<p>Hey everyone,</p>
<p>I was wondering if anyone could answer how the rest of the class influences your grades.
If I'm getting 90s and then I transfer to a different school of the same difficulty but with a significantly smarter class how would that effect me? Its environmental engineering so its a small class, around 20 ppl. </p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>With all but a select few abberations, I believe going to smarter school makes it more likely that you will get a lower GPA.</p>
<p>Different school with same difficulty?
So your asking how the students around you in class will affect your work ethic? Shouldn't really affect you much, should encourage you if anything since theres competition.</p>
<p>I'm more asking about the bell curve. I don't think my work ethic will be affected much cause if there 1 thing I'm good at its trying really really hard.</p>
<p>Well since your good at trying really really hard as you say then you should have no problem but I'm sure it will be more difficult</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm more asking about the bell curve. I don't think my work ethic will be affected much cause if there 1 thing I'm good at its trying really really hard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If the difficulty remains the same, and the people around you are smarter, what will happen to your grade relative to the class, assuming a bell curve exists? It doesn't take an engineering student to figure that one out.</p>
<p>Engineering classes = grading curve...doesn't really matter how smart YOU are...all that matters is how smart your classmates are...suck it up</p>
<p>^Listen to him.</p>
<p>Yeah. It sucks.</p>
<p>Sad but true.</p>
<p>Since most classes don't explicitly have numerical cut offs for grades usually the only way to know if you are doing well in a class is scoring above the mean or median of the class.</p>
<p>the grading however depends on the professor...I've had professors who adhere strictly to the B- curve (i.e. if you are on the mean then you get B-). Others are very generous. This past quarter my Communications professor was really generous...the lowest person in class (yes the bottom guy) got something like a C+/B-...that's pretty rare. His reasoning was that if you have made it this far (upper div engineering and one of the toughest courses) you are fairly smart and he said that he sees no reason to give anything below a C+ to that person.</p>
<p>The mean grade being a D- is a pretty solid class as well. :)</p>
<p>Don't you guys mean median grade? Bell curve works where 50% is above the grade, and 50% is below, so that is the real class 'average' as opposed to a mean which can be affected by either a few people doing terrible or a few people acing it.</p>
<p>From my experience, bell curves work from the median and letter grades are given by the # of standard deviations from the median. Example, median = C+ and if you are 2 sigmas away, it's an A, one sigma is a B+.</p>
<p>I mean, theoretically, the median and mean should be about the same in a perfect bell curve, but median is the one that more accurately pinpoints how well you compare relative to classmates' performance.</p>
<p>isn't it possible that my grade would not go down much? I mean it would go down due to the bell curve but I'd have better people to do assignments with?</p>
<p>Astor, you are statistically correct but I HATE when professors do that. It adds this evil finality that no matter what, only a select few people will get good grades regardless of comprehension.</p>
<p>I have had some great professors who judge based on academics and improvement. If you failed the first test hard but made the effort to work hard, visit office hours and do well on the next few tests, he'd give you an A.</p>
<p>that's very true, but i do believe the bell curve is able to better show who the top of the class really are, which allows people to differentiate between someone with a lot of potential and others who just cruise on by; it requires a lot of hard work to beat the curve.</p>
<p>example: say there was no curve and just an objective scale. a test is given, and most of the people score 90+ and get A's. Cool, that shows they know the material on the test, but if most people got an A, it doesn't say much in who will be able to perform better in situations which are not the norm.</p>
<p>However, say there was a bell curve, and most people got 80's, and a few people got the 90's. As an outsider, you only have one objective scale to measure the students in that class, and its their grade. As a result, you know that the few people who scored 90's on the exam are better at applying the material than the average student in the class. This is why classes in which a curve exists, there are material on the exams that require some extra application as opposed to just the homework problems, whereas the objective grading scale usually makes it possible for people to score high on.</p>