<p>Ok, aparent5, I have some "proof" for sakky's claims.
As a Princeton student, we have obviously heard alot about the grade inflation policies. The Daily Princetonian reported (and I was told in my classes) that the science and math departments were already in compliance, whereas the humanities departments (sociology, philosophy, etc.) had to scale down the A's to fit with the 35%. So obviously the science classes were already giving lower marks in general if they were already in compliance.</p>
<p>Yep, and that's where I think the issue of grade inflation really hits a nerve. Grade inflation is not just inter-school, but also intra-school. At many schools there is an increasing sense of resentment and frustration among the students who are majoring in scientific/technical subjects that other students who major in non-technical subjects get higher grades for doing less work and having to study much less. It's become a problem for all concerned. Fewer students choose to study science/tech subjects because they know they will have to work harder and their grades will probably be lower than if they took the easy road. Faculty who teach science subjects tend to get worse evaluations than those who teach non-science, because students tend to retaliate against faculty who make them work hard and assign low grades. {Just think about the class whose prof you thought you enjoyed the most, then imagine what you'd think if that prof had given you a final grade of a 'D'. I'd think most of us would have to honestly admit that we would no longer feel positive thoughts about that prof. We're all human, and we tend to like the profs who give us high grades and dislike the profs who give us low grades}. </p>
<p>So I've talked to some Princeton people, both students and recent alums, and I have uncovered an interesting dichotomy. You obviously have those people who are crying foul, whining about the unfairness and arbitrariness of the change, and lamenting about their chances of getting into graduate school and all that of usual sturm und drang.</p>
<p>And than, on a quieter level, you have those people, particularly students and graduates from the science and engineering departments, who are basically (and quietly) saying, to paraphrase: "Good, this grading change is exactly what we need, because those non-tech students are finally going to know how we feel." Hence, in many cases, these students actually like the grade change, because it means that those high-grading non-technical classes will finally be reeled in.</p>
<p>grade-inflation or not, u cant knock princeton for its academic rigor and preparation for glad level work</p>
<p>Not all the social sciences were out of compliance. That's all I want to say here, for privacy reasons. And some of the biggest complaints about the policy came from the ORFE program (engineering), which is notoriously challenging; a prof was quoted in the Prince as saying something to the effect that no course at Harvard or Yale was as tough as his and he didn't see why he had to punish Princeton students with bad grades. </p>
<p>Sakky, from your past posts on these boards I see you often making the point that MIT students have a tough time getting into professional school. Do you really think that with the new, highly publicized grading policy, with the notes on the transcripts and so on, suddenly Princeton students' admission to med school is going to plummet? I doubt it. But I do think the students are worried about that.</p>
<p>First off, it isn't all professional schools that MIT students have problems in getting into (relative to students at HYPS). It's specifically law and medical school that are the problem. MIT students seem to be quite successful in getting into B-school. Not coincidentally, B-school admissions is far less numbers-oriented than is that of law school or medical school. </p>
<p>I wouldn't use the word 'plummet', but I do think that their chances will not be as high as in years past. And I suppose that it is somewhat understandable that the students should be worried about it. Like it or not, med-school admissions is highly numbers oriented. The evidence seems to suggest that going to a school (like MIT) that grades harshly hurts you in terms of med-school admission.</p>
<p>But I said it before, I'll say it again, it's hard for me to sympathize with those Princeton premeds. However much they may be getting hurt by the new grading policy, they are still better off than MIT premeds. And in particular, I would also argue that while upcoming Princeton premeds might not be as well off as Princeton premeds of a few years ago, they're still better off than Princeton premeds a few decades ago.</p>
<p>We'll see. Yale Law, for example, visited campus and the rep said they knew all about the new policy and would be taking it into account, are very impressed with Princetonians' research (jr. and sr. papers), etc.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Does the recent Grade-Capping make you want to attend Princeton less?
[/quote]
In response to the above: HELLL NOOOO!!!!</p>
<p>Well, if Yale Law really is going to take the new Princeton grading into account, funny how Yale Law (or any other law school for that matter) conveniently never seems to take into account the lower grading at places like MIT or Caltech, or of engineering/science students in general. If Yale Law says that they are impressed with Princetonian's research, funny how they never seem to be impressed with the long hours and large workload of science/engineering students. </p>
<p>All I can say is that you should take those sorts of promises with a grain of salt, or more likely, with a large shaker of salt.</p>
<p>Sakky, you are comparing apples to oranges. It doesn't seem to occur to you that the considerable skills base and hard work of engineering and science students do not necessarily lead to excellent writing ability and experience, which are essential preparation for law school.</p>
<p>Sure it has occurred to me. Yet it has occurred to you that a lot of students who partake of the not-so-rigorous liberal arts curriculum and get used to a lifestyle of getting high grades without having to study very hard often times get lazy and arrogant and many of them are in for a rude shock during their law-school years? </p>
<p>I would also point to the behavior of the big-time management consulting companies like McKinsey. Why does McKinsey scoop up so many engineering students from places like MIT? It seems to me that to be a good consultant, you also need excellent writing and communications ability, yet McKinsey seems to have no problem in filling its positions with lots of engineers. So why is McKinsey hiring all these engineers, if they don't have good writing and communications skills? Is McKinsey being stupid?</p>
<p>Sakky, your description of the liberal arts experience is way overblown. As the parent of two college students who get excellent grades and have taken both liberal arts and science courses, I can't say they've found the discrepancy you describe in their workloads. Have you talked to anyone majoring in history, economics, or political science lately? The workload in many schools is crushing.</p>
