<p>I realize that the difficulty of each course depends on the teacher and the level. But in general, how hard is it to get As freshman year?</p>
<p>Does Notre Dame have grade inflation like many of the ivys do or any grade deflation?</p>
<p>Well to answer your first question. I'll be honest I did less work Freshman year then I ever did in High School. I did respectable first semester (over 3.0), made Dean's List 2nd semester. T</p>
<p>hat having been said my HS experience may have been an anomoly. Participation in athletics was mandatory all three trimesters, so while the normal day ended at 3:00 PM, then Varsity athletics would run from about 3:20 until 5:15 PM, then driving home in rush hour traffic meant I got home around 6:00 PM most days with 3-4 hours of hw to do each night after I showered and ate dinner. </p>
<p>Freshman year I did 17 hours first semester, 18 hours the 2nd. Even with two lab science courses I had so much free time. If you can't get your hw done, you need to learn time management big time.</p>
<p>thats good to hear. i was a little concerned when my friend told me about the super hard science courses (bio) are they really that hard?</p>
<p>I think a lot depends on how you work. I did like college a lot better than high school because I hate busy work and college has a lot less busy work. However, you have to motivate yourself because no one will hold your hand and, if you are like me, your whole grade may be determined by four tests. While this is not true for all classes, for my major (psych) it has been very different than high school. In high school there were homework assignments, and quizzes, and tests and your grade was all broken up accordingly, so you could use the homework to help boost your grade. For me at least it is different, I have four tests and that is it, the average of those tests is what I get. It is a lot more pressure and a different type of studying but if you can motivate yourself it isn't too bad to adapt to. Every major is different, however, with how they do this but i would guess the sciences are like psych in that the grading is mainly tests.</p>
<p>hmm do you know how the philosophy/english/humanities courses are graded? are they graded on papers as well, b/c that would make sense. or are the grades divided between tests and papers?</p>
<p>My experience has been a split between tests and papers.</p>
<p>as an English major (even though I started out Biochem, and have taken classes over in Mendoza because I had slots to do so....) I can tell you that for English it depends on the class. The "Traditions" classes - Brit Lit 1, Brit Lit 2, Amer. Lit 1, Amer Lit 2 all had midterm, final, quizzes and papers. Class participation also counted in those classes. In some of the upper electives the grade has been based solely on papers though. Often this means the "final" is a 10-20 page paer, but that's not so bad. I've also had classes where the final was an oral board with the prof - really the best in my opinion, it doesn't allow you to BS.</p>
<p>ive heard that business students start their weekends the earliest (wednesday) and most others start their weekends on thursday and friday. is that true? also, ive heard that as long as you arent a pre-med/science, architecture or engineering major, you will not have an impossible time.</p>
<p>How about the Biology program. Is it any good, is it really hard, intense, etc? anything...</p>
<p>from my friend "impossible, hard, studying alot, still didnt do well, everyone did mediocre/poor, grade will be curved insanely, its all good, im going to go party now" lol</p>
<p>My first response in reading your last post red06 is to say your friend has to be one of the slightly lazy, "college is all about having fun and meeting people" types.</p>
<p>Honestly, though I know some Bio students who have a hard time, some who get straight A's. Not every course curves though honestly. When I did Orgo you had four 100 pt exams over the course of the semester and a 200 pt final. Thus your grade was going to be x/600. In order to pass the class you had to get at least 300 out of 600 pts. If you were lower the prof said: "to bad, you will get an F." Honestly though, he failed between 5-10 students that semester. You know what though he probably gave out 15-20 A's. </p>
<p>The Bio program seems to be fairly strong overall. I mean its the college of Science. It's not going to be a walk in the park. Expect to spend a good amount of time reading, doing hw, studying or working on labs...</p>
<p>I never found any Science class that hard. You just have to stay on top of the work and do the reading when it is assigned, not all in the 2 nights before a test.</p>
<p>Does Notre Dame cap the GPA at 4.0 or do they allow 4.3s for A+s?</p>
<p>lol, who do you think we are? Just kidding, I know a lot of school's do that. Unfortunately no A+'s here, 4.0 is as high as you go.</p>
<p>yeah no A+'s here....only A's</p>
<p>How does the GPA scale work at ND?</p>
<p>the same it does most normal places except HS's that foolishly and artificially inflate GPA's over a 4.0 scale...</p>
<p>A = 4.0
A - = 3.667
B+ = 3.333
B = 3.0
B- = 2.667
C = 2.0
C- = 1.667
D = 1.0
F = 0</p>
<p>and yes ND does take your GPA to three decimal places w/o rounding. Unless this has changed in the last year or so (and I totally missed it)...which I highly doubt</p>
<p>My high schools was more the straight out number school- no gpa and no letters. Thus, number speakig, what is the range of an 'A' or '4.0'?? Is that like a 93-100? Plus, do courses, especially, science classes have a generous curve or grade inflation at all?</p>
<p>It depends on the class. A lot of classes use the 100-93 for an A and then 92-90 for an A-. However, many of my upper-level major courses (300 and higher) use a 100-95 for an A and 94-90 for a A- scale. I also do have one class that is 100-96 for an A! A's are attainable but you have to nearly be perfect in some classes, at least in my major.</p>
<p>Im a soph engineering major and I can honestly say there are no days off from homework. My roommate is in the college of business and hardly does anything at all. So it really depends on your major. In my case, i get an avg of 5 hrs a sleep a night and the rest of time im pretty much doing work.</p>
<p>ghippleh - I'm impressed if you are doing hw every night...I know plenty of engineers who are out drinking half of the week. Then again I know of two who only go to class M, W, F and never have a T, H class - of course they set their schedule that way. They wanted to be able to have an off day to do hw, but then again they still spend a huge amount of time playing NCAA football or other video games.</p>
<p>Believe me, some semesters I did more work from my A&L program then I did back when I was in College of Science. Other semesters as I look back I definitely spent more time doing work when I was a Biochem major. I think it is safe to say it depends on the major and the semester to some degree. More important is how efficient and how good of memory you have. I know one girl who never studies except the night before, she almost aced a couple of orgo exams that year....</p>