<p>The previous few posts are quite accurate.</p>
<p>Agree that 3.5 is lowish for getting into a med school.</p>
<p>BTW, I always suspect that, in addition to its grading policy, a part of the reasons why the average GPA at Princeton is lower because they may have a higher percentage of Physical Science or engineering minded students (at least these students are like this when they are in high school) as compared to other ivies. Those high power professors do not care about premeds. As long as they could find very few super stars in the academia in a year, or even in multiple years, they are pleased. The old saying “physicists are famed in eating their own” may have some truth in it. But premeds there usually do not major in physics (and the majority of premeds may not bother to major in chemistry at either Princeton or most of top private colleges.)</p>
<p>On the other coast, I also suspect that because there may be more engineering or science majors at Stanford (after all, well too many new immigrant’s families are in California and the Silicon Valley is close to it) as compared to other comparable private colleges, a higher percentage of premed students tend to take some of their prereqs at other colleges in the summer. But this is just my speculation.</p>
<p>To put it bluntly, I guess many med schools do not like their class to be too “homogeneous” - full of science nerds.</p>