<p>Norcalguy, it’s not just 4 or 5 schools. The same sort of analysis would be reached if we were talking about Caltech, the Ivies, the LAC’s, Duke, Chicago, Berkeley or whatever. I don’t want to repost all my old posts, I’m sure you can go back and search through them all either here or on the old CC site. The basic point is, holding the quality of the students constant, there seems to be a strong correlation between a school that is grade inflated and the success of its students in getting into med-school. I have already demonstrated that MIT premeds do not get into med-school at the same rate as do premeds from HYPS. The same thing is true when you look at premeds from Caltech. Berkeley students do not get in at the same rate as students at equivalent schools. And so forth and so on. </p>
<p>And that calls the response in your second paragraph into question. You might say that EC’s and essays and all that stuff might in fact be the explanatory factor. But again, why is it that schools that we know to have grade deflation (like MIT, Caltech, Berkeley, Michigan, Cornell, etc.) all ‘coincidentally’ seem to have low premed success rates, relative to peer schools? Is it always because the students at MIT AND Caltech AND Berkeley AND Michigan, etc. etc. all have bad EC’s and essays and all that stuff? If so, I think you’re asking me to believe in one hell of a coincidence. MIT, Berkeley, Michigan, Chicago, Cornell, etc. - these are all very different schools with very different student bodies and very different student tastes. The one general theme that these schools share is grade deflation, relative to their peers. So you might be able to explain away the MIT data by saying it has something to do with EC’s and other stuff. You might be able to explain away the Caltech data with the same argument. But now you’re basically trying to explain away the data from all the other schools as well. </p>
<p>The bottom line is this. There are schools out there that are known for difficult grading. There are other schools that are known for easier grading. The difficult-grading schools tend to have lower acceptance rates to med-school than peer schools that grade easier. I would therefore argue that grades have something to do with it. If you want to assert that it is something else that is happening, like essays, fine, but then you have little choice but to be asserting that MIT students, Caltech students, Chicago students, Berkeley students, etc. etc. ALL write bad essays. Or ALL have bad recs’. Or whatever. I think that that’s a far stronger and far less sustainable assertion than anything I have made.</p>
<p>However, even if you really are correct, then that still serves to validate my basic point. So let’s say that you are right and the grade deflation really has nothing to do with it. Yet the fact is, it doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day, the grade-deflated schools still consistently send a lower percentage of students into med-school than do the grade-inflated schools. Maybe the grade-deflation doesn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe it really does have to do with, as you say, EC’s or essays, or whatever it is. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, something is happening to cause those grade-deflated schools to have a lower success rate of getting premeds into med-school. I assert that it is the grade deflation. You may assert that it is something else that these grade deflated schools have, but not the grade deflation itself. But whatever it is, it’s still something. We can quibble all day and all night about what that something is. But the basic point still stands - if you want to maximize your chances of going to med-school, you should not go to a grade-deflated school.</p>