<p>Good day,</p>
<p>I have heard much about the grade deflation in CAS and was wondering if there is similar grade deflation in CALS.
Thanks</p>
<p>There’s actually no grade deflation anywhere in Cornell.</p>
<p>Grade deflation and inflation are relative terms. Cornell’s grading is in line with its peer schools. The fact engineering or chem is graded harder than human development at Cornell is not evidence of “grade deflation” in engineering or chem. It’s just the way those majors are at every college in the country. (this is to preempt all the people that are going to come in complaining of grade deflation in premed courses, engineering, and science courses).</p>
<p>I know, but i was just wondering whether average GPAs are generally higher in CALS than in CAS.</p>
<p>There’s no current data on grading in different colleges at Cornell. There used to be an internal document posted on Cornell’s website that had data on grading back in 1995. Back then, virtually all of Cornell’s colleges had avg GPA’s of ~3.1-3.2 (with Engineering being slightly lower at ~3.0 and ILR slightly higher at ~3.3). This suggests to me that there is not much inter-college difference in grading.</p>
<p>Of course average GPAs are higher in CALS - it has AEM. But considering most CALS students have to take loads of classes in Arts departments like bio and math and chem and english and stats your question is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Contract colleges in general (CALS, Hum Ec, ILR) all generally have higher GPAs despite the student quality being less (based on top10% of class and SAT numbers) which I have always found to be troubling. Being a pre-med is signficantly easier in say Human Development or HBHS in Hum Ec since grades are hugely inflated in the non-pre med required courses.</p>
<p>I more-or-less agree with norcalguy’s summary. Not all majors are created equal. Some are in fact easier and less rigorous. That doesn’t mean those majors are “less worthy” but it means that it’s easier to get higher grades. Being highly proficient in business and being highly proficient in physics do not present the same intellectual challenge. Comparing GPAs between majors is useless.</p>
<p>From what I remember, CALS, aside from Engineering, generally has the lowest average GPA (though, they’re all pretty similar). This is not so much a reflection of the student body within each college as it is of the majors offered in CALS (there are a lot of science majors, unlike CAS with tons of humanity majors thrown in). For example, the average GPA of bio majors in CALS will be roughly equal to the average GPA of bio majors in CAS. Cornell’s the type of school where if you work hard, you can do well. There isn’t grade deflation - in fact, the majority of my classes had grade inflation.</p>
<p>What it comes down to is that to have an “A” mastery of knowledge in history isn’t the same as having an “A” level mastery of knowledge in chemistry. One is in fact harder and requires more work (for most people).</p>
<p>Agree on the history / chemistry comparision. There is generally a “pecking order” in degree of difficulty depending on major in every college. The differences typically correspond with end-of-the line salary potential in the respective fields that these majors lead to.</p>
<p>I think it’s also true some departments will make grading easier to attract more students. For example, lower level German is fairly intense (1-2 hours of homework per night) and it’s fairly popular. People are trying to get their language requirement out of the way, or only want to get their toes wet. Class size dramatically drops off past the 200-level and the grades go up without nearly as much work. </p>
<p>I’m sure it’s like that in other departments as well.</p>
<p>What about engineering? Most top engineering schools are known for tough classes and some are curved down/have grade deflation (Berkeley comes to mind), is it the same for Cornell?</p>
<p>yes, 10 chars</p>