tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post111824814165981418..comments2023-11-03T04:39:50.760-05:00Comments on Galley Slaves: Inflate the Grades!Jonathan V. Lasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17426165197358366129noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118438422943002492005-06-10T16:20:00.000-05:002005-06-10T16:20:00.000-05:00Sigh.For one thing, most people don't realize that...Sigh.<BR/><BR/>For one thing, most people don't realize that there aren't very many medical schools--only about 120 in the United States (I believe it's either 122 or 123). All but a handful of these schools accept a common application (by handful, I mean about 15 or so), which is a very brief affair, focused almost solely on your numbers. Because there are so few med schools, the process of admissions is pretty standardized--it isn't like law school or college where 10,000 institutions have come up with 5,000 different ways of doing things.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, these medical schools are flooded with so many applications, that it is simply impossible for them to weigh one candidate against another in the initial sort. So every year the admissions offices do a massive cut of applications, where all applicants below a certain "number" (remember, that's 10 times your GPA plus your MCAT) are simply rejected out of hand. The percentage of those tossed out in this initial cut is substantial, and the few who move on to other considerations (such as how you perform in an interview or where you went to school) are grouped together very, very tightly.<BR/><BR/>I'm sure that in this phase some preference is given to applicants from "elite" schools, but there are two sides to that coin: No medical school wants to take more than 5 or 6 kids from the same college, so if there are 20 Harvard applicants with the same scores, some of them are going to be turned away simply on the grounds of collegiate diversity.<BR/><BR/>It's a grim way to do business, but the logistics make any other process pretty unworkable.<BR/><BR/>As for my sources, I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it. I spent four years at Johns Hopkins up close with this stuff, worked at Thomas Jefferson, and applied to 22 medical schools. (That's nearly 20 percent of them!)Jonathan V. Lasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17426165197358366129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118436066354898262005-06-10T15:41:00.000-05:002005-06-10T15:41:00.000-05:00If you are a white male with no pull with the Boar...<I>If you are a white male with no pull with the Board of Trustees your chances of being a doctor in this country are slim to none.</I><BR/><BR/>This comment from Topcat is simply incorrect. Here are two citations:<BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/12934.html" REL="nofollow">one</A>.<BR/><A HREF="http://www.unmc.edu/Community/ruralmeded/admissions_ratios_and_us_med.htm" REL="nofollow">two</A><BR/><BR/>That said, it does not seem likely, as Jonathan Last suggests, that *every single medical school* shares the same GPA weighting formula for admission. Nor that it is the case for every medical school that undergraudate institution has no weighting factor. This type of uniformity is very rare: Hopkins uses the same system as Harvard which uses the same system as SUNY-Downstate. Can this be true? Do you have a source for it?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118342211118539252005-06-09T13:36:00.000-05:002005-06-09T13:36:00.000-05:00I'm afraid that I am intimately, carnally, familia...I'm afraid that I am intimately, carnally, familiar with the medical school admissions process and topcat is simply wrong. No matter where you apply, your GPA is given the exact same weight as everyone elses. And that GPA (multiplied by 10) is added to your MCAT score (from 1 to 45) to give you your med school "number."<BR/><BR/>From time to time some admissions offices will look at your science-only GPA as a raw score, but again, school of origin counts for zero.<BR/>-JVLJonathan V. Lasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17426165197358366129noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118323197651306482005-06-09T08:19:00.000-05:002005-06-09T08:19:00.000-05:00Contrast grade inflation with grade compression. ...Contrast grade inflation with grade compression. At my institution of higher learning, we are urged to protect the straight A while most grades fall in the B to B+ range. A student once told me that a "C+" was for those who never do any work. So C+ is the new F, at least in my neck of the academic woods. Another indication of compression rather than inflation stems from the changing standards of Phi Beta Kappa admission. Studies of grade inflation should also include PBK criteria, which change nationally and locally.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118292882289353772005-06-08T23:54:00.000-05:002005-06-08T23:54:00.000-05:00Yes, it makes much more sense to eliminate a degre...Yes, it makes much more sense to eliminate a degree requirement. That way, everyone can hire high school graduates because after all, there's not that much difference between college and high school.<BR/><BR/>Not.<BR/><BR/>The idea that a college degree is useless to an employer is utterly risible. Credential deflation is not the problem; we're still in inflation mode. The elite kids these days know they will probably be going straight to graduate or professional school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118281772688813912005-06-08T20:49:00.000-05:002005-06-08T20:49:00.000-05:00N.S.T:you're right, a degree is a prerequisite for...N.S.T:<BR/>you're right, a degree is a prerequisite for the second group I mentioned, but it in no way prepares you for actually working in that field. For example, there is probably nothing you learn at college today that you cannot learn on your own to prepare to be a teacher. Yet I don't know of a single school district that doesn't require its teachers to have a college degree. We're low on teachers in this country and we're requiring they have degrees, seems retarded to me. A degree used to mean something, now it means almost nothing, because we've made it easier to get in and we've made it easier to graduate. Kids who aren't interested in a field that really requires a degree ought to consider saving the $100K and learning something on the job, or attending a specialized school that teaches you a real skill.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118264541931580982005-06-08T16:02:00.000-05:002005-06-08T16:02:00.000-05:00Don't forget engineering. I'm not convinced of the...Don't forget engineering. <BR/><BR/>I'm not convinced of the "straight" comparison of GPAs between compass colleges and the Ivies. I'd argue that med school folks are pretty discerning about that sort of thing. <BR/><BR/>I'd also argue that the MCAT is a good means of washing out grade inflation, as they're a standardized means of measuring knowledge (or lack thereof.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7871003.post-1118257879422786092005-06-08T14:11:00.000-05:002005-06-08T14:11:00.000-05:00Someone should start a list of jobs that you actua...Someone should start a list of jobs that you actually have to go to college to prepare for. There are obvious ones:<BR/>Science<BR/>Medicine<BR/>Mathematics<BR/>Law<BR/>But think of all the fields that require degrees but going to college doesn't actually prepare or help you one bit:<BR/>Politics and public policy<BR/>Writing<BR/>Teaching<BR/>Art<BR/>Business<BR/>Anything and everything related to office management<BR/><BR/>So think about it, unless you're going to be a lawyer or doctor or scientist, why spend the $100K to go to college when they don't prepare you in the slightest to enter the field you wish to work in?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com