<p>I graduated from Mt. Holyoke, where students never knew their class rank(until close to graduation) and were encouraged to study together, etc. (It would be hard to help a classmate study if you thought you could lose your rank if she got better grades than you.) Are the students at Smith aware of their rank? Are they competitive, or do they help each other academically? My D has applied to Smith, and I am really curious about this.</p>
<p>I don’t think I ever knew my overall class rank. I graduated magna cum laude, so I know roughly what percentile range I was in for that calculation (which is different than overall gpa), but I didn’t find that out until the day before graduating.</p>
<p>There is a dean’s list and the (more selective) first group scholars, but those lists aren’t published. There’s also Phi Beta Kappa, but initiation is done during senior year (and usually on the day before graduation). So there’s not a ton of ways to know precisely where you stand.</p>
<p>Also, Smithies want to do so many different things that there’s not a ton of competition. There generally aren’t so many people applying for X Grad School or Y Fellowship that it feels like one person’s acceptance came at the expense of someone else’s. </p>
<p>I’m sure there are some super competitive people at Smith–any time you get a few thousand people together, there’s bound to be. But I found it to be a pretty collaborative place–even when my best friend and I were applying for the same fellowship, we still read each other’s application essays.</p>
<p>Smithies seem to be mostly competitive with themselves. I’ve seen two consoling a third about a B+ grade…and they would have been distraught had the situations been reversed. </p>
<p>But you don’t hear of people not sharing information, O-chem experiments being sabotaged, etc.</p>
<p>D’s experience closely tracked Stacy’s. Sometimes I think D is closely tracking Stacy…except she opted <em>not</em> for Law School.</p>
<p>I agree, Smithies usually have to compete only with their own expectations. I always felt like there was a general attitude on campus that we were all there to help each other. After all, as women we have enough obstacles to deal with without trying to climb over each other to get to the top. I never felt like there could only be room for one person at the top (a lot of Smith organizations reflect this. Many of them are led by co-presidents, vs. a single student being the president/generalissimo). No Smithie that I ever knew would refuse to help a classmate study so that their own grade would be higher or would intentionally sabotage another student.</p>
<p>While I agree students aren’t outwardly competitive and are more than willing to work in groups/help each other, I do think the atmosphere is competitive a little bit. </p>
<p>MANY MANY MANY people want to write honor theses or graduate with latin honors, so you do hear people trying to figure out what they have to do to get this done. So, maybe competitive isn’t the right word, but it is kind of.</p>
<p>What is Latin honors? I saw that on a page of Smith’s website that showed stats.</p>
<p>Latin Honors = cum laude, magna cum laude, summa cum laude.</p>
<p>cum laude = about the top 10 percent
magna cum laude = about top 5 percent,
summa cum laude = top 1.5 percent</p>
<p>All iirc. First-year grades do not count nor do grades in Abroad programs not run by Smith.</p>
<p>Phi Beta Kappa = about top 20 percent. </p>
<p>Unless I’ve managed to flip the percentages for cum laude & PBK…</p>
<p>R6L, you and I are on the same page but using different words. Many Smithies are “driven,” my D certainly was. But it’s an internal competition as opposed to an explicit external one. For many Smithies, discussing grades is like their parents discussing incomes…it’s Not Done except with closest friends.</p>
<p>I dunno, theDad. I saw a fair number of Smithies post their GPA in facebook statuses after my first semester.
Overall, though, the environment is collaborative though, I will agree. It’s just that underlying competition that I can’t exactly place my finger on…</p>
<p>I think I <em>did</em> flip cum laude and PBK: PBK = top 10 percent, cum laude = top 20 percent.</p>
<p>R6L, this may be a matter of semantics but I think there’s a distinction between “competitive” and “driven to succeed.” A matter of focus. My D’s quote about the collective Smithies was, “There are very few slackers here.”</p>
<p>Your correction is correct, TD. :)</p>
<p>I would agree that Smithies generally try to “compete” against themselves. My D never knew where she stood in context of the other students of her class (they just never discussed grades); she always measured her performance against her own standards. She never cared how the other students did — unless someone was upset.</p>
<p>And I know for a fact that many students are cooperative. I remember my D telling me how she and another student teamed up to tutor each other because they had different backgrounds going into a interdisciplinary course. In fact, when my D was looking at grad schools, she was conscious of finding one that had the same collegiality. She had heard too many horror stories of cut-throat competition in the sciences. Smith was a remarkable learning environment for her precisely because the students were so supportive of one another.</p>
<p>MWFN, can’t keep some info in memory in neatly ordered columns like I used to. :(</p>
<p>I’ll add, that Smith, unlike many colleges, does not use the “weeder class” approach, using some Calculus classes or a class like O-chem to “weed out” the number of majors. They want you to succeed, they’re not stacking the deck against you.</p>
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<p>This is true to some degree, but my D had a new organic chem prof who did indeed grade that wayvbecause that’s how it was done where she came from. (This is one instance when my D knew a little about other students’ grades because so many cried after receiving Cs and Ds and even Fs on the exams.) And some courses in the sciences are natural weeders, not because they fail students, per se, but because the material is so difficult/comprehensive that a certain segment of students realize that they cannot hold their own. I know Organic Chem II and Cell Bio were two of those courses when my D attended. Still, these semi-weeders are nothing like those at some universities. I taught at one where fifty percent of the students were given grades of C or lower in the different levels of calculus, physics, cell bio, and organic chemistry. I can’t imagine this happening at Smith. If fifty percent of the students were to receive low grades, I imagine that the faculty/administration would question why the course wasn’t being taught better.</p>
<p>Your replies have all been just what I was looking for, and very helpful/informative. Thank you!</p>
<p>Professors really encourage collaboration as well. In every class I have had there is no curve to worry about, so helping other students will only help yourself as well since you will gain a better mastery of the subject.</p>