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<p>I was assuming that the student with a 3.2/36 was adamant about getting an MD. If the student was choosing not to consider any DO schools then the committee probably would not give a letter or they will write a negative letter.</p>
<p>My school started writing committee letters last year. I don’t know if they are going to stop kids with low stats from applying by not giving them a letter.</p>
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<p>The problem with your definition is that a large sample of people will NEVER all score the same. The first and second definitions are actually (under certain conditions) equivalent in that if a prof sets the threshold low enough that 30-40% of students are getting As then it is likely that the students are all getting very high scores because the course is not challenging enough to pull the high end of the distribution and create some differentiation. By having an education system where the average grades are above a B-/C+ (i.e., often as high as an A-/B+), we have effectively made it impossible to discriminate between average, above average, and stellar performance – we simply give the average students 3.5-3.7 GPAs, above average students get 3.6-3.8 GPAs, and stellar students get 3.7-3.9 GPAs. This makes it impossible to really differentiate students since the “noise” of a different professor or class essentially covers up the actual difference. That is where I would say grade inflation is problematic. At a top tier school, students should STILL get all levels of grades. A 3.8 at Princeton SHOULD be different from a 3.8 at UC-Davis (but it’s probably not).</p>
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It may be intentionally designed in this way. Haven’t you heard of ECs? They may prefer to differentiate the students by the quality of their ECs instead, rather than rely too much on academics. In this way, they have more freedom in deciding/controlling the composition of their entering class without running the risk of being sued/challenged. (e.g., the U of Michigan Law School case a few years ago. It got into a big trouble just because they put numbers on everything. When most things are not in numbers, it is easier for them to achieve what they really want and nobody can find a fault of what they are doing.)</p>
<p>In other word, the GPA/academics may be just used as a screening device only. As long as a student’s GPA is above some threshold, he or she is considered as “passing” – meaning that he is competent enough to enter this career path. When a top private college intentionally does not want to differentiate their students, they want most of their students to be considered as “passing” on this screening test used by most medical schools. After the medical school screens the students based on their numeric metrics, they use other non-numeric metrics to decide which students they want to admit. Both these colleges and medical schools are happy because both get what they prefer to have.</p>
<p>An analogy: many high power prep schools recruit the students with a very high standard test score before these students are accepted. Then, they do not rank their students. They want the top colleges to consider most of their students as very qualified students. (Indeed they may be.) Many top colleges are willing to accept that most students from these prep schools are good (I believe this is true because the acceptance rates to top colleges from prep schools tend to be very high), even though these prep schools do not differentiate their students intentionally. Both the prep schools and the top colleges are happy about this practice.</p>
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<p>As far as the medical school’s screening test is concerned, a 3.75/3.8 student and a 3.9 student are considered as about the same – both of them pass their academic criteria. You do not get much bonus point by getting 3.9 instead of a 3.8.</p>
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<p>A 3.8 from any college except podunk ones are considered as good enough for most medical schools. For most medical schools except for the very top ones, they may not have much interest in distinguishing these two students because both of them are academically good enough from their point of view.</p>
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<p>I always thought that medical schools would look at a 3.75 and a 3.9 differently, but I guess I was wrong. </p>
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<p>A 3.8 from Princeton IS considered different from a 3.8 from a state school. Princeton is considered one of the top three schools in the country. Just by going to Princeton and getting a good grades there gives you a boost in your application. (Just by going to any top 10 school and doing well there gives you a boost in your application). sorry for the terrible grammer, I had a long night… =)</p>
<p>^It does gives you a boost to your applications; however, should it? Is it actually significantly more difficult to achieve a 3.8 at Princeton vs a strong state school? The fact that half of the students receive an A in most classes says “probably not.” (The truth is no one can say for sure.)</p>
<p>^Considering the caliber of student it takes to be accepted to Princeton, it really doesn’t surprise me at all that “half” the students are getting As.</p>
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<p>No one can say for sure, but the standardized test data is pretty freaking compelling.</p>
<p>It’s pretty easy to imagine that Princeton’s top 50% is higher achieving than the relevant comparator – maybe a state school’s top 20%, for example.</p>
