UNCLE KNOWS THAT MOST BERKELEY PRE-MEDs WHO GO ON TO MED SCHOOL ARE SENIORS AND NOT STUDENTS TAKING TIME OFF. You do realize that your experience attending ONE panel at Cornell and what you read of ONE panel at Berkeley is no basis for an argument whatsoever so the fact that you put it up there in the first place is simply meaningless. </p>
<p>“#3 is a statement made on the fact that Berkeley is a public school (and therefore its applicant pool is limited), its freshman (not necessarily premeds) have lower avg. SAT scores (the best basis for measuring student quality across schools), and the fact Berkeley accepts an inordinate amount of transfers from community colleges after two years. I am from Norcal obviously and have seen many friends/HS classmates go to CC for two years, get a 3.9, and then transfer to Berkeley. This is why I believe the discrepancy in SAT scores between Berkeley juniors and Cornell juniors is even bigger than the discrepancy b/w freshmen. Is there a reason you believe that the difference between Cornell premeds and Berkeley premeds might not be representative of the difference between the student body as a whole?”…</p>
<p>…Firstly, you and I both know that the slight SAT score discrepency can be explained by the fact that Cornell and Berkeley look at SAT scores in DIFFERENT ways such that it puts Berkeley (and all UCs) at a disadvantage when reporting SAT scores. Secondly, how do you know that transfer student pre-meds (and transfer students in general) at Berkeley are of a lower quality? Do you think YOU know better than the admissions people? I know many transfer students who are at/will attend elite PhD programs, Law schools, and MED schools. Thirdly, your whole argument with transfer students WORKS TO SUPPORT MY CLAIM if anything because it shows that the med admissions numbers for FRESHMEN-ADMITS who go on to apply to med school (who we’re trying to help on this particular thread) are actually HIGHER than presented in the data because the data is “contaminated” by transfers students who you claim are sub-par. The transfer argument is a lost cause, my friend…so give it up. Seriously, what are you going to argue next? That the fact that Cornell favors legacies puts it at a disadvantage? That Cornell admits higher-achieving under-rep minorities than Berkeley so it’s “better” (because it has a larger pool to choose from and greater recruitment resources)? That Berkeley having Division I sports allows more “less scholastic” athletes to enroll as students? Let’s stick to what’s RELEVANT. </p>
<p>“It is also important to note that two of Cornell’s schools (Hotel Admin and Architecture) produce just about 0 premeds and those are the two schools that place very little emphasis on SAT scores (median SAT score might be in the 1200’s). It is arguable that Cornell premeds would have SIGNIFICANTLY higher SAT scores than the Cornell student body as a whole.”…</p>
<p>…And i’m sure these two schools are very small compared to the other schools in Cornell so their effect is negligible. And I can make a similar argument with Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and College of Environment Design producing 0 premeds and College of Environmental Design and College of Natural Resources having sub-standard SAT averages amongst Berkeley colleges.</p>