<p>That’s Williams College in Mass. Some people we know opted to send thier S there four years ago. As most of you know it is an elite northeastern school that offers no merit aid. Anyway, 170k later thier S has graduated and applied to UMass Med School. He was told at his interview his 3.6 GPA at Williams would really be a 3.2 at Harvard or Yale. As such he should not consider himself in the top tier of applicants… as far as his college GPA is concerned. His parents are quite angry as they sacraficed for a top notch education with the understanding he would be a shoe-in at the State Med School. He was rejected. Now they are tapped out and a private med school is far too expensive. I know he spent his last two summers doing reserch and attempting to fill all the neccessary boxes. I guess he scored above average on that test … MCATS…? His parents think it is unfair that his GPA is not regarded the equal of an Ivy GPA. Is it common for med. schools to dumb down someone’s undergrad GPA? Seems unfair.</p>
<p>It’s all about grade inflation/deflation. You have to look at the median premed gpa from Williams and compare that to the median premed gpa from Harvard/Yale.</p>
<p>I am always careful when I hear stories like this, because usually there is an important piece of the story - sometimes several important pieces - that is being left out. </p>
<p>For example, we don’t know with certainty what his MCAT scores were or what his teacher recommendations were like. We don’t know what other factors may have been lacking on his application that factor into med school admissions (essays, type and quality of research experience, experience in a hospital). We don’t even know for sure that he didn’t misinterpret what was said at the interview, or how he did on the interview. In short, we don’t have enough information to say that his GPA was the sole reason he was rejected from this particular medical school. </p>
<p>I am not saying that he or his parents are lying, but sometimes people need to stretch the truth a bit or overlook other facts in order to save face in situations like this. </p>
<p>So, without knowing all the pieces of the puzzle, I would be careful not to assume anything about Williams’ GPA’s being considered “lesser” in comparison to that of other schools by this or other med schools.</p>
<p>Really it’s not all grades and scores. I had a boyfriend from Harvard who graduated summa cum laude and had stellar MCAT scores and didn’t get into any of the med schools he applied to, because of a lousy recommendation from the premed tutor. (While the recommendation was unfair, I actually think it was a good thing he didn’t get in right away.) He took some time off, and did eventually go to med school and is now a doctor. But no one should think they are shoe-in to any med school.</p>
<p>Nightingale:</p>
<p>Something has gotten lost in translation of that story. A 3.6 GPA at Williams is plenty good enough to get into med school.</p>
<p>Yeah, plenty good enough for med school. Of course, that does not assure admission to any particular school. Sounds like something strange in his application or evaluation. Many people who go to med school only get in one place, and go where they are admitted. Although it does not have the cachet of Harvard, UMass is pretty competitive to get in. </p>
<p>The young man should keep his career going, continue to do health related work, and think frankly about whether his application had gaps, including pulling up MCAT’s. The Williams premed advisor should be able to help.</p>
<p>Lots of Williams students get into medical school. The person who claimed a Williams 3.6 was equal to a Harvard 3.2 was not being accurate. As pointed out, who knows what they really said or why.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, this type of story doesn’t surprise me. There are plenty of folks in professional school admissions who have absolutely no idea what Williams is. I don’t mean to sound snobby, but adcoms at more selective grad/professional schools are generally aware of Williams’ excellent reputation. I’d be surprised if many/any of the adcoms at somewhere like UMass-Boston would have even heard of Williams.</p>
<p>Graduate/professional school admissions for Williams students tend to be extremely erratic for exactly this reason. I have countless stories that I can recall about truly bizarre admissions decisions handed down to Williams student. Two off of the top of my head.</p>
<p>Law school applicant (from Virginia with nearly perfect grades and LSATs)
Accepted: Yale, Stanford, Harvard, NYU, Georgetown, UVA
Rejected: George Mason U, George Washington U</p>
<p>Graduate student in Biochemistry
Accepted: Harvard, UCSF, Stanford, Scripps, Berkeley
Rejected: UT-Austin, Rockefeller U, Suny-Stony Brook</p>
<p>For what it is worth (which is likely very little), the last set of data I can find indicates that the mean GPA at Williams (in 1999) was 3.34, and at Harvard (2001) was 3.39. So if an admissions department was using general “grade inflation” data, it would have to conclude, after looking at the data above, that, on the general face of it, Harvard students are .4 better than Williams students regardless of grades. Eh? (unlikely)</p>
<p>But, of course, the real question is in the grading of premeds, something about whcih I haven’t clue one way or the other. It would seem unlikely to me that premeds were deflated at H and inflated at W, but without more data, how could one know whether they were blowing smoke?</p>
<p>THE UMass Med School–the one barely in the Top 50?</p>
<p>Med school issues aside, Williams, like some other LACs, is known for grade DEflation, so I would think a 3.6 at Williams would be very impressive to any knowledgeable grad or professional school. Cannot speak to the specifics of med school admittance but the Williams versus Harvard aspect of the story sounds suspect to me based on what I have heard about grade inflation at Harvard. And I think the education one gets at Williams is equal to or better than that one would get at any institution, and people at a certain level of sophistication know that–again, something may be a bit off in the original story.</p>