<p>Maybe I should take my words back a little bit and rephrase it in this way: A GPA around 3.8 and a GPA around 3.9 are about equal. I believe NCG once expressed the same point. (likely along the line: As long as your GPA is above 3.8, any increase of your GPA does not give you much boost – maybe with one notable exception. LOL.)</p>
<p>apumic, my point is: As long as a student academic strength is above some threshold at either Princeton or a state school, for the purpose of the admission to most medical schools (esp. those whose main purpose is to produce primary care doctors), the truth is no one cares about the difference of the difficulty of achieving a 3.8 at difference colleges. This ain’t for an admission to a super elite graduate program at a place like Caltech. In one book about the college application (I forgot its title), the author argues that the admission criterion to three colleges (Caltech, Cooper Union, and a third more unpopular one) is only based on the academic merit. Why would you think the admission to professional schools would be any different?!</p>
<p>What most medical schools want are probably those students who are competent enough in their academic strenth, but they really should have other attributes that are deemed important for being a good doctor. (This may be one of the reasons why students from MIT may need a higher GPA to get into a medical school. The school name itself may mislead people to believe their students may be too nerdy for this service-oriented career path. Fair or not, the students from there need to fight for this stereotype. They may be highly sought after for some financial analysis job that requires very strong aptitude on the math/physical science/engineering though.)</p>
<p>Maybe medical school admission should be based on academic merit alone and since it is not possible to say that a 3.5 GPA is the same as a 3.5 GPA at a different school why don’t the medical schools all agree to accept the applicants with the highest MCAT scores until their class is filled? If a medical school had a first year class to fill of 150 students they should just accept the applicants with the 150 highest MCAT scores.</p>
<p>This is what Tokyo University does. It has an entrance exam that anyone who pays the fee and signs up for can take. They do not have to submit high school transcripts and actually do not even need to graduate from high school to enter Tokyo University. The exam is given once a year and admission to that year’s class is determined solely by your score on the entrance exam. If there are spots for 5000 freshmen, the people who recieved one of the 5000 highest scores on the test are admitted. The entrance test is extraordinarily difficult and competitive. I have seen the Math part for Tokyo University’s Engineering School and it is my impression that maybe the top 10% of applicants to MIT and Caltech could get one or two questions correct.</p>
<p>I actually would advocate throwing GPA out the window. It provides valuable information but I think it confuses more than it adds.</p>
<p>You’d still, of course, have EC’s, interviews, and essays to consider in addition to MCAT scores.</p>
<p>Becoming a physician is a lot more popular and competitive in the US than in many other countries (probably because physician salaries in the US are a lot higher). Thus, medical schools have the luxury of not having to rely on academic merit alone. The astronomical graduation rate rates from medical school indicate that there are plenty of students who are smart enough to be a doctor. Thus, if a medical school wants a ballerina or a rugby player or a concert pianist who is also smart, they can have their cake and eat it too. I’m sure by the time you get past 3.8 GPA and 35 MCAT score, the correlation with future USMLE scores becomes very murky, which is why I suspect the top medical schools don’t just select the highest test scorers.</p>
<p>I agree the reason U.S. medical schools have very high graduation rates is mainly because the selection process is so competitive that they normally do not accept students who are not smart enough to do the work but I think another reason is that once they do decide to accept someone they are really loath to flunk them out or even let them drop out. My recollection of medical school was that if a student did not pass a course they just kept repeating it until they did. There was a girl in my class at MCP Hahnemann (now Drexel) who decided she wanted to be a country music singer and instead of having her just withdraw from the school, they gave her a one year leave of abscence to go to Nashville and give it a try with the option of coming back to medical school if she did not turn out to be the next Tamie Wynette. There was another girl in my class who was having a really rough time academically and emotionally and desperately wanted to drop out of school. After failing to convince her to stay, the Dean told her that although she was leaving she was welcome to come back and resume her studies whenever she felt up to it.</p>
<p>While MCP Hahnemann was probably more nurturing then most, from what I have heard they were certainly not alone in doing whatever they could to make it possible for the students they accepted to graduate.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered, what kind of ECs do med schools look for besides physician shadowing hours?</p>
<p>Lemaitre1 - I find it interesting that both of your examples of a Med School going above and beyond the call of duty to prevent withdrawal are women. I have no idea what year we’re talking about, but I wonder if the same effort would have been given to men or if this has more to do with Women in medicine vs medical school retention in general. </p>
