Employers don’t look at the 3.0 at the “harder” school and say, “oh for sure that would have been a 3.8 at a more rigorous school”. It’s all in context. GPA, courses taken, extra stuff (projects, thesis, research experience), fellowships. I can’t always look at a resume and sniff out “rigor”- but when I was in hiring roles where we required a transcript, that made it a whole lot easier.
@PurpleTitan My comment: “D at lower ranked school studies extremely hard and definitely is above the curve, but my other D would probably be in the same situation had she picked the lower ranked school.” I was not inferring that a GPA at (high-ranked school) somehow scales to a higher GPA at a (lower ranked school). I also do not think an employer will “level” various GPA’s from different universities that is why I asked my initial question.
“However, grad school is holistic so perhaps it all balances out if that if what you want to do.”
Grad schools are not as holistic as selective undergrad colleges. Business schools are the only grad schools that come close to the holistic approach - looking at your work history, volunteering, leadership, race, demographics, international, etc…
Phd programs say only look at 4 or 5 things, for sure gpa, gre (definitely not holistic), research (maybe holistic), undergrad school (not holistic) and recommendations, maybe the only holistic portion of the application. And recommendations talk more to the applicant’s research strength and aptitude, than say personality. The personal statement is not used all that much, if at all. There are very little hooks in grad - for sure no athlete, being from a non-represented state, urm, first-gen. Legacy would be the only that still could be a factor.
I heard there is a grade inflation at Stanford and Harvard. Personally, I AM glad because my kid is about to go to Stanford. lol
Stanford is not a country club environment, it can be intense, now the students may get all As and Bs but they have to do more than just show up to class.
Yes, did not mean to imply it’s not intense academically at Stanford and Harvard. I am all for their giving slightly higher grades if you work hard. Who wants go to Harvard/Stanford and get mostly Cs?
It’s more than just at Stanford and Harvard. High GPAs are common at most highly selective private colleges, and the average class GPA increases over time. Some example average GPAs for selective private colleges are below. These are based on the numbers listed on gradeinflation.com, extrapolated to the current year unless otherwise noted. I’ve also listed ripplematch’s 2017 calculated GPA based on analyzing profiles in parenthesis.
Brown – 3.67 (3.74)
Harvard – 3.67 (3.62)
Stanford – 3.64 (3.68)
Yale – ~3.64* (3.63)
Duke – 3.54 (3.58)
–All other Ivy leagues and most similarly selective private colleges except Princeton, some of which are above Duke–
Princeton – 3.45** (3.48)
Based on YDN + GPA for honors cutoff
* Based on https://odoc.princeton.edu/sites/odoc/files/1.%202017%20Grading%20Memo.pdf
I agree. As I’ve touched on earlier in this thread, a key reason why the GPAs are so high at these extremely selective schools is they are full of excellent students who are doing ‘A’ quality work, rather that the classes being easy. Students generally need to work hard to get top grades, and most students do work hard. Google the “Stanford Duck Syndrome” for some examples. The basic idea is on the surface everything appears to be smooth sailing to the observer, but underneath the water, the Stanford student is paddling furiously to stay afloat.
There are also other less obvious factors that have an influence on GPA, particularly at Brown with its optional S/NC grading. For example, Stanford permits students to repeat a class and replace the old grade. I know one student who repeated classes when she got an A-, so she had no grade below A on her transcript. She went to Harvard Medical School, so I guess it worked out for her. Stanford’s grading scale goes up to 4.3 for A+, so GPAs above 4.0 are theoretically possible However, when I attended A+ grades were quite rare. The only times I received related to doing something beyond just doing very well on class assignments and exams. For example, in one case the A+ related to finding some additional solutions on an EE final that the professor hadn’t considered.
@Data10 Interesting information. Thanks for sharing.
So… would it ultimately be better for an above average student to choose a school where he/she has a higher likelihood of being at the top end of the curve? My freshman D loves her school, but …
^ She’s also not doing badly.
Only for law school and perhaps Med school, where GPA is critical. OTOH, for engineering, I would guess that being middle of the pack at MIT or Caltech ain’t gonna be a detriment for most jobs. 
(Ditto Stanford & Cal.)
Where “middle of the pack” has a GPA of 3.0 or higher, being there should not be too much of a problem for engineering employment out of school.
But 3.0 is not good for medical or law school.
I go to a T20 school and our average engineering gpa is a 2.77. It doesn’t seem to bother employers too much as our career fairs for engineering are huge and gpa has never been discussed in any of my interviews nor my friends. I think when a school is well known enough the HR managers know a typical gpa and how capable the students are.
A guess at the mindset behind the lower GPAs common in engineering:
While attending an engineering college many of my professors stressed the need to set a high standard because the profession required it. They argued that safety was paramount or refineries would blow up, buildings would collapse, satellites would fail, ships would sink, cars would crash, etc. In addition to the constant math, chemistry, physics drumbeat there was this focus on professionalism which justified focusing grades to a higher expectation. This was a mindset shared whether you were a T20, T50,T100, etc school. This mindset goes along with the concept of professional responsibility. I suspect (and hope) that the same line of thinking is common in nursing programs.
The mindset in nursing programs is to pass the boards. Period. Along with passing the boards comes the awareness of professional responsibility, patient safety, liability and malpractice, wellbeing, etc. But pass rates are pretty easy to compare school to school.
Engineering employers are generally more concerned with whether you have experience, skills, and major suggesting that you can do the job well than with GPA. However, between GPA and rank, GPA is the more important factor. That is, it’s generally more important to have a particular GPA than to be at a particular spot on the curve. As I touched on, it may not be obvious at which college the student would have the higher GPA. It can depend on the student, the major, and the specific colleges.
When choosing colleges, it depends on the student. Some students get pushed to new heights when surrounded by stellar students doing amazing things, and/or like to be surrounded by students at similar achievement level who take classes and group projects seriously. Some students function best as the big fish with grades near the top of the curve and/or may want to change majors if they are not above average. Some believe there are employment advantages to be at a college with a high concentration at top students, such as a different set of companies recruiting and better networking. Some believe there are employment advantages to being at a college where you can be towards the top of the class, such as standing out more to professors for better LORs, research opportunities, and awards. I’d expect the vast majority of kids who are accepted to highly selective colleges would have a very good outcome, regardless of whether they attended the highly selective college or chose their safety.
Definitely not good, but not a deal-breaker either. With the exception of Yale Law, and probably Stanford and Chicago, all others are in play with a 173+ LSAT score, even Harvard Law. (engineers ace the logic games portion, which tends to trip up the lit/hume/Studies majors)
Even a low 3 GPA can get into med school with a top MCAT. (see appendix at WashU.)
https://prehealth.wustl.edu/Documents/Handbook2017Online.pdf
Hmm. Why should the grade distribution be the same at every college engineering program when the quality of the students is not the same, but the material is essentially similar? That doesn’t make sense to me.
The grade distribution is not the same at every college engineering program, and most selective schools tend to have higher grade inflation. However, individual schools may deviate from the general trend.
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Why is it automatically grade inflation if a school had more As but also more students with high ability?
All ivies are inflated, but Harvard, Brown, Yale are quite more inflated than Princeton, Columbia, Penn and Cornell. Not sure about Dartmouth.