<p>I did not mean to speak about SAT scores either, but it unfortunately came out that way…</p>
<p>What I meant to say is that a student who scores high on high-school level standardized tests may not do well at Yale because the college-level test may be more difficult.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand this, could you explain? I don’t get how the SAT ceiling affects the geniuses’ ability to score well on the SATs.</p>
<p>There are about 200-250 perfect scores on the SAT per year, out of about 1.5 million test takers. You do the math. I don’t really think there’s much of a ceiling with the SAT. The problem is that it doesn’t really mean too much in terms of high-level analysis or critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>^yeah, totally agree on that. it might predict verbal skills accurately somewhat, but SAT on the whole looks elementary compared to the analytical work for high-level mathematics or humanities</p>
<p>Getting an A- is not hard at all. Getting an A is a bit more difficult. The grading here is more generous than some state schools, however, the caliber of students is also quite a bit higher. I’d say it’s quite difficult to get below a B+ in my opinion.</p>
<p>Most of the econ classes (definitely both intros) are strictly curved to a B, so many people do get B-s and Cs. Other classes are done this way as well.</p>
<p>However, not all are (many aren’t) and in those cases I would say below a B is rare, as long as you’re at least trying. I would agree with above people that A is disproportionally more difficult to get than A-, especially because of the subjective seminar grading.</p>
<p>It really depends on what classes you’re taking.</p>
<p>One of the professors at the Law School - forget which one - publishes a note about Yale’s GPA. He takes the footnotes for honors and applies a normal distribution. There’s a lot of grade inflation. A lot. </p>
<p>But then back in my day, we had no F’s and you could drop at any time before reading period without it being on your transcript.</p>
<p>So Doodle, would you say that, if you are working at it, the higher level econ classes are easier to get As in than intro macro/micro?</p>
<p>Getting in the B range is easy (by easy i mean you still have to do the work and try hard and everything) for most classes, at least that i’ve taken. Many are curved to a B/B+. But getting an A is hard. most people here got straight A’s or close to it in high school. But everyone can’t get A’s. You will have to accept the fact that you will get B’s while you are here. </p>
<p>In response to Lergnom, now you can drop a class up to the midterm (6 weeks in) without it being on your transcript. You can drop after midterm and before reading period and get a W on your transcript.</p>
<p>That was the withdrawal rule they set at the end of my freshman year in the 1970’a. Took a very long faculty meeting and in those politicized days a crowd of students hung around outside. Seems odd today but there was sentiment among the faculty against grades and against penalizing “experimentation,” but that was outweighed by the administration’s very hard push for tightening standards. The seniors blamed it on the riots and the New Haven cops tear gassing outside Old Campus.</p>
<p>They just changed the Econ curve this year. Intro level is somewhere around 30% A to A-, 40% B range and very very very few below a B due to people dropping the course, and various methods of grade inflation. </p>
<p>As you go further into econ courses, taking intermediate, financial markets, etc. etc. the curve becomes nicer and more like 40% get in the A range. </p>
<p>Don’t stress about grades too much. If you want a good GPA just take a few guts instead of taking hard courses, and that’ll inflate your gpa nicely</p>
<p>RedLion, what are guts? And what would some examples be? Thanks in advance.</p>
<p>But make sure if you take the gut, you have to take it slightly seriously. I took a gut, barely went to class, barely did the reading, and ended up with a B-.</p>