<p>Engineering sounds like great preparation for consulting, because both fields involve creative problem-solving and about finding ways to improve performance. However, consulting firms have editing staffs who write and rewrite the reports that go out. The law is based much more on the keen use of language itself, which is why lawyers are stereotyped as quibbling over words. </p>
<p>And McKinsey hires plenty of liberal arts majors, btw.</p>
<p>ok, i'm a bit confused after reading all these posts.. making my head spin.. so i'll stop reading.. one question: so basically, the new policy says that from now on, only 35% of ppl in classes can get As? How many were able to get As before? i'm just wondering, if before, 40% of ppl usually get As, then 35% is not that bad.... i just want to know how big of a impact the 35% mark really is.</p>
<p>its gotta be more than 40% tho, right? since the average GPA is 3.4? i dont know, my math is bit shaky. but ditto, mercurysquad.</p>
<p>I don't think there was a specific number before.</p>
<p>yeah.. i mean35% is still a lot..... and i don't think they will use this for small classes of <10</p>
<p>It is not supposed to go by class, but by department, which made the frosh worry that they would consistently get the short end, with the majors getting the A's. Actually, though, from what I hear, it's going by class! Like any new system, it is being implemented with some confusion. ;-)</p>
<p>I remember seeing a number that before, it was around 44%. Not sure on that though.</p>
<p>Aparent5, are you sure that my description of lib-arts vs. engineering is overblown? We apparently have quite a few engineering students and graduates here, and I think that it is pretty unanimous among them that they work harder than the liberal-arts students do. I think it is also the consensus opinion among liberal arts students that they also don't work as hard as the engineering students do. </p>
<p>Think about it. Not just at Princeton, but at almost any school, electrical engineering is one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult major at that school. I doubt that you could name a single school in the country where EE is considered the 'fluff' major where all the stupid and lazy students at that school tend to congregate. Can you? Why is it that you rarely hear of a student ever say that they wanted to major in some liberal arts major, but they thought it was just too difficult, so now they're majoring in, say, chemical engineernig instead? Every school has certain classes that are basically known colloquially within the student body as 'GPA-boosters' - something that you take to get a high grade for very little work. Why is it that hardly any of these classes are ever found in the engineering department? It is far more common to hear of engineering students taking a few extra psychology classes to get some easy A's, than to hear of a psychology student taking a few extra chemical engineering classes in order to rack up some easy A's. Why is that?</p>
<p>Consider the following quotes:</p>
<p>"most engineering students don't care to look 10 years ahead. Instead, they only see the countless number of "weeder" courses they must take and become discouraged by their first "C." With these hurdles on their path to graduation, it's no wonder why the majority of engineers become uninspired by their classes or don't think they have what it takes to stay in their major. </p>
<p>Last fall, 2,707 undergraduate students were enrolled in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science [at UCLA], but only three out of five students will make it to graduation in four years if at all. SEAS students make up nearly 11 percent of the undergraduate student body at the start of each year, but they account for less than 6.5 percent of the total graduating class. This means engineering students are either dropping out of school or switching out of their major in droves talk to any economics or biology student and there's a good chance they used to be an engineer. "</p>
<p>"Students themselves are interested in science and engineering. Data from the NSF shows that for every two graduates who receive a degree in these fields, there is a third who expressed an intention to major in them but became discouraged along the way. Its not hard to see why. The grades assigned in science courses are systematically lower than grades in other disciplines, and students rely heavily on grades as signals about the fields for which they are best suited. The introductory science courses are also large, impersonal, and threatening. Students know them for what they are. They call them weed out or weeder courses. "</p>
<p>So you tell me, aparent5. Are these guys lying when they say that engineering courses grade hard and are full of weeders? </p>
<p>And finally - consulting firms have editing staffs? Why yes they do - they are the recent graduates themselves! As a first-year analyst (i.e. right out of undergrad, before B-school), that is one of the things you will almost certainly be tasked to do. The fact is, as a low-level analyst, you will not be trusted to do any of the truly glamorous consulting work. You will basically be doing grunt-work, including report editing and so forth. And, again, consulting companies hire lots of engineers to do just that. So apparently these consulting companies are being stupid, or engineers are not as bad at writing as you claim them to be.</p>
<p>And of course it is true that consulting companies hire lots of lib-arts students too. Did I ever claim otherwise? My point is that consulting companies hire from across the gamut, and in particular, hire a far higher proportion of engineers than law-schools do. You have asserted that law schools don't bring in lots of engineers because those engineers tend to have bad communications skills. My response is that consulting is also heavily reliant on communication, and yet consulting draws upon a substantial proportion of engineers.</p>
<p>Sorry, sakky, as a former editor for a major consulting firm, I can tell you that we were hired on a completely separate track; we were communications people who were never going to be consultants, and we were rewriting the consultants' reports from top to bottom every single day. Check job listings on the Net and you will see jobs like this advertised. They look for English majors, not engineers. </p>
<p>And at the Ivy I attended, there was an engineering course known as Shocks for Jocks. Trust me, it was a fluff course in electrical engineering. I took it to get an easy A. ;-)</p>
<p>You know, sakky, I think we are speaking different languages here. </p>
<p>It seems to me you are making the point that science and math students have a lot of hard exams in very vertical subjects. You know, I agree with that. </p>
<p>If you reread my post, I didn't say your description of liberal arts vs. engineering was overblown; I said your description of liberal arts was overblown. I simply making the point that not all liberal arts subjects are alike. For example, economics and art history are often taught in a way that is similar to the sciences. And at my university, political science and history were well-known to be absolute killers. </p>
<p>As for Princeton's new grading system, which is the topic of this thread, as I pointed out, even the engineering professors have been quoted as complaining that they don't like it.</p>