curving at Cal.

Transfer Students UC Transfers
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<p>I have heard at Cal they curve in order to engender competition. But how does it work? Do only a few students get As no matter what? Moreover, does that mean some will fail regardless of test performance?</p>

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<p><em>Gasp</em> Who told you?! LOL. Some professors say they do for the larger classes... If, how and why they actually do it, I have no idea. </p>

<p>It's much less prevalent in smaller, upper division courses.</p>

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<p>Suggestion: You might want to post this under the Berkeley forum to solicit more responses from current Cal students.</p>

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<p>"I have heard at Cal they curve in order to engender competition. But how does it work? Do only a few students get As no matter what? Moreover, does that mean some will fail regardless of test performance?"</p>

<p>Grading curves are done at all UC's, especially in the science and engineering courses. It is not something unique to Cal. The professor gauges the grading distribution and assigns letter grades based on your percentile rank in the class. For example, Stat 2, an intro to statistics course, had a distribution of:
23% A
30% B
41% C
0% D
6% F
So, if you're at the 87th percentile, you're guaranteed an A of some sort. The same goes for the other letter grades.</p>

<p>As for the professor failing students regardless of individual test performance, I do not think this is an issue. I doubt any professor would fail a student who got a 98% on a test because everyone else got 100%. Keep in mind that professors are humans too, they have conscience as well. In such a case, the professor seems to be the one at fault for making such an easy exam. Professors are usually very good at judging the students' understanding of the material and will give out hard exams so there is a wider range of scores.</p>

<p>"If, how and why they actually do it, I have no idea."</p>

<p>I think they do it to weed out some students from the science and engineering majors. Not quite sure why they want to limit the number of students majoring in the sciences and engineering, but I guess it's just the nature of the beast.</p>