<p>First of all, UMass Med School is in Worcester. Secondly, it is definitely on the rise, due to spill-over of talent from Boston, enhanced investment, and Craig Mello’s Nobel Prize. Lastly, I am confident everyone involved with admissions there is entirely familiar with Williams.</p>
<p>It sounds like we probably don’t have the whole story. If it’s true as is, his interviewer is an idiot. I don’t buy that this is it, though. Harvard is well known for its high GPAs, especially in the MA area. Williams is a known school that med school admissions in the same state will be familiar with. It just doesn’t seem to add up. I doubt that this is policy at UMass grad schools.</p>
<p>UMass is a competitive med school to get into. There are a lot of smart students with MA residency who want to be doctors, and most of them apply to the state med school.</p>
<p>“Williams, like some other LACs, is known for grade DEflation, so I would think a 3.6 at Williams would be very impressive to any knowledgeable grad or professional school.”</p>
<p>Nope. This in fact isn’t so - it has one of the highest rates of grade inflation over the past 15 years, along with Cornell and UChicago. But actual GPAs are now pretty much the same as the Ivies as a whole. </p>
<p>But what the premeds experience is anyone’s guess.</p>
<p>UMass Med School is about an hour away from Williams. I’m sure the admissions interviewers are very familiar with Williams and its academic rigor. What most people don’t realize is how competitive it is to get in to UMass Med. The reason is that students can graduate with little to no debt, as opposed to the $200, 000 debt many private school medical students incur. I have several friends that turned down Ivy League med schools to attend UMass for this reason.</p>
<p>Puh-lease. This story is entirely believable, and quite typical. Admissions officers who didn’t attend selective undergraduate colleges would likely be unaware of Williams. Proximity to Williams means nothing. People in Pittsfield will give you blank stares when you tell them that you are a Williams student</p>
<p>mini, where you are getting your information.</p>
<p>In terms cornell, there has been a noticeable grade inflation ever since they started posting median grades for every course in the mid 90s. I wouldn’t say, however, that Cornell has one of the highest levels are grade inflation. Students are just choosing electives based on the median grades of the courses, but the medians grades from the science departments remain stagnant. I don’t think grade inflation has ever been an issue for the science departments, especially since there is no minimum gpa requirement at Cornell to apply to med school. The premed courses really have to have a low gpa to weed 70-80% of the students out.</p>
<p>It also really depends on the student’s major. A 3.6gpa for a psych major or an English major is not as impressive as a 3.6gpa for a bio major or an engineering major.</p>
<p>And realistically, a 3.6 gpa isn’t competitive even for a science major. It isn’t mediocre, but it isn’t jaw dropping either.</p>
<p>I disagree with a lot of the posters here. The adcoms at med schools do not pay “that much” attention to which undergraduate college the student is coming from. They look at the overall picture including MCATs, GPA, recs and ECs. No school compares GPAs according to the specific colleges unless there is a significant difference in the profile somewhere and grade deflation/inflation considerations do not play such a dramatic role as some of you are implying. A 3.8 from any state school IS better than a 3.4 from Harvard and med school adcoms handle it that way. Now, a 3.4 from any state school and a 3.3 from an ivy is a different story, but no one gets into splitting hairs like that. There is always something else in the overall file that helps to sway the decision one way or the other. Trust me, I know…</p>
<p>^ The caliber of the school makes a really big difference. I disagree with the statement that a 3.8 at any state school is better than a 3.4 at Harvard or Yale. I’ve spent two semesters in a state school while I was in high school before going to Cornell and I can say that the caliber of the students at Cornell is in a different league compared to that of the state school. It really depends on the state school you are referring. If it isn’t one of the UC Berkeley, UMich, UVA or one of the other top state schools, I’d prefer the 3.4 from Harvard/Yale.</p>
<p>I agree with Fudgemaster. The overall caliber of the student plays a particularly large role is classes graded on a curve–such as most math and science classes.</p>
<p>“mini, where you are getting your information.”</p>
<p>two sources: from gradeinflation.com , and from study done at Cornell itself, previously posted.</p>
<p>Now, mind you, it doesn’t say that Cornell grades are “higher” (i.e. more inflated) that other schools, only that the growth in rate of inflation is among the highest (i.e. started from a low base.)</p>
<p>And, yes, different GPAs exist for different majors. At many of the state schools, the general curve is wider, which means average grades are lower, and highest grades are less likely to be earned by large numbers of students, as they would be at the prestige privates. (The data shows that as well.)</p>
<p>As to what happens among pre-meds, I wouldn’t know. I would be pretty certain that the top premeds at the state schools, having fought their way through the huge weed-outs, attached themselves to profs for mentoring, research opportunities, and fellowships, are every bit as good as those at the prestige privates - there just will be fewer of them.</p>