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<p>It’s not stupid at all. Cornell is the only Ivy without a ridiculously high average GPA, and yet it’s students aren’t much worse than the other Ivies’. Johns Hopkins also has a lower average GPA, as does Chicago. Are students at Cornell, JHU, MIT, Caltech and Chicago really that much dumber than their Ivy counterparts? Please. Ivies grade inflate.</p>
<p>Peter Parker— Parent here, and from my personal experience with four kids, three in high ranked schools, I can assure you that you are misled. The level of work and the curves can not be compared to a lower ranked school. I really do not know how these silly thoughts keep perpetuating on CC. There is a reason these high ranked schools are not for everyone.</p>
<p>^
but you can’t deny that many top ranked schools inflate grades</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is denying many top schools (esp ivies) inflate grades. But you have to consider more than avg GPA in calculating difficulty - you have to consider difficulty of the classes themselves. Not just, “how many A’s?” but “how hard is it to get the A?” and what’s expected of the student. </p>
<p>I’ve taken all my classes in two colleges. One is a top 50 (but not ivy-level) private school, the other is a public school near my house. Imo, the two classes I took at the less prestigious school were simply easier. The grade distribution was the same - mostly B range, some A’s and C’s, few people got D’s and F’s. The education quality was about the same too; the professors were just as good. Difference was, getting an A in the less prestigous college was just easier; required less studying, not going as in-depth into the material, classes moved at a slower pace, labs were easier, and less was expected of me as a student. I would say the average top school is harder than a 2nd or 3rd tier college. Obviously this is generalizing as so much depends on the major, profs, students, etc.</p>
<p>But whoever said tech schools are most difficult is probably right. And it’s true colleges like MIT, Caltech and JHU are known for being “tougher” academically than say, Brown, and the other ivies which are known for grade inflation - all but Cornell, it seems.</p>
<p>When you consider that the depth and breathe of the material is on a totally different realm and the students are the highest achieving students in the country all competing against each other I can tell you NO. There is no doubt in my mind that any one of my sons would have a perfect GPA at a lower ranked school. They are very bright but so is every student in their school and, this is what the students in these colleges are competing with. I could tell you that at Cornell there is no grade inflation. They bust their butts for their grades. My other son whos school I can’t mention or friends will be able to identify me is brilliant and he too works extremely hard for every A or B. At a state school or a lower ranked school they would all be straight A students.</p>
<p>Meh, I’m not sure I buy that top-ranked schools are significantly more difficult, considering that academic achievement is overshadowed by legacy, AA, BS ECs, sports, etc.</p>
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<p>there are a number of good state schools where this would definitely not be the case.</p>
<p>^ Sure, and those state schools are “top schools”, or at least pretty close.</p>
<p>indiscreetmath…You really need to experience it to understand how it is different.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t it all just depend on the major and the school?
Like my major, alot of people get As, but the class is surely not easy - it’s just that profs give out A’s once you’ve done all everything you are suppose to (that alone is VERY difficult) I’m animation major so everything takes super long and I hardly sleep… ahhh</p>
<p>I would say the professor matters a lot and obviously elite schools will be harder. Theres a reason they accept less students with better academic records. I still think teachers make a big difference though because some teachers are easy while others aren’t (and why I always use ratemyprofessor.com bc it makes my life a lot easier imo). I went to CC 2 years ago and didn’t put my best effort but did ok (above 3.0) but now i’m going to a 4-year public school thats harder but I’ve worked a lot harder and my gpa is a 3.25 which is ok but should be much higher.</p>
<p>lol @
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<p>In top-ranked schools admissions, academic achievement is not “overshadowed” by those things you mentioned. It’s just that [nearly] everyone who applies has (or should have, or else they’re likely wasting their time) the purely academic qualifications to go those schools. The adcoms then must turn to things like legacy, AA, “BS” ECs, sports, etc. to distinguish between which of their applicants are simply “qualified” and which are going to be admitted to the school.</p>
<p>For those commenting on the difference between the schools you may want to consider disclosing the school you attend. Many of these posts have no basis or truth.</p>
<p>Top schools’ classes are much harder.
Let’s put it this way. In sixth grade, I helped my mom (who could not write English very well at that time; she was an immigrant) organize and write a philosophy paper for her CC class. The teacher gave that paper an A-.
I wrote a similar paper at BC (and I spent a decent amount of time on that essay). Same grade: A-.
