<p>From what I’ve heard about grading at Williams I would have expected the opposite: a 3.2 at Williams = 3.6 at most other selective colleges. I don’t have the comparison to years back but I for sure the curve is severe and a 3.6 is a very good GPA.</p>
<p>A few years back someone posted a chart showing how graduate schools compare GPA’s from various colleges. I can’t seem to get my hands on it. Does any one remember seeing it? It was a chart that listed a plus or minus figure for each college as a rough means of equalizing the GPA’s.</p>
<p>That list is interesting. 1997 is the year when Harvard tackled grade inflation (although, in the context of the list, its grading practice does not seem way out of line). Since then, Princeton (which seems to have had the same ease of getting As) has capped the number of As at 35%. Other colleges may also have engaged in grade deflation. So it would be useful to have a more up-to-date list.</p>
<p>I know nothing about Williams or med schools, but I do agree with fudgemaster. I would expect schools with a lower admit rate to end up with a higher academic level of students. I’ve heard good things about Williams but know little about it; this idea may not apply there. But an “average” Harvard student is generally a higher achieving student than the “average” student at many other schools. </p>
<p>I would be interested in seeing a chart or something that shows the average incoming (high school) GPA and SAT scores for a given college, and the average graduating GPA /MCAT for the same school. If they match, then that’s easy. Students should be considered on a level field. If they don’t match, is it fair to weight one school more than another? For example, if (I’m making these scores up) the incoming freshmen at School A have an average GPA of 3.6, and an average SAT of 1350, and School B students have a 4.0 and 1450, but their graduating GPAs both average 3.8, should they be considered equal? </p>
<p>Williams students are competitive with students anywhere. It is not a standard “School B” for comparitive purposes, since its students probably have SATs close to/equal to or even higher than most Ivies. And Williams students do seem to be convinced that their school grades less generously than Ivies whatever the cited tables say. I repeat my earlier thought that the OP’s story is missing a link somewhere; I don’t know that miuch about med school admissions but from what I have heard a student with a 3.6 at a school lilke Williams, if that is accompanied by a good MCAT score and some credibility as a premed, should get into some American-mainalnd med school–not clear if UMass was only one applied to or if the source of displeasure is simply that he did not get int to that one and is thus upset about having to pay for more expensive out of state school.</p>
<p>And it is no surprise that people in Pittsfield may not know anything about Williams, as their only interaction may be limited to the occasional keg purchase. In contrast, admissions committees for professional schools generally have faculty well-represented. Half of these went to LACs, and all will be familiar with one of the most selective schools in the country.</p>
<p>OP-All I know is that this kid mentioned his GPA specifically and he was told it would be a 3.2 at Harvard. How much that had to do with his rejection I don’t know, but his parents, who have spared no expense, to do right by thier son, seem to think all the other pieces were in place. MCATS, research, recommendations, so did the folks at Williams by the way. A doctor recently told me many of the public med schools are seeing a large influx of Ivy League types because it is far less expensive. My sister who is a physician claims she experienced similar treatment as regards her 2nd tier school GPA. That is to say it was bumped down based on the fact she attend a less prestigious school. Finally she got angry and asked her interviewer what more she could do as she had a 4.0 through undergrad and in gaining her masters. She did get into that Chicago area med school.</p>
<p>I don’t usually like to get involved in a lot of back and forthing on CC but Williams is not a 2nd tier school, so a reference to someone’s 2nd tier school GPa has little relevance here. Williams is a top ranked LAC, and in fact the last few years it has been the number-one LAC in the country according to USNWR. It has traditionally traded top billing with Swarthmore and Amherst over the last decade or so more. Sometiems people who get into Yale or Harvard do not get into Williams. No mainstream graduate or professional school in the US is likely to be unaware of Williams’s quality. Med school admission is cutthroat, but Williams is a top school and its graduates do very well in many admissions areas with lower GPAs than the one mentioned here, so something is probably missing from the story you are hearing.</p>
<p>Actually, what seems to not have been noticed by everyone is that the OP stated that “170K Later…they are now tapped out”</p>
<p>Again, I can’t understand why parents would send their kids to ANY school when they might not have the resources for graduate/professional school. If this post is true, this was another financially idiotic decision to begin with!</p>
<p>1) Med school admissions is the most ridiculous process I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen a lot of friends get rejected for a lot of reasons ranging from the typical to the bizarre. I’ve also seen a lot of them get passed by for candidates with decidedly worse records. It’s a process where NO ONE is EVER a “shoe-in”. That’s what happens when more than 50% (55% last year - will likely be even higher this year because of a surge in applicants) get rejected from every school they apply to. Even the in-state acceptance rates at public schools hover around 20%.</p>
<p>2) I have to agree most with whoever said we’re not getting the full story here. Med school admissions is a very holistic evaluation of the candidate. We don’t know exactly what research he did, we don’t know about his clinical experiences, what sort of campus involvement he had, or how he interviewed. </p>
