<p>do you guys think that grade caps have made Princeton too cut-throat? Do you guys still study together and try to help eachother out, rather than trying to compete.</p>
<p>It would be especially interesting to see what seniors have to say coz they lived both before and after, and can probabby tell if they notice a difference at all.</p>
<p>The Yale rep who came to our area specifically tried to mock Princeton "unline some schools, we don't have grade caps. An A paper gets an A, so you don't compete with you peers, rather you support them and help them."</p>
<p>Just wondering how much did grade caps make Princeton more cut-throat, if any at all.</p>
<p>Although I don't support the grade cap policy, I don't think the atmosphere seems cut-throat at all. As a freshman, I can't compare it to much else, but I see a lot of study groups and informal peer tutoring going on. In fact, people don't talk about grades half as much as they did in high school. People tend to make more general comments about how they did as opposed to specifically revealing grades, except between friends.</p>
<p>I've talked to my S about this who's a freshman and he's not concerned about it. He thinks he will probably do well in the subjects he is strong in and get lower grades in the subjects he is weaker in instead of like high school when he got A's in everything. </p>
<p>He says kids help each other a lot through both formal study groups and informal tutoring. There are kids who are willing to take the time to help you with difficult assignments even the night before they are due. Don't forget that schools like Princeton look to admit kids who are truly brilliant and who want to share their knowledge with others. Grade grubbers have a hard time getting past admissions.</p>
<p>However he is a science major and the science departments were only giving out A's to about a third of the students anyway, so they don't really have to make any changes. As for graduate schools, he's not worried about that either. He figures he's being educated at one of the best undergraduate programs in the world, and that his academic preparation will make him a competitive candidate for the best graduate programs. </p>
<p>A friend of his who is a sophomore in a popular humanities major said that the grade cap did cause some anxiety for students last year, especially at exam time.</p>
<p>as a junior who experienced life before grade deflation and life after i will say it's MUCH harder now but no more cutthroat. it was never cutthroat among the people i know and it is not now...everyone's always helping each other etc. no worries about that, but you might want to worry that this place is becoming mroe like cornell. kidding, sort of...</p>
<p>I don't know where I stand on the grade caps. Part of me dislikes it, because it is unfair to the students that need a good GPA to get into grad school but lose out to really tough test scales. Another part of me likes it because it shows that a Princeton "A" is more valuable than a Harvard "A" (as pointed out by glorybear). It also decreases interest in applying to the school, which probably isn't so good for Pton but good for applicants :)</p>