How doable is a 3.7-3.8 science GPA at Vanderbilt?
Doable but fairly difficult. That range requires a lot of time in the library. It really depends on what classes you are taking.
If you are an incoming freshman though, I would hold off on setting specific GPA range goals too early on. Not that you will be unable to achieve them, but college is very unlike high school, so you don’t really have any reference point as to what your goals practically mean. For example, a 3.7-3.8 overall GPA upon graduation would give you the cum laude latin honor, meaning that you are in the top quarter of all students by GPA. Science classes are generally more difficult than humanities classes, so it would probably be even more difficult for the science GPA.
This will seem unhelpful, but honestly, all you can do is try your hardest and hope for the best outcome.
Also want to mention here how important it is to start off strong in your classes, especially the first test. On my first ever chemistry test, I got a 60. Even if I got a 100 on the next 3 tests, the highest grade I could receive in the class was a 90. In other words, that one 60 made it virtually impossible for me to get an A in the class. There’s a psychological benefit to do well in your first test as well.
It’s completely do-able, of course. But you’ll be in the top 5-10% in the school (I don’t remember the distribution). Remember that almost everyone was in the top 10% of their high school class, and most people work hard. The best advice was the bit we heard from one of the graduating seniors: study every day, keep up with the homework and the class material, work hard and don’t fall behind.
It’s great that you’re setting your sights high, go for it! And good luck!
A 3.7 is actually the top 25%. A quarter of the school graduates with a 3.7+.
Ha! Grade inflation has progressed further than I realized. Thanks, Pancaked.
BTW, I haven’t been able to find similar info for Engineering. Anyone have a suitable link?
Those stats are actually for the entire school, not just A&S. Vandy definitely does not post any breakdown by school. Unfortunately Latin honors are not broken down by school either.
I see, thanks. Eng does publish a list of the SCL honorees, it’s not a large number, surprisingly. 
Of course, all the graduates are listed with their honors in the commencement program, so a diligent statistician could extract all the data for all the schools. I’m not quite that diligent.
http://engineering.vanderbilt.edu/news/2015/school-to-bestow-honors-on-2015-graduating-seniors/
I actually did this a few weeks ago
Every time I look at this graph, it always amazes me how literally more than half of the Blair kids graduate with honors. AND they’re the only group with a higher # of Summa Cum Laude students than Magna Cum Laude and Cum Laude.
It’s particularly annoying to me as a pre-med since med schools place such heavy emphasis on your GPA, and the Blair kids have such an obvious advantage because the science/engineering majors have harder classes.
I wouldn’t spend any time fretting about the Blair grads and their earned honors. The arts matter at Vanderbilt and that is one thing to love about Nashville. Although it is always wonderful when a musician goes to med school, which happens annually at Vandy and Duke…a premed also working long hours in the Symphony because they are gifted on an instrument. Vandy’s music program is rigorous and you can’t get in or get a seat in the Symphony without subjecting yourself to a high standard of performance and daily rehearsals.
As a Conservatory, Vandy’s level of talent is one of the things that makes Vanderbilt different than say Duke…which does not field a conservatory quality student music performance Symphony. These are things that matter a great deal to some students. I see that the Blair students are now leading a symphonic group for students who are more middling and who are not going to commit to their instruments as required at Blair. This is great for students who don’t want to practice five days a week but who love to play and who find this to be an enriching experience in their emotional lives. Rice is like this. The Rice highly ranked conservatory adds so much to Houston and is highly selective in its Symphony but the conservatory students run a symphony for more casual players.
Vandyson missed magna by one hundredth of a point. Oh well! He also dropped a course and mismanaged his time one semester. He still managed to land significant merit money at grad school. Getting magna at Vandy is difficult…same at its peer colleges like Duke frankly. Most students stumble some place at least once. Concentrate on building an interesting resume and internship life to make up for the likelihood that cum laude is more attainable. Things tend to work out for all of you… if you have used your time well at a school like Vandy where everyone is capable. Duke son missed out on magna as well but got a discount at grad school on tuition based on merit. You have your grad school entrance exams to prepare for and to aim high for. You can choose to get Honors in your major department. There are many roads to building a strong resume for your next move.
As for the OP and their grades…if in STEM, working hard + curved classes are your friend. If you take a medium level STEM class with exam averages from 75-85, stay on top of things (less room for error) because there likely won’t be much of a curve (in fact, if even close to 80, there won’t be one at all). This is the pattern at most elite schools, especially those in the south that like having intro. and intermediate STEM classes hover between C+/B- or B-/B means. Most classes outside of STEM, you get what you put in and it is lesser so about exams (except of course economics) so it is less high stakes. I would watch out for some of Vanderbilt’s calculus classes if you have to take those. Chemistry (if pre-med)-meh…the instructors teaching the ochem and gen. chem sequences are pretty standard which means many won’t be curved so you have to be careful. Biology…doesn’t appear hard conceptually but still looks kind of tedious in terms of the memorization (unless you take a problem solving oriented person, and there is one such instructor). Physics-I’ve seen those and it depends on which level you take, but it didn’t look like anything particularly tough (the ones taken by most pre-healths), though I thought it was certainly harder than the gen. chem sequence and I could tell for sure that the physics sequences were indeed harder than many even “competitive” state schools (there were a great deal of calculation intensive multiple choice questions which definitely means you have to be on point with both math and conceptual knowledge because there is no partial).
For pre-health, getting through those with a strong performance is important. If you put the right effort into most of your non-STEM classes, then they should serve as a decent GPA buffer if anything were to go awry with a STEM class. You can honestly go size up some of your STEM classes by just surfing around on the internet. There are a couple of old chem tests out there (I saw a newer one and it hasn’t changed much. All changes likely correlate with the books changing) and several physics websites kind of open. The math classes are also open. It is especially easy to size them up vs. your experience if you have at least taken AP/IB or a very strong HS class before (Hell I’ve seen some students I my school be ultra-competitive/aggressive and sit in on summer versions of the course taught by the professor who they were taking in the fall. The summer class was not the same intensity, but knowing the basics certainly gave an edge). This way, if you plan on doubling up, you can at least look and see if you have any clue about the material being taught (the 2 classes both look Greek to you based on your background, you should probably drop one or look for another instructor). Pre-health is more about strategy than anything else.