<p>I'm planning to enter McGill University this coming fall however I'm a bit worried about doing well there.</p>
<p>I'm hoping to do a double honors in Economics and Political Science and hope to enter law school in the US one day, so GPA is superr important.</p>
<p>Would anyone happen to know if it's really hard to get good marks at McGill? (eg 3.8+)
I mean I know I'm ready for college, I went through the entire IB thing and got an ok 40 points overall..</p>
<p>But I would love to have some input about McGill and what GPAs people get.</p>
<p>Depends on your level of focus. It will very difficult to do a double honors as you have suggested, let alone to get a 3.8 in it. Thats not to discourage you though, if you want to spend dozens of hours each week in the library, then yes this is achievable, and by all means go for it. FYI to get into law school you can do any major as long as you have high marks and a good LSAT, in fact doing an honors program poorly probably will not be beneficial so keep that in mind… a solid GPA is most important.</p>
<p>Its kind of a silly question to ask what kind of GPA’s people get. Its like any other university in that all grades are handed out. I knew people with GPAs from 2.0 to 4.0, it depends on how seriously you take the courses and how much effort you put into it. All of the students at McGill were at the top of their hs class so they all know how to succeed and they all know how to do well in stressful situations. The determining factor as to who succeeds is based on who puts in that extra study time.</p>
<p>Im looking to do a double major in international development and political science with the goal of going to business school.</p>
<p>I pretty much need at least a 3.7 for HBS so is that possible at Mcgill while still having a vibrant social life, staying active and doing great extracurriculars?</p>
<p>It is certainly doable, but it depends on you. Most students at McGill juggle many things. Just don’t get too caught up in the city social life and learn to prioritize and have good time management skills.</p>
<p>Not to discourage you, but honours economics at McGill is designed to be very tough, and political science profs are infamous for giving all your best written essays a B. Honours in both will only make it tougher.</p>
<p>Is it doable? Yes. Will it require a very high amount of consistent work? Yeah.</p>
<p>how good are you at math? To get a 3.8ish GPA in honours econ you need to be the sort that could do well at MIT econ and that’s not an exaggeration. 60% of students fail honours intermediate micro and drop to regular econ. A 3.8 in honours econ would make you a candidate for top 10 PhD programs and would be overkill for most things. </p>
<p>If GPA is a main concern, I would not do honours econ unless you have very strong quant skills. </p>
<p>Poly Sci has tough grading, but your competition is not with geniuses. You can get A’s through hard work.</p>
<p>^ I’m actually looking at the possibility of doing honours in polisci and/or economics. </p>
<p>wutang (or anyone else) - Did you ever take Econ 250D or Econ 257D? I’m trying to figure out the level of mathematics/course curriculum. I can’t find a course outline anywhere online. Do you know where I could find a list of topics? </p>
<p>I read everywhere that honours econ is particularly difficult, but I wanted to see exactly how difficult/the pace. =/</p>
<p>I took Honours Economics classes at McGill, including both 250D and 257D. I found the Honours Economics classes to be very challenging. Someone told me that Honours Economics classes are considered among the toughest classes in the Faculty of Arts, and I have no difficulty believing it. And yes, the Honours Economics program is expressly quantitative - this is one of the key differences between it and the Majors Economics program. So your quant skills had better be top-notch.</p>
<p>250D (Microeconomics) and 257D (Statistics) are year-long courses. This means, among other things, that you receive a single mark for the entire year. There is a final exam after each semester and a mark for each semester - it’s just that they average them to determine a year-long grade. The catch is that for both courses, the second semester is significantly more challenging than the first semester. This is not to say that the first semester is easy! You usually need a very high mark - preferably in the 90’s - coming out of the first semester to earn a high mark for the entire year. This is because this number is usually going to be averaged with a much lower number for the second semester.</p>
<p>Some people can’t figure out how to get A’s in these classes, for others it takes several semesters to learn how to write a proper poli-sci type paper. If you go in during/after your first paper and learn about what they are looking for from the TA’s and prof’s, you should be able to nail it (provided you have sufficient facts and argue well). They are tough, the curve is difficult to top and the exams cover a lot of material and often having you write full essays on the spot. Just stay ahead with your reading, learn how to footnote if you don’t already know, and work on producing a paper that fits the style of the class.</p>
<p>The “hardest major”? Musical perfomance :p. There is no such thing (objectively) as a hardest major, because it depends on your interests, motivation and abilities. Most majors can be made arbitrarily difficult by picking the challenging courses. However, not all majors can be made arbitrarily easy.</p>
<p>Agreed, its impossible to tell. Each program is difficult but throw some grad-level courses on top of it and an honors designation and they each become significantly harder. You will find people that can tackle these hard programs easily, as well as people that have difficulty with the easier programs. Impossible to compare.</p>