If BC is no more rigorous than CC, did my writing skills really not improve in six years? I find that hard to believe.</p>
<p>We’re not talking about community colleges here - which I do not know much about.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I feel parents have no business commenting on this issue - you have no idea just how hard your kid is working for his or her grades relative to anyone else. And you’re biased to want to think that the prestigious university is harder to get a good g.p.a. - as if that indicates the classes are more rigorous or more effective - which actually the grades dished out indicate neither of those qualities.</p>
<p>I attend a top elite university - I got a 4.0 there last semester. I’m a graduating senior so I’m taken a lot of courses in a vareity of areas. Some courses are a lot harder than others, yes - but I feel that courses at the public or state schools are graded HARDER, let alone equally.</p>
<p>What is my evidence of this?</p>
<p>One – many professors are chatty, and they talk about where they’ve previously taught classes. The professors that came from public flagships did not give out A’s as easily as the professors who came from, say, Stanford. This is my experience.</p>
<p>But even greater evidence is two ----- I studied abroad last spring. Obviously we are talking about the US so the comparison may be moot, but I was at a large, public flagship university there (with the normal students). Foreign schools do not have nearly the prestige of US universities (with the exception of OxBridge and that one in India) — HOWEVER, I would say EASILY that those classes were all insanely hard and C averages were given out ON TOP of them being so difficult.</p>
<p>You might say there are cultural differences - but I say at a large, faceless, red-tape university, NO ONE is looking out for you really, you can’t talk to the prof is easily, you can’t dispute grades – you basically get things done or get washed away. There is no special treatement coddling, buddy-buddy, well-you’re-a-WASP or whatever at an elite private insititution so here’s an A old boy.</p>
<p>I know, because I go to such an institution, and a the top schools, A’s are given out like candy with the exception of engineering and chemistry, etc, because those require actual knowledge, and straight A kids from high school get rocked by them because they aren’t as smart as they think they are. Thank you.</p>
<p>So you think you have better perspective than several previous posters who have taken classes at both elite and medium level universities?</p>
<p>re: evidence #1: Ever think the professors from the state schools adjust their expectations very high as soon as they move to an upper tier school?</p>
<p>re: evidence #2: You cannot make that analogy, at all. In China, undergraduate math majors start from real analysis as freshmen. No school in the US does that.</p>
<p>And to close, let me refer you to this:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/389014-berkeley-laws-chart-adjusting-grade-inflation-undergraduate-institutions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/389014-berkeley-laws-chart-adjusting-grade-inflation-undergraduate-institutions.html</a></p>
<p>^ interesting chart, I didn’t know law schools and such did that. So they calculate this based on LSAT scores and gpa?</p>
<p>I think spidey has a point, but it applies to some majors more than others - it applies to the majors where grading is more subjective (like humanities and the arts). I did a summer program in Germany and didn’t notice any difference in the grade distribution or difficulty of material (added difficulty came from classes being a lot bigger and the lecturer switching from english to german so much). I’m a chem major, and chem in Germany = chem in America, or anywhere else. Math/sci are more similar everywhere, although in countries like China (and lots of places) they start with harder classes because in HS they learn more advanced math than us. </p>
<p>the humanities and social sciences are so much more subjective in terms of difficulty. You can hand the same paper to 2 English profs at the same college and get different grades. Econ in the US is often watered-down, but in foreign countries it’s a quantitative subject that requires a lot of math.</p>
<p>It’s old, and it has obvious flaws. But yes, I believe all law schools have a similar indexing of undergraduate difficulty. The methodology is basically to control for LSAT score: take students from different institutions with the same LSAT score, and then see how their GPAs stack up. Harvard’s notorious grade inflation has not compensated for the difficulty of its courses, because given any two students with the same LSAT score, from Harvard and a low-ranking university, the Harvard student will have the lower GPA. Hence, Harvard’s average GPA should keep rising because Harvard is grade-deflated currently. Now when you see the whiners who cry, “Well Harvard’s grading is afflicted by the old-boy-network easy-A philosophy, as evidenced by their 3.5 average GPA, which must OBVIOUSLY be unfairly high”, you can tell that’s a bunch of rubbish.</p>
<p>My point about the international analogy is that schools from different countries can be wildly different from US schools as a whole, so it’s kind of silly to say “well foreign schools are similar to a certain type of US school, but different from another type of US school.”</p>
<p>Yes, that was a bit of a stretch, I admit.</p>
<p>But I still think it’s easier to get high grades at the elite colleges.</p>
<p>As for your comment on my first points - actually, the profs that just arrived from public schools to my school - you are correct - DID have high expectations for us.</p>
<p>But it has the opposite effect of what you might think. It wasn’t — ooh, these are smart kids, I really have to set the bar here. No ---- it was, ooh, these are smart kids, they are going to perform great. Oh this essay (random essay) sounds awesome, because I’m thinking it’s from a smart kid.</p>
<p>Really, a prof I had from a state school always complimented us on being really smart to go here, etc. He probably grades us easier than when he taught at public school. However, this easier standard was not “everyone gets an A because of their expensive tuition, move along now.”</p>
<p>Also, that weighted Berkeley system has tremendous flaws. Specifically, connecting GPA to LSAT at all. LSAT is a reasoning test that measures innate skills. GPA is the opposite - almost all environmentally determined by classes, university, knowledge, and effort put forth. By ranking schools by order of LSAT ---- and then awarding bonus points to the schools at the top ----- you can throw all other criterion out the window, the Ivies and elites are getting bonus points.</p>
<p>The top colleges are a sorting system – you get in to them, and then you surpass your peers at the university while at them. They are not more difficult once there.</p>
<p>I don’t think you fully understand the LSAT study. You’re right that the LSAT functions as a reasoning test that tests innate skills. Therefore, holding LSAT constant should net us students of approximately equal ability. Then we compare GPA’s. If two students of equal ability have different GPAs, that suggests something about the difficulty of their respective undergraduate institutions. It just so happens that for students of equal ability, the one from Swarthmore will have a lower GPA than the one from Harvard, who will in turn have a much lower GPA than the one from CS Fullerton. What does this mean? Harvard is grade inflated with respect to top liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore, but is tremendously grade deflated with respect to run-of-the-mill state schools.</p>
<p>The methodology is not exactly like this, no one is privy to the secret formula, but this is the general idea.</p>