<p>My friend’s son is working on med school app and she told me they are counting on PBK membership to beef up his stats. He has a 31 MCAT, was an athlete (4 varsity letters), earned a degree in Economics and maintained a 3.78 GPA from a top 39 LAC. He has volunteered and shadowed quite a bit, but has no research experience. </p>
<p>Would you agree that PBK will be a feather in his cap?</p>
<p>Not really. PBK is largely a reflection of your GPA, which someone can already see from your transcript. Won’t hurt to put it down. unlikely to help very much either.</p>
<p>PBK with a 3.78 GPA? The LAC he attended may be be a grade-deflated school.</p>
<p>Another possibility is that his school uses a holistic way to evaluate the student (e.g., his application essay, recommendation from the professor) instead of just stats. Harvard, for example, does not rely on the GPA as its sole criterion.</p>
<p>Two such schools that I could think of are one in Oregon and one in Penn. Some big public schools here routinely graduate at least half a dozen 4.0s each year.</p>
<p>^^ There are def. some other criteria involved. Some schools use honor thesis a criteria factor.</p>
<p>One of my friends was inducted to PBK as a junior (rather than at the end of senior year) and mentioned that almost every MD/PhD program where he interviewed (19 of them, crazy kid!) mentioned PBK. He’s probably not a normal case though.</p>
<p>I saw many of my future med school classmates at my PBK initiation, so it seems like quite a few successful applicants are also PBK. I can’t imagine it would matter much. In fact, had I been named as a junior (I applied to med school after junior year), I don’t know if I’d even mention it on my application if space was limited (ie, I would only list PBK if I had space/activities left to use).</p>
<p>I think your friends are overestimating how meaningful PBK is to medical schools. But it can’t hurt!</p>
<p>^ thats exactly what I was thinking. The space is limited, and PBK doesnt really say much about you compared to other experience such as research, volunteering, etc.</p>
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