<p>This is just a quick reply (haven’t had time yet to digest the other comments - still reading!) to the line of thought that “easier” or “lower ranked” schools will make it easier to inflate a GPA that is med school worthy…</p>
<p>For those who argue that pre-med is difficult in general and that it’ll be tough anywhere…I certainly can understand and agree with that. The required coursework and required high grades would certainly support that notion. </p>
<p>However, I guess I do see some strategic work at play here…I’m NOT endorsing this strategy at all necessarily (I don’t know what I’d do, b/c thankfully I’m not pre-med, but my sister is). …I’m just saying that pre-med at Princeton…or MIT…or Carnegie Mellon or Berkeley, for example, may be MUCH MUCH harder than at Cal State Long Beach. </p>
<p>It’s not to put down CSULB in any way, but I think one should definitely recognize the difference in expectations from say an Intro to Physics class at MIT or Berkeley than the same class at CSULB. The greater rigor and likely greater competition at a “top” school in these classes would seem to make it that much more difficult to pull out the required grades for medical school. …And so to me that DOES seem like a LEGITIMATE issue and possibly warrants a strategic decision. </p>
<p>If you could predict with high accuracy that you would have VERY high grades in pre-med - the type that would give you a very high shot at attendingn med school - at a LOWER RANKED school, but you could NOT predict with that same confidence and accuracy of getting those high pre-med grades at a VERY TOUGH and HIGH ranked school…then would you strategically go with the “easier” school? </p>
<p>That’s really a tough, yet interesting question to me. That was all I was getting at when thinking about this. 
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<p>I’m not saying I have the right answers at all…but just throwing that out there.</p>