Forget Prestige, Rank Difficulty.

<p>what is AA ?</p>

<p>Affirmative Action.</p>

<p>bme @ jhu's avg gpa: 3.4</p>

<p>source is an actual BME student.</p>

<p>I agree with Mr. Payne. The top tech schools are the hardest.</p>

<p>UIUC sonnn, its a toughie, hows about UW Madison, heard anything about that</p>

<p>Very subjective. An engineering school will attract students with an engineering aptitude and consequently the caliber of students and teaching will be higher than a more general college. A gauge of the quality of students can be somewhat ascertained by looking at the the number of recruiters, the companies and positions that graduating students take, number of students going on the grad school and to which grad school. The ranking magazines can give you some gauge. A potential student should data research a particular school's website.</p>

<p>If the quality of students are higher at one school, the GPA only reflects the curve at that particular school. "Difficulty" is also subjective in that a difficult could mean DIFFICULT for a marginal student but easy for a par student. I think the students at the schools that Mr Payne lists, Do Not find their school particularly "ballbusting." </p>

<p>signed: father of "ballbusting" graduated student.</p>

<p>Princeton's got this whole "grade deflation" policy going on. I'll have so much fun this fall..</p>

<p>
[quote]
Princeton's got this whole "grade deflation" policy going on. I'll have so much fun this fall..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I strongly suspect that plenty of people, especially at the tech schools, would LOVE to trade grading policies with the students at Princeton. </p>

<p>Princeton's new grading policy has made it harder to get A's than in the past. But it's still almost impossible to actually flunk out. As long as you do the work, you're going to pass. Maybe not with a great grade, but you're going to pass. Contrast that with other schools in which you can work extremely hard, do all the work, and STILL flunk out.</p>

<p>
[quote]
If the quality of students are higher at one school, the GPA only reflects the curve at that particular school. "Difficulty" is also subjective in that a difficult could mean DIFFICULT for a marginal student but easy for a par student. I think the students at the schools that Mr Payne lists, Do Not find their school particularly "ballbusting."

[/quote]
I actually listed those schools because they have a repuation for harsh curves (the state schools) or simply accept only the top 99.5th percentile of students (MIT & CalTech).</p>

<p>Needless to say. The average student at Cal engineering thinks it's tough. Some of the harshest curves in the business.</p>

<p>um....carnegie, no doubt.</p>

<p>For natural selection at its purest it is hard to top GT.</p>

<p>Nah, I think most would say Cal is harder. Cal has similar curves and smarter students. Hence, it is harder to maintain a certain GPA.</p>