@midatlmom - grading matters immensely when applying to medical school. Law school is completely different. I personally know of several of my friends who were Princeton grads in the 1990s who didn’t get into med school. Things may have changed, but from the GPA trends above it doesn’t seem like its getting any easier to get high grades at Princeton.
I agree with @bud123, if the ultimate goal is medical school, better to graduate from Brown with a 3.62 GPA in sociology vs attending Duke or Princeton and graduating with a 3.48.
Assuming this exact same scenario (with a hypothetical MCAT total score of 30), this means a 64% chance of being accepted to medical school with a GPA of 3.62 vs 48% chance of acceptance with a 3.48 GPA. This is a difference of 16%. Source: https://www.aamc.org/download/321508/data/factstable24.pdf
I wasn’t aware of the grading policy at Brown. Indeed it sounds like heaven for a pre-med who needs a stellar GPA. I might change my mind and now argue that Brown is a better choice. I don’t know much about Brown other than its in the lovely town of Providence.