<p>Is a 4.3 GPA possible, and if so how many people achieve it? Are they crazy geniuses? This is just a question of curiosity as I know I've got no chance in hell of getting a 4.3, so don't flame me.</p>
<p>Something like 9 percent of students get above a 4.0 at graduation. I have no idea how many would get 4.25+ (which would round to 4.3), but it can't be more than one or two people every few years and is probably pretty heavily major dependent (some majors tend to give less A+s than others).</p>
<p>i have a 4.3 GPA. i'm not a crazy genius, of course, because my unweighted GPA is a 3.6. I just took tons of honors and AP classes.</p>
<p>My daughter has a 4.47 (4.0 unweighted). She's took 2 honors classes as a frosh; 3 honors and an AP sophomore year and is taking 3 honors and 2 AP her junior year. Next year her plan is to take 2 AP and no honors.</p>
<p>I think the no of students who can get >4.0 depends on how many AP and honors options a school has. My daughter has taken many, but not all that she could. She hated Chem H, so wasn't about to take Chem AP. Doesn't love history, so no Mod. Eur Hist AP. OTOH, despite not loving history, she's enjoying her US Hist AP class. Since it's req'd for all students she felt the class discussions would be better in an AP secn.</p>
<p>-Alison</p>
<p>^^ I think the OP was talking about a 4.3 GPA at Caltech (as in all A+s.) At high school having a GPA >4.0 is not really that big of a deal, seeing as many schools calculate GPAs differently...</p>
<p>Getting A+s at Caltech is extremely hard, even when compared to the already difficult task of getting an A in most classes. Getting mostly consistent A+s is basically impossible, not that it means that the occasional legendary Techer doesn't do it. There is some degree of luck involved. Sometimes a "generous" curve (or just everyone else doing badly) makes it so what might seem like a not very high grade becomes an A+ (often if you do better than everyone else in the class.) Sometimes a professor accidentally makes a final easier than he meant to and a bunch of people get perfect scores on it. Most professors will at least give you an A+ if you get > 98%. This is not always easy even if you know the material well enough to get close to perfect on the exams since sometimes the sets are held up to a pretty high standard of rigor.</p>
<p>Anyways, even med schools aren't expecting any A+s from Caltech, so it doesn't really matter.</p>
<p>I can't imagine being able to get A+ grades consistently here at Caltech. I know I've gone out of tests feeling that I did absolutely everything perfectly, and I did...except for that little minus sign...that cost me 5 points.</p>
<p>The frequency of A+'s definitely differs by major. In most of my math classes here at least 15% of the class got an A+, and there are a nontrivial number of math majors with 4.2+ GPAs in their major.
In other majors-ChemE comes to mind- this appears to be not at all the case.</p>
<p>how about mechE?? But isn't there a sort of curve, or a weightage to get all the GPA's on par, like if a chemE class or a mechE class is harder shouldn't the gpa in that class be weighted</p>
<p>Nope. Welcome to college.</p>
<p>"Harder" classes (in the sense that they're officially given more units by Caltech) are weighted proportionally for your GPA. This just means that classes like EE 52 and ACM 95 that are 12 units instead of the regular 9 units hurt your GPA even more than they would otherwise. :p Even though the average GPA in math is probably higher than the average GPA in mechanical engineering, mechanical engineering is likely a much easier major for everyone who isn't a math major.</p>
<p>If EE52 hurts your GPA, you're doing it wrong :P</p>
<p>Fine, I amend that one to Bi/Ch 110.</p>
<p>Just curious, is double majoring impossible in Caltech? (because they don't have a good collection of minors)</p>
<p>For advanced placement, since you don't get credits, can you take the placement exams there? or is it a must to do those first year math and science classes?</p>
<p>^^depends on the majors. some (like math/cs) are totally doable (because you can use math courses to fulfill cs requirements and vice versa). it's also pretty straightforward if your second major is in the humanities.</p>
<p>but most double-majors are pretty impossible unless you want to take like 70 units a term</p>
<p>I agree that Ma/CS is probably the easiest technical double major pair, since neither major has a lot of requirements and there's significant overlap. I've known a few people who graduated with this successfully. Bio/Chem may be possible for some, since they both require Ch 41 and there are a lot of shared Bi/Ch courses.</p>
<p>Some combos people graduated with in the last few years: ChemE + ACM (applied and computational mathematics), 2x(Ma + CS), 3x(Bio + Chem), EE + Physics, Bio + Ma, Bio + E&AS (engineering and applied science)</p>
<p>A lot of people had a humanities or social science major in addition to their technical one, particularly economics or business. History, English, philosophy, HPS (history and philosophy of science), and social science were pretty popular too. Also, control and dynamical systems minors are very common, particularly amongst engineering majors.</p>
<p>Double majoring in technical subjects is not recommended. If you really want to do it, please have a good reason for doing so. Double majoring because you think you can or to make people think you're smart are not good reasons*. Chances are, if you have extra interest in a field other than the one you are majoring in, it can be satisfied by a few extra courses. That way, you don't have to waste time taking less interesting courses so you can get a second major. For example, if you're interested in physical chemistry, majoring in chemistry and taking Ph 12, Ph 125 + additional interesting Ph/Ch electives is going to be much better than double majoring in physics and chemistry (assuming you could even accomplish this anyway.)</p>
<p>*Seriously, prefrosh, you're not double majoring in chemical engineering and astrophysics or math and physics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Chances are, if you have extra interest in a field other than the one you are majoring in, it can be satisfied by a few extra courses. That way, you don't have to waste time taking less interesting courses so you can get a second major.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't even stress how true this is. I did a physics minor in my undergrad and was able to take exactly the courses I was interested in and not one class more. I had no interest in taking higher-level E&M courses, astrophysics, or any junk like that. I just wanted my quantum, extra thermodynamics, and solid state classes. A friend of mine did the physics double, and there's only one real class they could say was worthwhile having taken. Undergrad major was in Materials Science & Engineering, if that matters.</p>
<p>are aerospace engineering and computer science available as minors in Caltech?</p>
<p>Aerospace is offered as a minor. CS is not, but all undergrads are strongly encouraged to take CS classes. If you're interested in programming, CS 1 + CS 2 + 3x(CS 11) will give you a good programming background from the ground up. If you're interested in the more theoretical side of CS, CS 1 + Ma/CS 6 + CS 21 + CS 24 + CS 38 (whatever you have room for) will prepare you for most of the graduate level courses.</p>
<p>You dont have to be genius back in middle school i was one of the worst students in class, later on i realized how important school is , if u want to become a succesful person. as a freshman i took for 1 semester regular because the school conselor didnt want to put me in honors because of how low my grades were…But i improved and showed everyone that i could get good grades. So they moved me to Honors and all through freshman yr. Ive gotten straight A’s and im not a genius… All you gotta do is believe in your self…It takes work to get all A’s but once you do it , next time itll be a piece of cake trust me! …And next year as a sophmore ill be taking 3 AP’s and All the rest are going to be PreAp classes. You should try to challenge yourself and nothing in this world is Impossible</p>