@Hamurtle : No No No! Don’t think like that about your son! I had mentees in the 3.7s (usually 3.75-3.8) get interviews at top 20s. I still remember one who got an interview at Duke (and “ORM” BTW) and several other schools with that GPA (he had a 37 on the MCAT that trialed the 2015 style of MCATs). It depends on how strong the application is (this guy’s was indeed strong, especially since he was aiming for research focused medical schools). As for Emory or really any school, I am really reluctant to call courses “weed-outs” (as some students are more easily weeded out than others because they are easily deterred by an early B. The reality is, some B/B+ or even B- students in early courses improve dramatically throughout their career), I am willing to admit that STEM courses at top schools are on average a bit rougher than much less selective schools, but as I have always discussed, the reasons courses give high achieving students at these schools can be different and depend on how the intro/intermediate pre-health cores are run. Mainly, are they “firehose memorization” which many students can more easily adjust to if they are willing to do the work or are they “ultra problem solving and application oriented”. I tend to put WUSTL and Emory in the latter category. The chemistry curricula at both pose serious problems for many students expecting to plug and chug or memorize their way to success, and so do biology and neuroscience courses which tend to lean more towards research orientation and problem solving than curricula at a lot of places. My understanding is that JHU is similar. The D-3 schools in the top 20 or so seem quite similar in terms of how they chose to pitch their life sciences curricula.
Either way, please do not discourage your son from applying to those places if interested. His MCAT may put him back in the running as WUSTL provides damned good training for the types of items on it provided he took problem solving oriented instructors (which I am sure he did as a biology major. I checked WUSTL bio offerings and like Emory, many of the intermediate and advanced courses have primary lit. discussion sections which is always great prep for the MCAT. Being exposed to lit. across several areas of bio or STEM beyond just his undergraduate research is a great thing!). Hang in there.
@twogirls : thank you for telling the truth! People like to believe all state schools are created equal and paint them as “must be easier than elite private”…uhm no. There are plenty of flagship and non-flagships who not only have STEM curricula that can give elite privates a serious run for the money (because many of the publics were really quick to get on board with massive STEM curriculum reform efforts, much of such efforts that shift STEM curriculum to the type of rigor a person who is mainly great at scoring well on basic/standardized tests may not respond the best too. A surprising amount of privates, especially research Us, are still quite “traditional”, but just go at fast paces), but they have an abundance of really strong students number wise who may cluster in those types of classes.