<p>Same as the other one but the other title was confusing, so:</p>
<p>Current students especially but anyone who might know something about it,</p>
<p>How difficult is it to achieve a grade of A in a course at Yale? Of course this varies greatly from course to course, but in general how many students in a course get an A? The top two students? The top ten percent? The top quarter?</p>
<p>Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>Most classes don’t have quotas (none that I know of frankly). As a matter of fact, one could arguably say there’s a goodly amount of grade inflation at Y.</p>
<p>Top two students? Whaddya nuts?</p>
<p>Not too hard to get an A-; usually takes quite a bit of effort to get an A, but it really just depends upon the amount of time you want to put in. </p>
<p>For reference, from my first three semesters at Yale, my lowest grade has been an A-.</p>
<p>it depends on the class. i got an a in econ but a b in history which is my best subject. depends on your TA, among other things. no one really stresses out too much about grades though. an A and A- are not that much different.</p>
<p>On a similar note, do you (specifically current/past Yale students) feel like it is harder to get A’s in a course if someone went to a (very average/below average) public high school? Or is it more about effort?</p>
<p>i’m quite curious about whether there’s any form of grade inflation/deflation, since i’m looking at graduate schs in the future.</p>
<p>pink001: My experience is probably most students feel intimidated to some degree – regardless of Public or private school. This insecurity hits us because we’re walking the campus of hallowed YALE. But be assured, the admissions office didn’t make a mistake in grabbing you. You’re fully qualified as anyone else to perform well and get many As. Frankly, I was mostly unaware if my classmates were pub/priv school grads. My buddies, I knew because I knew them. In class, how would any of us know – unless someone was wearing a Choate or Sidwell Friends hoodie or something.</p>
<p>i will answer on this subject as frankly as possible as a current student. </p>
<p>it is not easy to get an A. in large introductory courses, usually it’s top 15% to get an A, then the next 10% or so to get an A-. And you think it’s easy to be in the top quarter, but no…it’s so hard at yale to do that. especially when the difference between top 25% and top 40% turns out to be like 3 questions on a test or something.</p>
<p>but then you run into a different problem when you’re in seminars or classes where your grade is based on 3 papers or something because it’s so subjective and instructors do NOT like to give out A’s on papers. </p>
<p>that said, it’s very rare (unless you like, do not study AT ALL or have not attended class at all) to get below a B on things.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Regarding public/private school, I know it is a myth so it may not be true. But there is a rumor that higher percentage of students from public high schools tend to be in certain types of classes (e.g., lab-intensive science/engineering courses.) Maybe, just maybe, many smart kids from private high schools find out that large introductory lecture classes are not very appealing after a year or so in college.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is not the case at all in my experiences. Most large lectures I’ve taken (I’m a science major) have about 30-40% A/A-.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It may be the case for 100 biology/chemistry courses (chem 118 or mcdb 120 as well as a few 200 mcdb courses like genetics). But is it still the case for orgo I/II, cell biology or biochemistry?</p>
<p>When you say large intro courses, do you mean in econ too :(?</p>
<p>Have never taken an intro eco class myself. But I think it would be an intro class in high demand. But usually, the class is divided into small discussion sections; each section is led by a TA. The large lecture class is taught by a professor. (At least this is the format for most intro science courses.)</p>
<p>Writing seminars are nice, as they are usually very small.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yup; orgo this year is centered at a B/B+, according to David Spiegel. Cell bio is predicted to be 40+% A’s based on this year’s performance (there are no set quotas for this course; Pollard is tenured and does what he wants).</p>
<p>In general, how many points above the class average do you need to maintain in order to get an A? I know some class may have a higher class average. Let’s assume that the average is 70 (out of 100).</p>
<p>Is it true that last year, the class average of one quiz (or midterm?) in one orgo class (do not know it is orgo I or orgo II) is below 50?</p>
<p>I’m sure grad schools know what a certain GPA means at Y v. H v. P, etc. I really can’t believe that a place with grade deflation like Princeton actually gets penalized by top 14 law schools or whatever… wouldn’t they kind of figure out that a 3.2 P GPA scales to a 3.6 H/Y GPA? So I don’t think grade inflation or deflation is much of a factor.</p>
<p>What do you think it is that seperates the top 25% or w.e. it is that gets As in a certian class? I mean virtually everyone who got in had straight As or close in high school. Do a lot of students stop working as hard when they get to college, even at Yale?</p>
<p>I would think that even though most Yalies used to be treated as “geniuses” at their high school, there are true geniuses out there in colleges.</p>
<p>For example, I was visiting Yale a few days ago. My friend who goes there told me that she had an organic chem exam that had a class average of 45. Then you have these genius outliers who earn perfect/near-perfect scores that completely annihilate the curve.</p>
<p>Of course, part of it also has to do with the amount of work you put in and the background you’ve had in the subject.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I heard about the same from another source.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Very soon, most students know who is/are the genius, who are most likely not those who have scored 2400 or close to 2400 on SAT. This is because the SAT ceiling is too low. Many close-to-2400 scorers (and with tons of AP 5) may end up taking the science courses on the lowest or second lowest track after they find out they are really not genius when compared to the real genius. – Sometimes it is not so much because they can not handle the difficulty level of a course of a higher track. It may be because they are too obsessed with the grades, unfortunately.</p>
<p>mcat2,</p>
<p>I don’t think Madaji was speaking about SAT scores.</p>