<p>Is English a soft major? Philosophy? Classics? I'm just curious, PA.</p>
<p>Compared to hard sciences and technical fields yes.</p>
<p>You do have to do your work, but its far far easier to get a good grade from doing all your work versus the other majors. This is true at all schools.</p>
<p>PolySci and Philosophy... guess that's soft, and easy A's all around. Well, three of his classes this semester are upper division, too. So maybe it gets easier at Cal the higher up you go?</p>
<p>Yeah, he was the only freshman, but plenty of 2nd year and 3rd year students got selected, too. </p>
<p>There are so many internship opportunities at a big school like Cal that it's not even funny. And lots of organization to join. Or if you don't like the ones that exist, start new ones. He and some friends did that, too. Just get out of your room, PA. I'm sure you have a lot to offer the Berkeley community and could find some interesting, intelligent people to hang out with if you really tried.</p>
<p>Perhaps. But one thing you include here is "COMPARED TO hard science and technical majors." But you always omit that part. Lets put things in perspective. Also, let's try not to speak of "all schools." And it's not easy to pull straight A's in those fields. Straight B's, perhaps, but A's? no, pa, they don't hand out A's to that much of the class in phil most certainly. And is there just a dichotomy? Just hard and soft? No middle. You don't think phil and English are hard and grade tough at Berkeley? They should be in some medium category. It's not so black and white as you paint it.</p>
<p>And while here saying "it's true at all schools" has more justification, you use this far too often, and generally without appropriate justification (you over-generalize).</p>
<p>More like I type too fast to be thorough, there are enough people to keep me honest and the general idea still remains largely intact. I posted an article in the past that described grade inflation at Berkeley (which is slight compared to the Ivies). The article said that the average gpa in the soft majros was much higher than in the sciences. The curve is far easier. Something like 25% get A's wheras in a hard science, or technical class, the mean is usually the cutoff point between a B and C.</p>
<p>So by "hard," I mean the ease of which you can get an A. Doing all your work guaranttes you a good shot at an A in these classes. </p>
<p>That being said, I know a lot of the thigns I said are subjective. I just offer my perspective so that people can have a point of reference for which to criticize berkeley when they come and see what Berkeley is like for themselves, very often people have cognitive dissonance with their experiences. I too thought Berkeley was a good school until the bad experiences just kept piling up. I just want the idea to be out there.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And also realize lots of people with crap stats that have no chance apply to harvard and whatnot anyways just to see. This is especially true of asian people who have been taught that brand name is everything, and berkeley is half asian after all.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know that this is a valid criticism of Berkeley. The fact is, the top private schools are predominantly Asian also. After all, they do say that MIT = "Made in Taiwan". I don't see that the Asians at the top private schools would be any more brand-conscious than the Asians at Berkeley. This is especially so for the Asians at a school like Harvard that is supremely branded and would therefore draw plenty of students just for the brand alone (not that there is anything wrong with that - as I have discussed before, branding is a legitimate reason to choose a school). The difference of course is that the Asians at the top private schools tend to be more successful than the Asians at Berkeley at getting into top graduate schools. </p>
<p>But again, I would point out that the Asians at Berkeley tend to be more successful than the Asians at any of the other UC's.</p>
<p>No, doing all of your work doesn't give you a good shot for an A in philosophy classes. You actually have to write at least decent papers. You can turn everything in a do all the reading, but if your papers are so-so, you will end up with a B. I imagine that the same thing is true for English, but I have no direct experience there, just its reputation of being tough and intense. </p>
<p>I've read the article months before you posted it, I'm familar with it, and certainly it means what it says, that the AVERAGE humanities subjects are how they describe it. But the average upper div science class discussed aren't so bad. And your percentages are a little off, I think. </p>
<p>It's just extremely hard to maintain a high GPA at Berkeley and this set of acceptances, or lack there of, reflects that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No, doing all of your work doesn't give you a good shot for an A in philosophy classes. You actually have to write at least decent papers. You can turn everything in a do all the reading, but if your papers are so-so, you will end up with a B. I imagine that the same thing is true for English, but I have no direct experience there, just its reputation of being tough and intense.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There are a LOT of engineers and natural science majors at Berkeley who wish they could get a B for doing so-so work.</p>
<p>Perhaps I should have added "at best." But sure, I believe you.</p>
<p>My hardest classes and worst grades at Cal were in the humanities. </p>
<p>
[quote]
There are a LOT of engineers and natural science majors at Berkeley who wish they could get a B for doing so-so work.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A lot of the science and engineering classes are definitely "cramable".</p>
<p>"Rine described the shock he felt during his three years on the Committee on Teaching from roughly 1998 to 2000 when he reviewed teaching records for large undergraduate classes, with more than 100 students, in which no one got less than an A-, year after year. At the time, Rine asked Associate Registrar Walter Wong to assemble some data looking at upper division and lower division grading in the physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and engineering, so that he could distinguish trends from anecdotal exceptions. The results were clear. The physical sciences and engineering had rigorous grading standards roughly in line with the recommendations from 1976," stated Rine, "while the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-,"</p>
<p>So are you trying to say that they just hand out As at Berkeley? If you are that would be awesome. :P</p>
<p>god this tread is depressing...making me wish i had accepted hopkins over berkeley. just turned in my sir today for UCB...</p>
<p>thread* (i wouldn't want to **** off the eng majors)</p>
<p>500/2000000 get into college in iran...hows that for depressing?</p>
<p>To the OP, no those stats aren't depressing. Look at how many universities are not even represented. The fact that a public university is able to send even 3 students is phenomenal.</p>
<p>iloveCA, there are probably hundreds of thousands of college students in Iran. Maybe you're talking about the top school?</p>
<p>oh yeah...thats what i meant..tehran university...</p>
<p>well you guys are talking about yale/harvard, so i thought i'd give some reallly depressing stats for getting into top schools over there</p>
<p>
[quote]
So are you trying to say that they just hand out As at Berkeley? If you are that would be awesome. :P
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To me, the main problem has never been so much about overall grade inflation from school to school (although it is a problem). The real problem has been about grade inflation WITHIN a particular school. The fact is, there really are some classes in Berkeley in which students can do almost nothing and barely even show up, and still get A's. And then there are other classes at Berkeley in which students can work work like absolute dogs and still end up with C's or worse. I personally think that this should be normalized, such that Berkeley makes those cheesepuff classes harder, but also makes those ridiculously hard classes easier. You shouldn't have such a wide disparity in grading standards. </p>
<p>Nor do I mean to single out Berkeley. This is, sadly, a feature at other schools. At almost any other school, there are students who are basically doing nothing and who don't know anything, yet are getting better grades than other students who work extremely hard and know a lot.</p>