<ol>
<li>I’m not sure that any of these schools except CalTech has fewer backdoors than Harvard et al. </li>
</ol>
<h2>2. Variation in the quality of graduates probably afflicts all schools.</h2>
<ol>
<li>Chicago and Swarthmore seem to have almost as much grade inflation as Harvard and Stanford. </li>
</ol>
<p><a href=“https://canigraduate.uchicago.edu/statistics.php”>https://canigraduate.uchicago.edu/statistics.php</a>
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1659610-garde-deflation.html#latest”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/1659610-garde-deflation.html#latest</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“Guide for Applying to Medical School for Swarthmore Undergraduates and Alumni/ae :: Health Sciences Office :: Swarthmore College”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/health-sciences-office/guide-applying-to-medical-school-swarthmore-undergraduates-and-alumniae</a></p>
<p>I believe that “which” refers to the entire graduating class rather than to its top half. :-/ </p>
<p>Mudd, Cal Tech, and Cooper Union are in large part STEM schools, which pulls their mean GPAs down. Comparing GPAs by department would be fairer. Princeton, which artificially caps grades a la the curves of STEM classes at many schools, is about as “deflated” as Mudd. (Note: I am not making a claim about Princeton’s “rigor” relative to Mudd, only its grade distribution.)</p>
<h2>2. Fair enough.</h2>
<p>Apologies, I don’t have an answer to your question at the moment.</p>