<p>All of you, stop implying that inferior schools are easier to earn Top Grades in. Inferior schools, all else equal, have inferior teaching and inferior students, however this trend is completely independent of the difficulty of the tests that the professor decides to throw together. Inferior professors also have bad reading comprehension and lower IQs, so the tests that they make often don't reflect the material covered in class, making them more difficult.</p>
<p>Yes, there are no standardized grading policies in this country. Standards vary by institution, subject and professor, so it’s fair to call them random. But I don’t see how you get to the conclusion that inferior schools are not easier to earn top grades in.</p>
<p>Well, it depends on your definition of “easier.” On an institutional level, colleges of vastly different selectivity can have similar average GPAs and grade distributions. From this point of view, “inferior” universities do not hand out easy grades.</p>
<p>However, from the point of view of an individual student, it is most certainly easier to earn good grades when you are closer to the top of the student body in terms of academic ability. The factors you are describing (poor teaching, hard exams) affect all students, but the students at the top of the bell curve will still receive the highest grades.</p>
<p>I have met plenty of students who went from a tough school to an easy one and received higher grades, or transfered to a more selective school and struggled. (Heck, I have taken classes at 4 different colleges myself and observed a difference in standards first hand!) Stories of opposite trends are rather rare. I could not disagree more with your claim that the difficulty of an exam is independent of its target audience. And it’s not just the difficulty of the exam itself. The entire course, meaning the breadth and depth of material covered, will on average be significantly easier at a less selective school.</p>
<p>barlum, while the students at the top of the bell curve will receive the highest grades, there still is the matter of fewer overall As in the lesser-ranked school. You can be at the absolute top of the class in many classes at plebeian institutions and not get an A. Others are completely lax and are simply easier than better schools. Because there is less quality control, the grading at inferior schools is much more random overall.</p>
<p>Entropy, can it even be said that private schools are better overall than public? Is there a private school in VA better than UVA? Is there a private school in CA, besides Stanford, better than the top 3 or 4 UCs? A lot of states have one really good private school, with the remainder of the upper ranks being mostly public schools, with a ton of bottom-feeder high school 2.0 private and public schools. Ivys aside, are there even more overall 130+IQ students at privates than publics?</p>
