<p>Can anyone comment on grading at NU? Are grades deflated? How about for premeds?</p>
<p>As far as I can tell there is no active attempt by professors or departments to keep down GPAs -- nor any attempt to inflate them. </p>
<p>In regards to premed course, normal (Gaussian) distribution is common across the board although professors have different grading schemes obviously. Students at or above the class average usually get a B-, at least for all the courses I have taken. I don't know too many pre-med students, but judging by the ones I do know I'd say you're extremely lucky if you can pull a 3.5 (midway between B+/A-) overall for your premed classes.</p>
<p>In terms of other classes, it's ** usually ** "hard" to get an A, "easy" to get a B or B+. That really just depends on the level, grade scheme, personal interest in the course, etc.</p>
<p>average gpa is around a 3.26 (just below a B+) I believe. for A&S I'd imagine this GPA is closer to a 3.0. Pre-med is difficult but if you're serious about med school, smart, and willing to put in the work (ie everything that you SHOULD be if you want to be a doctor) it is entirely feasible to get a 3.9+. I have friends who took bio at the same time as orgo and aced both of them.</p>
<p>That being said, compared to lower-tier schools, northwestern grades hard, only because you are being curved against smarter students. The material, in general is not much more difficult, but you must have a better understanding of it than if you went to, say, northern illinois university, because you don't really have the type of students around who don't care about grades and thus help the curve by doing poorly on the exams.</p>
<p>Another thing is, Northwestern almost never hands out Cs if you do the bare minimum work, so there shouldn't be any worries about having any 2.0 grades factored into your GPA. The lowest you should ever get is a 3.0 in any one class, unless you really, really mess something up.</p>