<p>But one, in the system you described, there could be other factors - other than grade inflation - that cause students in specific LSAT ranges at Harvard to have lower gpas than comparable LSAT scorers at Average U. For one, ‘intelligent’ kids at Average U may feel the need to work harder - or conversely, Harvard kids might take it easier once at Harvard. I’m just saying there may be other factors.</p>
<p>Second, this very system you describe is NOT what is actually explicitly described and the methodology and full data set is actually unknown to us.</p>
<p>Seeing that the LSAT is scored on a comparitive/ relative scale to how other test-takers performed that year — it is not hard to figure out that the “elite” schools like Harvard have a lot more students with higher LSAT scores – probably even students with the top scores that simply DO NOT EXIST at Average U. For this reason, I think it would be difficult to make statistical comparisons.</p>
<p>But the actual scale does not even reveal that, controlled for LSAT score, GPA is significantly lower at the 'elite" schools.</p>
<p>All we know is that LSAT score and average GPA were entered into a formula and universities were ranked in this regard.</p>
<p>You’re right on both counts. We don’t know what actually occurs, and we do know it’s bound to be imperfect.</p>
<p>Yet the point remains: law schools adjust top schools’ GPAs up and state schools’ GPAs down. That’s a fact which should be brought up whenever parents and students begin spewing anecdotes and personal opinion on this subject.</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>That’s exceptionally cocky, and an appeal to illegitimate authority, as spidey says. You aren’t the one taking the classes. Anyways, if you want to know where I go, I wouldn’t say it’s very difficult to find out (a few pixels to the left…)</p>
<p>My personal experience is this: I went to a high school whose academics are undoubtedly weaker than several other schools near mine. My friend, who is extremely smart (probably more so than me) and went to a pretty legit HS, was a slacker in HS and goes to UCI (tier 2). He received good grades this semester, and thought it was pretty easy. I also received good grades this semester, and thought it was also not that hard. I don’t recall doing much busy work in college, I ditched half my classes, and am still wondering about what everyone says about UCB putting people in their place (the whole spiel about everyone being smart, which I also find untrue), cos it hasn’t happened yet.
My take? Posturing gets you into the higher college, but intelligence gets you good grades. Only a little bit of relation between them.</p>
<p>Would depend on what schools exactly, but I’d say these are the most difficult state schools overall (not including honors colleges or anything like that):</p>
<p>Berkeley
Georgia Tech
Virginia
Wisconsin
Michigan
William and Mary</p>
<p>So… maybe they should just give out grades based on what school you go to.</p>
<p>Top 6% of schools = A
7-10% = A-
11-13% = B+
etc</p>
<p>obviously all GPAs are not created equal. Just like all high school GPAs are not created equal. A 3.3 from Harvard and a 3.3 from Tier 4 State U are the same number. But they mean very different things.</p>
<p>It’s pretty annoying that people are not bothering to differentiate between “difficult” “prestigious” “smart” “hard working”… etc. Using “best” is even more vague.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the “general” or “average” student at a university is not going to represent “everyone”. There’s going to be a wide distribution of achievement at each university. This should be obvious, cause that’s why there’s those things called “grades”.</p>
<p>Figuring out how “hard” a class is is a simple matter of looking at several students (maybe just the average) to see how smart/studious they are, and then look at the grades they’ve got. Or just look at the content yourself, and read about the curving policy*. But no, apparently people just want to go by how prestigious the college is, or by some antiquated/imprecise metric.</p>
<p>*I suppose that sometimes these won’t be feasible. For example, subjective grading. However, if it’s subjective grading, then by definition there’s no point of slapping an objective label on it, except as an empty boast.</p>
<p>Depends what one means by “elite” and depends what classes! There are definitely classes at several universities I’d call elite which are run at a level that is very seldom found at many other universities. I think there are easy classes that most any pretty good student could do well in at every elite university aside from a 100% technical one.</p>
<p>However, I understand Peter_Parker was talking of averages, and I agree with the point made, though I also agree with James that it’s unfair to write off Harvard as “an easy ride” – as evidenced in my post above. </p>
<p>Also, to the poster who asked if grad and medical schools do anything similar – well, I know little about medical school, but I’m pretty sure various graduate programs favor research experience and letters of recommendation over extreme use of raw numerical data. This will be very much true for top schools.</p>
<p>I would venture to guess that math/science/engineering classes are more difficult at more selective schools since the competition is stiffer. The higher level of competition within the classes translates to increased difficulty of earning an A, even though the total percentage of A’s may be similar between any given selective school and a less selective school. I know a transfer who went from an upper-tier private to an Ivy and had to change his major because it was so much more intense/challenging at the Ivy.</p>
<p>Regarding most other subjects, I can’t comment, because I don’t really understand the grading standards myself.</p>