I have completed my Senior year of high school and am going to be attending college (Northwestern U, in IL) now, as a Freshman. It is a very competitive institution, so the 3.7+ GPA range may be out of reach. Would having a GPA below that range seriously damage my credentials as a medical school applicant, considering that this university is so tough (and, moreover, relatively prestigious)?
Honestly, I don't think I need to go to a prestigious medical school (e.g. Pritzker), since I am sticking to the clinical side of the spectrum rather than the academic/research side. I just hope I can make it. I've always been interested in mental health and medicine, in general. Furthermore, I'm a good problem-solver and listener. After a period of serious introspection, I've put all of the factors together and decided that psychiatry is, indubitably, the best field for me to pursue a career in.
Many medical school applicants come from colleges like Northwestern and don't sell yourself short on whether you will get good grades at Northwestern. You must have done well enough as a high school sudent to get accepted.
I'm not familiar with typical GPA's of Northwestern undergrads, but I'm guessing that the required pre-med courses are probably graded pretty hard. It will be the same for everyone there. Some people think it is more important to avoid BAD grades in those classes as opposed to needing mostly A's.
Also, the MCAT will act as an equalizer to some extent between schools. I've seen a fair bit of controversy as to whether admission committees give weight to various undergrad colleges. It seems that some medical schools do take the particular undergrad into account, but they seem to have some way to weight the GPA based on their knowledge of whether certain colleges have a history of deflating or inflating grades.