Impact of undergraduate school’s reputation?

[Little Green Yoda]

How much does the reputation of a university factor into how an admission committee looks at one’s GPA? I’ve heard that certain schools are considered to have some degree of grade inflation so does having a lower GPA from a tougher university hurt one’s chances?

And if anyone has any insight in the matter, what kind of reputation does UC Berkeley have amongst med school admission committees?

Thanks in advance!

[yokelridesagain]

Define lower. If by “lower” you mean 2.5-2.9 that’s a real big problem. UC Berkeley is filled with pre-meds with better GPAs. If you mean 3-3.3 that’s still a problem considering the rigorous nature of California medical school admissions, but probably can be overcome if the rest of your application is strong. 3.4 and above you’re in the competitive ballpark.

Berkeley has a great reputation both locally and nationally–definitely top 25. When dealing with well known national powerhouses, AdComs are well aware that there are differences between grading schemes at various institutions. Harvard, as you likely know, was graduating 90% of their students with honors up unitl a few years ago (of course, Harvard students reply that the extreme selectivity of their institution means that the average student there would graduate with honors at most places). Nevertheless, a Harvard A probably still doesn’t equal a Princeton A. AdComs get that. (Note to all: BEFORE you start flaming me, please consider that I attended college over a thousand miles away from either coast).

Fortunately, with a school like Berkeley (or any other large university with multiple medical school applicants), AdComs have a long history of applicants from your school. They know how you’ve done in comparison to other students from your school and probably your major. They also know how well students with your profile have done in their institutions. What you really need to find out from your advisor is, what is the profile of a “competitive” Berkeley applicant? I would guess that it’s likely to be somewhere around 3.4-3.5 GPA, 27 MCAT, but that would be a guess.

Grade inflation is a much bigger problem if you went to I Never Heard Of It Tech and AdComs are trying to guess what the heck a B+ in organic chemistry means from your school.

Physician-resident

[Little Green Yoda]

quote:

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Originally posted by yokelridesagain

Define lower. If by “lower” you mean 2.5-2.9 that’s a real big problem. UC Berkeley is filled with pre-meds with better GPAs. If you mean 3-3.3 that’s still a problem considering the rigorous nature of California medical school admissions, but probably can be overcome if the rest of your application is strong. 3.4 and above you’re in the competitive ballpark.

Berkeley has a great reputation both locally and nationally–definitely top 25. When dealing with well known national powerhouses, AdComs are well aware that there are differences between grading schemes at various institutions. Harvard, as you likely know, was graduating 90% of their students with honors up unitl a few years ago (of course, Harvard students reply that the extreme selectivity of their institution means that the average student there would graduate with honors at most places). Nevertheless, a Harvard A probably still doesn’t equal a Princeton A. AdComs get that. (Note to all: BEFORE you start flaming me, please consider that I attended college over a thousand miles away from either coast).

Fortunately, with a school like Berkeley (or any other large university with multiple medical school applicants), AdComs have a long history of applicants from your school. They know how you’ve done in comparison to other students from your school and probably your major. They also know how well students with your profile have done in their institutions. What you really need to find out from your advisor is, what is the profile of a “competitive” Berkeley applicant? I would guess that it’s likely to be somewhere around 3.4-3.5 GPA, 27 MCAT, but that would be a guess.

Grade inflation is a much bigger problem if you went to I Never Heard Of It Tech and AdComs are trying to guess what the heck a B+ in organic chemistry means from your school.

Physician-resident

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Thanks for the reply yokel.

My GPA is 3.3 at the moment with this semester and next semster left to go. So it’s possible for me to reach the 3.4 barrier by the time I graduate. I’m applying next fall obviously.

So the med schools will look at previous applicants from my school when considering my application? That’s good – sort of. 34% of the applicants from Berkeley with similar numbers got accepted to a med school the past 5 years.

With a 3.3 or so GPA and a 33 MCAT score, would it be wise to take the MCAT again? My writing score was mediocre at best (N).

[hoping]

I graduated with a cum GPA of 3.2 from UC Berkeley. the courses i took were mostly more advanced than most pre-med students would take.
Now, i’m a PhD student in a well-known university in Boston. what’s my chances of getting into a decent medical school? i’ve done a lot of extracc. activities, such as editor in a journal, founded a mentorship program, etc. What’s is the minimum MCAT score should I aim for?
Many thanks!
Hoping

[yokelridesagain]

Yoda–

I would not generally recommend retaking the MCAT. The data shows that few students improve their score by more than a few points. Of course, there is also the risk that you will do worse. The writing sample is an odd task and admissions committees know this. Your score certainly isn’t going to make them worry that you can’t write a coherent sentence.

I don’t think that your application to medical school would be signifcantly stronger if you made an R rather than an N on the writing sample.

If you have some strong reason to believe that you can increase your overall score significantly, an increase of several points would make you slightly more competitive. There are a lot more people who think they will improve their scores than there are people who actually do. In my view, good reasons to retake the MCAT would be: 1. You didn’t study. 2. Something major happened on test day that impaired your performance (i.e. significant illness) Otherwise, the risk of doing worse generally isn’t worth it.

Hoping–

There is no set minimum even for students who follow the most traditional paths to medical school; in more uncommon situations like yours, it’s even harder to predict. That being said, on a numerical basis alone your GPA is below the average of accepted applicants and it would certainly be helpful to have an MCAT score at or above the average of accepted applicants. Depending on the school in question, that is likely somewhere in the low 30s.

Physician-resident

[mvelasq]

Just to defend the Ivy League–as a Harvard alum, I can’t honestly say that ninety percent of the class deserves honors, necessarily–there probably is, or at least there was, grade inflation. However, much of that “grade inflation” is in the humanities, and let’s be fair–most of the kids that I met did write well enough that giving them less than a C on an essay is pretty inconceivable.

However, after the grade inflation debacle, the average scores in math and science were 60% (the average on one of my orgo exams was somewhere in the 40s) there was no scaling in many classes, professors put caps on the number of As that students could receive, and people routinely left exams in tears.

I wasn’t an A student in any way, shape or form, but I applaud anyone getting an A in a math/science class from the Ivy Leagues. I’m willing to bet they worked hard for it.

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