<p>Average for CH101 (Chemistry 101 - what all biomedical engineers and premeds take)
was curved to a C.</p>
<p>Being 14% above the average will still only get you a B-</p>
<p>Something is wrong with this bell curve</p>
<p>That is a pretty nasty curve. The standard deviation must have been pretty large but then again it is a class that weeds out people that are not smart enough for BME or pre-med.</p>
<p>Yup, grade deflation is owning me right now. CH101 seems to be the mass of problems for most science freshman here at BU. A C average is complete ******** no matter how you look at it</p>
<p>CH111, the honors chem class, which I’m taking. The average got curved to a B, but even then I did average or above average on every exam, but got owned by the lab portion and ended up with a C. Need to do much much better in CH112</p>
<p>This isn’t exactly evidence of grade deflation, it’s just evidence that the “average” students get the traditional “average” grade of a C. </p>
<p>I dunno, I go both ways on my thoughts on this subject, but for the record I never had a class with a C average…the average grades were always at least a B-.</p>
<p>grade deflation is very real. anyone who goes to BU knows this exists, especially in CAS.</p>
<p>Yea i don’t really understand how this shows that it is grade deflation… I’m sorry but if you’re not doing well in a class it isn’t automatically grade deflation.</p>
<p>Some students think that because BU has a high acceptance rate (58%) that it is going to be an easy school to get through. It is not.</p>
<p>I am a student at BU who took CH101 this semester as a freshman. Looking back at my grades, I did about 10% or higher than average on labs, aleks and webassign, discussion quizzes, lecture exams, as well as the final. My final grade was a B. I think the average must have been curved to around a C+ or B-.</p>
<p>I guess it could be grade deflation, can’t say for sure. There were moments where I felt they were being unfair or “out to get us”, like the final exam which had some physics on it. I think the only way I would have been able to do better overall is if I had better time management with studying for tests and going over material I didn’t understand. The professors/lab TFs/discussion leaders are always open to help during office hours, and there’s even free tutoring at the ERC. </p>
<p>I think the students who performed well took advantage of all these resources AND had good time management were the ones that faired well. In general, it’s a lot to expect from a student in their first semester of college, but I have a feeling it would’ve been the same at any other comparable university.</p>
<p>I just think the whole grade deflation thing is overblown. I’m in law school now and we all just accept that only 5 students in our class will get As. Grades are the main way of separating the top students. I’ve posted this on here before, but rank-ordering is crucial in life. It’s the only way grad schools and employers are really going to know who to hire/admit. I know it sucks when you feel like you were going to do better than a C, but the fact that you got a C necessarily means that people did better than you. I’ve been there and it blows, but it’s just the way life is. It makes you stronger in the long run, and it makes you all the more impressive when you do well at BU.</p>
<p>But if comparing everyone is so important, BUBailey, then shouldn’t all schools have the same cutoffs for ranking? If one school gives the top 20% As and another only the top 10%, then how is that meaningful in the long run? They’re not standardized, so to an outsider with no information on the school’s grading policies it’s all kinds of skewed. A student who got in the top 11% of his class would get an A at the former hypothetical school, but a B (or A- or what have you) at the second school.
