I was admitted as an Econ major, and I plan to go to law school so I need a really good GPA. I heard that Emory’s business school does grade deflation, but can any Econ major tell me if they do that for Econ as well? Is it possible to get a 4.0 or really good grades if you try, or is it kind of like not possible due to deflation? I’m not sure if Emory deflates and if so, by how much, so any information would be very appreciated.
Emory doesn’t admit by major so you weren’t admitted as an Econ major. You can, however, choose to major in Econ when that time comes.
@collegemom9 sorry I meant that I put economics as my major on my application and was admitted, so I assumed it was going to be for Econ
@sostressed201 : Emory does not really care what you put on that lol. It is all “ECAS” to them. If you claim to need a high GPA, then do the work. That simple. Plenty of people do well enough in econ. It doesn’t mean you need to stray away from challenges, you just need to work and think hard. Grading isn’t unfair from what I know, but the core courses do stick to a more stringent grading distribution and recommendations (B/B+ mean and median) than electives, so some of those classes move the A/A- bars higher than a typical grading scale if they are on the simpler side. The harder courses (like most intermediate micro courses, econ. stats) may end up having to curve upwards to refit grades to the recommended grade distributions. Either way, these grading patterns aren’t unusual for any schools’ economics department. You will do fine, if you do the work. Just don’t expect ease in all the courses. Some may challenge you and that is ultimately a good thing.
Never worry about how a certain department or school will affect your grades or professional school prospects (worrying about that is kind of like coming in with a handi-cap or attitude that may make you less competitive than those who don’t think twice about it and just assume that they will be successful if they do the work). If you supposedly enjoy or want to pursue that area, assume that you will need to work hard and that what you put in is what you’ll get out. Hardly no department at Emory will deliver you a high GPA on a silver platter. Even the “grade inflated” divisions will require you to write and read a lot, and you’d have to write well in comparison to other good writers to consistently get A’s. Mindset is important.
*Also, really no private schools deflate and hardly no elite public schools do that. If that is what you’ve heard from anyone anywhere, they don’t know what deflation is (no, deflation is not equivalent to having “very challenging courses”) or is being really hyperbolic. There are numbers on this for most of the selective schools. This website collected them for quite a while and most of even the so called “deflated” places have seen rises in GPA over time:http://www.gradeinflation.com/
There are different baseline ranges pre- and post inflation though and Emory is on the lower/mid end but still gets excellent law school placement and most of those majors come from disciplines with similar grading standards to economics (like political science): https://www.career.emory.edu/about/outcomes/index.html
Clearly they aren’t being hurt (It also seems GPAs don’t need to be ultra high to access all top 14-20 schools. Only a few seem to need like 3.8+ or 3.75+ as a start point).