Haha, this is a nice break from putting finishing touches on my capstone grant
@ucbalumnus : “Berkeley will have tougher competition top to bottom in stem disciplines. But loaded at both schools.”
Do you necessarily agree with that statement? I kind of don’t The student body caliber seems extremely similar overall, and is thus even more top heavy in STEM at either to the point that there is no point in splitting hairs over student body quality. I mean you have your own form of UCB pride and I Emory pride, but I think it would be irrational to expect less competition. I would expect engineering at UCB to get even more intense students than say biology or chemistry (though it depends if you are in UCB Arts and Letters or in the School of Chemistry itself), but is there something I am missing. Is UCB known for simply a more competitive ATMOSPHERE, and Emory isn’t? This I can perhaps imagine, but I do not think it would come from differences in grading (which are less than people are led to believe. Emory’s overall grades have actually decreased likely do to a grading curve scheme being suggested for all economics core courses. It dropped from about 3.39 to 3.34 graduating GPA in like a year. Estimates have UCB’s “average grade awarded” at about 3.29 in 2014 and several years prior: http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html . Considering that this is NOT a graduating a graduating GPA, and includes freshman and lower-classmen, the GPA upon graduation is likely closer to Emory’s which fluctuates from year to year, though that drop between 2016 and 2017 is dramatic. It is what happens when you implement sweeping changes to a department that is nearly the top major and was known for more inflation before the implementation).
As far as I know, grading is strikingly similar in STEM at both in the introductory and intermediate courses. Emory is a little different from other top research 1 privates in that it has TRIED to avoid “economy style” courses as you put it, but the increase in enrollment is having/is likely to continue to have an effect. Still, I suppose Emory is technically more “cozy” overall for the “masses” (as in a basic introductor or intermediate course will typically be run at a similar level at both. I do think generally introductory biology is still harder at Emory, while things like physics and mathematics are harder at UCB. Gchem and ochem are likely on par for a “normal” instructor). As you know, I really like UCB’s honors STEM courses in chemistry for example. Technically you can get something similar through professor selection at Emory, but since they are not honors and do not have parameters on who can enroll, you have to compete against all people interested, and oddly enough, some of these very challenging instructors are surprisingly popular (one named Weinschenk can fill the seats, but there is always my old teacher Dr. Soria).
@stressedhelpme : I’m sorry, but this just isn’t a difference between the two: competitive student body/weeder courses. You have to keep in mind that Emory is EXTREMELY pre-professional which contributes to a “work harder and then play” atmosphere that can also be very “nervous”. Top majors at Emory include business (has a grade distribution where they actually can and do curve downward versus the standard scale), economics (adopted b-school grading curve. Their solution in easier/medium courses is to set the solid A grade to upwards to 96. Students need to essentially be perfect on the exams offered, as well as other assignments which are perhaps prone to more “subjective” grading), biology coming in at 3, nursing at 4, a STEM-intensive psychology major at 5 (the TWO introductory psychology courses are weedouts oddly enough), and NBB and math are somewhere in the top 10, and chemistry may be just outside of it but is one of the largest chemistry departments in terms of majors in the countries, especially among privates. The point is, very much like UCB (maybe even more so), you have folks heavily clustered in these super serious majors either directly associated with a profession or indirectly (I believe political science is in the top 10, standard pre-law major). Do not let the green campus with the sun shining fool you.
They both have that as they have different strengths, but many courses, especially in the pre-med core are pitched at about the same level and they tend to be “curved” or land somewhere between a C+/B- and a B average with something around a B- as a typical target. This scheme is used at Cal, other top publics, as well as a few other elite privates such as Emory, Vanderbilt, WUSTL and Johns Hopkins. What matters is not how “weeder” they are, but how rigorous they are content wise and expectations wise. If one has a very mediocre lecturer or a straight up bad lecturer, the course can technically be pitched at a very “standard” level, but still require a curve or land at the B- target because the students struggle to succeed with the lackluster instructor. Basically, in some cases it doesn’t take a very “difficult” course to yield the “elite” bell-curve (C+/B- to B-). And if you do not trust me, I can post course materials from some schools that have great students on paper, yet a very standard exam yields averages in the low 70s or worse. I have a bunch of Emory course materials and a lot of Berkeley’s are on line. Things get muddled in upper division courses because it is strongly professor dependent at either.