<p>As for GPA… we can all safely assume that a 3.8 is a great GPA, but I contend that one does not need such a high GPA if they attend an elite institution undergrad. There has been many recent discussions about grade inflation at certain schools of a chicken and egg nature. If their applicant pool has boosted their numbers in terms of HS GPAs and standardized test scores, whose to say that the reasons the average grade has gone up in the last decade is not due to the fact that the kids are just smarter? If the average IQ in a room is higher, it stands to reason the grades would rise. It does not have to be that less is expected or that how grades are calculated has changed. Historical grade info from professors having taught the same courses for a long time confirm that with all else the same, kids are just doing better. In fact, some professors have said point blank that their standards have actually increased due to the fact that the school has retained an increasingly talented student body.</p>
<p>Along with this, without a doubt some schools academic rigor is just plain harder than others - even when it comes to the same exact class in a course syllabus. I took microeconomics at a small private LAC and could barely do the math… took it at a large well respected state U to get into a grad program (it was a prerequisite for the program) and it was a cake walk with nary half the work. Same intro class. S has confirmed that what’s required of him compared to some of his friends at other schools just doesn’t seem “fair.” (Well, S, life aint fair is what I tell him). </p>
<p>This has been true for intro classes, Organic Chem AND some of the humanities depending on school. Therefore I don’t agree that where one goes to undergrad doesn’t have recourse when it comes to appeal to graduate and medical schools. While not knowing the exact numerical equivalent, the 3.5 would be considered equal to that 3.8 at a decent state school. But, of course, you’d also need the MCAT score to be high enough to corroborate this conclusion. Much like SAT and ACT, the MCAT is going to be the great equalizer.</p>
<p>And the reason you can’t just get a score on a test and get into Med school is that there is more to being a successful doctor than having the brain power to do the work, just like there is more to being a successful college student, than simply getting good grades in HS. I wouldn’t assume it as holistic a process as some colleges, but it takes more than just being smart to actually earn success in Medicine.</p>
<p>Seems to me that everyone wants the system to work in a way that serves their strengths or gives advantage to their own path (or their kid’s) - and I am no exception. But let’s face it… given that the best avenue to Med School might be a 3.8 from Harvard with a 35 MCAT, when you start replacing Harvard with Podunk U, the equation changes considerably. And if you change the 3.8 to a 3.5, it changes again. And a 3.5 from Podunk even with a 35 MCAT is not gong to get you the same level of choice as a 3.5 from Harvard or similar.</p>
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<p>Which is why there will never be consensus on the issue.</p>
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<p>If we are going to go THAT direction, I know of a current practicing physician who broke up with his girlfriend during M1 or 2 and was rocked enough to take a leave of absence from med school. HE is now well into his medical career and also teaching so I would guess that his medical school was pretty supportive at the time. I have heard of multiple instances of medical schools working with students to help them over a bump…male and female.</p>
<p>Maybe medical school admission should be based on academic merit alone and since it is not possible to say that a 3.5 GPA is the same as a 3.5 GPA at a different school why don’t the medical schools all agree to accept the applicants with the highest MCAT scores until their class is filled?</p>
<p>I can understand that reasoning, but GPA does tell a school something. It can tell how “well-rounded” a student is. Is he/she only strong in science and math? Or is he also strong in other subjects as well. </p>
<p>A lower GPA also can be a “red flag” that the person isn’t well-organized or ignores/forgets assignments or deadlines.</p>
<p>We’ve all seen this with high school kids who are applying to undergrad. Some will have 2300 SATs or 35 ACTs, but crappy GPAs because they wouldn’t do assignments or other course req’ts. Certainly, a top school would want to consider that issue because those students are not likely going to be “hard workers” in college.</p>
<p>I would think a med school would want to avoid students like this even if they have a MCAT 36. </p>
<p>I think that the same reasoning for undergrad merit scholarships and/or top school admission applies…</p>
<p>there is a large pool of kids with high GPAs</p>
<p>there is a smaller pool of kids with high test scores.</p>
<p>there is an even smaller pool of kids with both high GPAs and high test scores. These are the kids that are most likely going to be accepted to a top school and/or be given merit scholarships (if a school offers them). </p>
<p>It stands to reason that med schools may use a similar logic.</p>
<p>Years ago Berkeley Law “adjusted” applicants’ GPAs based on their assessment of grading practice at different universities. A copy of the chart is here: <a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm[/url]”>http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm</a> They’ve since abandoned the practice (formally, at least.)</p>
<p>The schools in black italics were deemed to have the most “trust-worthy” GPAs…I guess.</p>