Speaking of this, do grad/law/med schools actually know about BU’s deflation?</p>
<p>True, bananafonez, but it’s skewed anyway; the top 10% at Harvard are likely very different than the top 10% at BU than the top 10% at Big State U than at Podunk ville Bible College (not a knock on any of those schools, of course 
). The only thing you can tell yourself is that getting an A at BU, where it is very tough to get an A, means you truly earned it, and that’s an accomplishment. There’s always a bit of luck involved in grading, unless you’re a pure math major or something. </p>
<p>As to your other question…yes and no. BU clearly has a reputation for deflating grades, so other schools certainly know that. That being said…law school and med school especially are very numbers driven. The law school that admits you wants to report the highest gpa it can to bring up its own ranking, so a 3.5 at BU, while probably the rough equivalent of a 3.8 at Big State U, just doesn’t add as much to a entering class profile. But the fact that you went to a good school and got a good gpa there is important. I’m just saying that I wouldn’t count on it being an x factor in your admission-you need to be sure the rest of your application is very good too.</p>
<p>This is probably a really dumb question, but… I’m applying to BU now and I thiiiink I’m a pretty strong applicant, but I’m scared hearing about this grade deflation. Is this something everyone will face or if you are a strong student most likely not? Thanks</p>
<p>It’s pretty impossible to answer that question since your high school grades are probably not an accurate predictor of college success. Sure, there’s some correlation…but everyone changes when they come to college. Kids who coasted through high school start making Cs because they’ve never had to study. Students who struggled in high school but worked super hard end up doing well because they know how to budget their time. </p>
<p>Don’t be scared of grade deflation. I did not experience it at BU except for maybe in one instance. And to be honest, I just assumed I did poorly, not that the professor or the curve screwed me over.</p>
<p>The OP said he/she experienced it in his Chem 101 class… does it tend to happen moreso in the introductory classes? (rather than the more advanced ones, classes taken for a major, etc)</p>
<p>it happens more in classes that are larger and classes that are science or math. if you took an essay test chances are there’s probably not as much of a set curve because the grading is more subjective. (if it even happens at all which i’m not convinced of)</p>
<p>I agree with BUBailey because people definitely try to blame their terrible grades on grade deflation. I must also say that in my large introductory classes there were many times that my grades were boosted up by the curve. But we see on the forums that people only complain about bad situations and that is why you hear about grade inflation all the time, To be honest, if you study hard and invest your time into your classes you should be fine. But if you still end up with bad grades and are not understanding the material, that major is probably not for you.</p>
<p>i agree with asusomega. if you work hard, you will be able to get a pretty good grade in most classes; however, the grades are not inflated like in many other schools. Like a few of the other kids posting, I also just finished chem 101 at BU. My average was an 83, which got me a B+. I was (and still am) intrigued by the grade distribution. In order to get an A in the class, you needed a 89.00. I know a girl who got an 88.99, and they gave her an A-. This is pretty harsh because not many of the kids ended up getting As or A-s in the class despite having a relatively high grade. My own grade, nearly 16 points above the “C” average did not get me even an A-. While this may be disheartening to many students or potential students, there is something to be said about the “grade deflation.” Even though I am planning on going to grad school, I think the lack of grade inflation (better term to describe the situation) at BU is something I am proud of. If I can maintain a 3.6 at BU, then I have no doubt that I will be able to succeed at whatever school I go to after my undergrad. So fellow terriers, let us take pride in the fact that BU is an honest school and does not give out As like shirts at freshman orientation, as many other schools do. Our grades represent our actual work, our struggles, and our efforts, not just attending class and sweet talking professors.</p>
<p>I think people aren’t looking at it correctly. Its not grade deflation, its the fact that they have to curve the class in the first place. </p>
<p>I agree that sometimes the class will be difficult due to the content or just the workload. But something is wrong when EVERY YEAR, the class gets curved around the same mean scores. For CH109, our teacher told us the curves for previous years. Classes shouldn’t be curved, tests should be curved.</p>
<p>Curving shouldn’t be based on class performance, in reality curving is a safety for students in case a test wasn’t written correctly or questions weren’t similar to what was covered in class. BU needs better teachers, more support for classes like the premed classes, and all around needs to restructure its academic environment. If they listened to students, they would reach top 20 school ratings within 5 years.</p>
<p>unless you are harvard, you don’t get respect by giving out all A’s. No department, no dean, and no grad school will respect a class where everyone received an A. and you shouldn’t either. classes MUST be rank ordered. Everyone does not deserve an A. Unless a class is very small and made up of the most dedicated students, I can’t see a situation where it makes sense not to have a curve. Professors who end up giving out all A’s aren’t usually teaching anything…they’ve made the test too easy. If I work hard and get an A, I’ll be a little disappointed if the moron next to me who facebooks all class gets the same thing.</p>
<p>Curving is not a safeguard for students; it is a tool for rank ordering…which the real world does every single day. Best get used to it now.</p>
<p>The grade deflation at BU is really a boon to its best students. It means that great students who go to BU instead of a top-20 school can rest assured that their transcripts will reflect the fact that the work they did as undergraduates was as good as the work going on in (larger percentages of the classes at) other places.
This in turn makes it easier to get into grad school from BU than it would be if 4.0’s were scurrying about all over the place, which raises the profile of BU and the value of all of our degrees … so I’m really not sure that anyone should complain.
Not that certain classes aren’t unfairly curved-- I’m sure that’s true.</p>