Do admissions officers know about Cal's grade deflation?

sakky
Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:21:59 +0000

Someone choosing an undergraduate school to play the GPA game for pre-med or pre-law to the exclusion of other criteria would probably choose a four year school with high grade inflation but not a very competitive student body.



Another option is to come to Berkeley, but choose a creampuff major where you can earn high grades for relatively little work. I won’t name those majors, but surely others here know what I’m talking about.

Yet another option if you’re a premed, perhaps ideally combined with the above option, is to take your premed coursework at an easy community college.

*Myth #10.
I SHOULD TAKE ALL OF MY PRE-MED
CLASSES AT STANFORD BECAUSE IT WILL
LOOK BETTER TO THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS.

This is not true either. **Many successful medical
school applicants at the nation’s best medical
schools took many of their pre-med requirements at
community college in the summer or other local
schools. ** By taking some of the basics elsewhere, you
can create more academic freedom to take some of the
truly amazing courses that Stanford offers both in the
sciences and non-sciences. The introductory classes
are taught very well here, but they can also be learned
elsewhere. Many upper division classes in all departments
are uniquely taught well at Stanford.

The only caveat to this is that it might look
strange if you did poorly in all of your science classes
at Stanford and then did well in an ‘easier’ school.
However, if you do fairly well at Stanford, it will not
appear strange that you took some basic coursework
elsewhere to save academic time and/or money.

**Take home point: You will not be penalized
for taking some of your introductory pre-med classes
elsewhere ** and this can free you up to take classes
which are uniquely taught well at Stanford. *