<p>3) An Ivy league or similarly selective school is not worth .4 GPA points. It’s just not the case. I know that everyone on CC who is hoping to send their kids off to one of these schools would love to believe that there is some inherent, significant advantage in the name of the school, it’s probably not what you hope for (except in certain fields that are well known to heavily, heavily recruit from the Ivies - like i-banking). The fact is, and will always be, students are judged on what they’ve accomplished regardless of where they’ve done it. Med school admissions decisions are not an indictment, or an endorsement of the quality of any school. Yes, students from these highly selective schools do well in admissions to professional and graduate school, but that’s because the traits that got them into these selective schools (intelligence, work ethic, ambition, test-taking ability, time management, etc) are also the traits that help people get into graduate and professional schools.</p>
<p>4) I find the idea that a private medical school is “too expensive” and out of the question absolutely preposterous. Make the kid take the loans…everyone else in medical school is doing so. That’s great that the parents want to help, but does he want to be a doctor or not? If this is really the case, and he avoided applying to private or out-of-state medical schools, then he set himself up for failure. As I said, there is never anything that is a shoe-in for medical school admissions, but there are strategies that can increase one’s odds of getting accepted, and one of those is applying to an appropriate number, and range of schools.</p>
<p>“Again, I can’t understand why parents would send their kids to ANY school when they might not have the resources for graduate/professional school. If this post is true, this was another financially idiotic decision to begin with!”</p>
<p>I’m with you, especially since a Williams student likely has the intellectual wherewithal to be a top-flight student at a good flagship state u., and in doing so, have more internship, research, and mentoring opportunities than at virtually any of the prestige schools where s/he might be little more than average. Not only would it be a good financial decision, it might be an even better educational one.</p>
<p>But I don’t mourn for the “tapped out” parents - if they could afford full-freight at Williams, there is likely more to be spread around.</p>
<p>Nightingale: how can the parents be “tapped out”, unless they had a significant job change in the past year. If they were full pay at Williams, they had to be in top 3% of income earners/asset holders in America…</p>
<p>Blue - We will be “tapped out” after our 3 children finish undergrad. We have lived frugally and been prodigious savers (we are just now replacing a 15 year old car). </p>
<p>We have invested enough for #1 and are on track to saving enough for our other 2 kids to go 4 years to private colleges/universities. We began saving for college before our 1st child was born. When they’re gone, we’ll continue our saving habit and apply it to retirement. </p>
<p>If they want to go to grad school, they’re on their own…</p>
<p>However, I agree with Bigredmed–no need for anyone’s parents to be paying for med school; that’s what loans are for.</p>
<p>We paid for H’s med school plus most living expenses for a family of three then four through loans. Living frugally, we paid them off even though he went into community primary care medicine. Now that he’s out of medicine, we’re funding college for kids through what’s left of savings plus our great reduced income, and a bit of FA. Grad school is all theirs.</p>
I’m not sure if that’s true. I could have gone to an easier college that isn’t very challenging or at which it’s not difficult to get As, and I would have had a higher GPA than I do now at my current college. Now, MCATs are a standardized test, so that’s completely different. They should of course be considered the same from anywhere. GPAs should be looked at in the context that they were earned, though–and they are, to an extent. My college says that students who get average or above MCAT scores and apply thoughtfully to med schools get in with 3.3+ GPA. The statistics would be significantly different at many schools. </p>
<p>I agree with other posters that money for med school should not stop him. Most students take out loans for med school and then eventually pay them off. That’s what loans are for.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure if that’s true. I could have gone to an easier college that isn’t very challenging or at which it’s not difficult to get As, and I would have had a higher GPA than I do now at my current college.”</p>
<p>Maybe, or maybe not. The curves in the weedouts at many of the flagship state u’s are broader than they are at the vast majority of the prestige privates, causing the median GPAs to be lower. It might be substantially more difficult to get A’s in the weedouts there than at the more expensive schools, and to do so might be significantly more challenging.</p>
<p>Flagship state Us were not really the type of schools I was considering. I would expect their weedout classes to be exceptionally difficult. I was more speaking about some of the schools friends from high school went to, who had to work harder for lower grades than me at our high school and work less for higher grades than I do now.</p>
<p>nightingale: to be full pay at Williams (or other meet-full-need college), parental income has to be $175k per year (less if more than two kids at home), and/or the family is holding assets in excess of $1 million – run the profile and see. If the former, they have plenty of future income stream to rebuild assets (unless they just retired, in which case, I concur with taxguy). If the latter, they still have plenty of assets ($1mm less $170k leaves $830k). Regardless, I guess your/their definition of ‘tapped out’ is different than mine. :)</p>