<p>truth123: You pretty much hit the nail on the head. And your thing about some grad schools (and I would even add some employers) is probably true because they care more about a skill set and passion for a tough job than grades which they know have probably have been achieved through some interesting maneuvering. I went to Emory, which is very pre-professional oriented, so it was extremely typical for students to choose mostly courses of no interest to them because they feared that they would earn a B grade (not even a B- or a C grade) in the more interesting ones. They would also choose teachers that they knew were horrible if it increased the chance of them getting an A (best professors tend to be very challenging). Their course selection process was often very short-sighted. Needless to say that many of those who were pre-medical, for example, and made these sorts of decisions got their behinds handed to them on the MCAT regardless of their GPA being 3.7 or higher. If they had went into it wanting to use classes for a skill set (such as being able to solve challenging problems and think analytical as required by an exam like the MCAT), they would have made decisions that facilitated them doing better. Sometimes I feel many students think college (even a top one), is High School part 2, and that their entrance exams for professional or graduate school merely require being gifted and having an ability to reguritate testing strategies and content. In reality, many of the tests (such as the LSAT and MCAT) are designed to beat people who think this. So even if these students think they are doing themselves a favor by watering down their curriculum simply because they see their college as a stepping stone to their career (and thus want to make it as obstacle and challenge free as possible even if you are supposed to be paying for more challenge at a top school), they are actually screwing themselves over in terms of that goal. They won’t be particularly prepared for the next step (nor will they be prepared to make it to the next step, and it will show) and will have mainly wasted their money on the “awesome” facilities at the school and its name more so than the education it supposedly offers.</p>