I’m hoping to transfer to Brown from a top-40 university where I currently have a 4.0 GPA. I love everything about Brown, but I don’t know if it’s worth risking my GPA to transfer there (if I get in). Is it relatively easy to keep a good GPA at Brown? Do classes (specifically in Sciences) scale exams?
Why specifically are you concerned about GPA? What are your post-grad plans?
Brown professors give As to as many students that earn them, they do not limit the amount of As they award if that’s what you mean by scale
@bruno14 aren’t we all concerned with GPA? I’m hoping to leave doors open for multiple post-grad options, and GPA will definitely matter in most cases, correct? In terms of Medical or Dental school definitely, and in terms of PhD programs or a MPH, I would assume so as well.
@ManaManaWegi helpful, thank you!! What I guess I should have asked was whether the traditional scale for grades applies (90-100 is A range, 80-89 is B range, and so on)
@transfer2020 What I heard from one senior math professor at ADOCH, so this may not apply always, is that how exams are graded is determined after they’ve been taken, meaning that the professor may decide, after getting the results of a exam back, that in fact an A should require 94% or maybe 87% for a different test. It’s also worth noting that brown doesn’t itself calculate a GPA, though it’s not difficult for any grad program to calculate it based on its own metrics if it wanted to.
@transfer2020 No one is going to look at a 3.6 GPA from Brown and be disappointed. The rigor of the school is always taken into account. It’s not worth staying at a less rigorous school just for the 4.0.
@bruno14 Not at all true with regards to admissions at top law schools.
While in general, yes the GPA counts, but still the rigor of the school also does. My student got into a top med school with GPA somewhere between 3.4-3.7 (not sure exact) and very good MCATs (in part due to the rigor of Brown undergrad.) and other of his HS friends who had higher GPAs at other top 40 schools did not get into same med school. Also except for your “core” looked at courses (for med schools the required science) you can at Brown “finagle” our GPA by S/NC, last minute drops etc. and I’ve known some students who did that or took easier courses. Happens at all schools by those obsessed with GPA, but at least at Brown you might actually be taking interesting classes you like, and challenging yourself with some that are a challenge, but that you can opt your grading to make it less stressful. (And it looks good if say as pre-law, you are interested in a STEM area and take some courses there that might stretch you. )
I have heard that 2/3 of all grades given at Brown are As. However, I think that is skewed by the proportion of humanities majors versus STEM, as Brown’s STEM programs are almost equally as rigorous as peer programs. So it depends on your major. But hey, you got a 4.0 at your current school, which means no matter what, you’re clearly not afraid of hard work, so I wouldn’t worry about it until you’ve gotten in. Try making that happen first and then weight the merits of staying versus leaving. And always let it be about fit and opportunity, not a .1 or .2 difference in your “prospective” or “potential” GPA before you’ve even attended.
Current Brown Engineering student here. In STEM, depending on the class, usually around 30-35% of the class will receive an A (up to the professor), and that most profs will not raise the A cutoff to above 90% (in fact, many STEM class percentages are scaled; the average for my friend’s math class last semester was 65% so they moved the A cutoff to around 70 or 75). Also, keep in mind that Brown grades on an A/B/C/NC scale, so any A- percentage will be recorded as an A. That being said, the classes here (at least in STEM) are very tough. I really would not try to preserve your GPA at the expense of the experiences you might have - many places (depending on field, I guess) will value your advanced coursework and your willingness to challenge yourself infinitely more than your GPA. I’ve seen it all to often where people take every class they feel like they have a chance of getting a B in as pass-fail. By doing this, people only hurt themselves in the long run, because they won’t have the experience of dealing with true academic adversity. And things (problems, tasks, situations, etc.) get a LOT harder once you leave school and enter the real world.
Moral of the story, Brown is a great place to make you a top candidate for many grad programs, but a 4.0 GPA may not be as critical as you might think.
Stepping in to correct something posted in #9 – humanities students are a minority at Brown. STEM is much more popular at Brown than people seem to realize.
In 2012, according to the BDH, “Social sciences concentrations constituted 39.8 percent of those completed in 2012, life sciences represented 21.5 percent, humanities were 20.8 percent, physical sciences covered 17.6 percent and independent concentrations made up the remaining 0.3 percent.”
Here are charts with more recent data: https://www.brown.edu/about/administration/institutional-research/factbook/degrees-and-completions. In 2016, no humanities subject was in the top 10 concentrations.
It would be worth it to risk your GPA a little to attend Brown, if you were fortunate to get in. The curving there is better than other top engineering programs, which is a good thing as it means you can explore some of these tough subjects without getting a D or F. Most weed out courses at engineering schools tend to happen the first two years, where curves are 15%/25%/35%/15%/10% for a/b/c/d/f and C is the most given out grade. You may have one or two more weed out course depending on your major but taking them p/nc would allow you to take them without the stress and trying to learn for the sake of learning the material, not passing the tests, which is needed more and more.
Good luck!