I’m not sure Brown is a big outlier compared to other Ivy-type private colleges in terms of how easy it is to get A grades. Instead I suspect Brown’s slightly higher percent A’s than HYS… more relates to Brown allowing students to take almost any class pass/fail. Many would be B grades become pass/fails, so it looks like fewer students are getting B’s. Taking many classes P/F isn’t necessarily a good strategy for pre-meds, although some do this…
Some self-reported GPA stats for Harvard are in the senior survey at The Harvard Crimson | The Graduating Class of 2021 By the Numbers . 2/3 of Harvard students reported a median GPA of 3.8 or higher. Very few reported GPAs low enough to suggest problems for med school admission. Stanford and Yale have reported similar grade distributions to Harvard in the past, so that’s probably stil true today. As a general rule, when a larger portion of students do ‘A’ quality work, colleges tend to give a large portion of students ‘A’ grades. So the most selective private colleges tend to have the larges portion ‘A’ grades. It’s standard for the majority of grades to be A’s at Ivy+ type colleges, even at ones attempting to control grade inflation.
It seems to be a relatively common opinion on the forums that students who are pre-med should choose colleges where they are above average students compared to peers, so it’s easier to get high grades, avoiding colleges like the ones listed above. I think it depends on the particular student. I believe that many students would find it easier to get ‘A’ grades at colleges like Brown, Harvard, Stanford, and Yale than various less selective alternatives; even if they are not as academically prepared as the typical admit; partially due to giving a larger portion of students ‘A’ grades as noted in the article.
Having less in the way of general education requirements may also be a factor. A student facing fewer general education requirements can more easily avoid courses that they are weak in and risk getting lower grades in.
Brown also does not have +/-, so “barely an A” becomes an A, rather than an A-. However, for pre-law students, this also means that the most exceptional students among them cannot earn A+ grades (law school admissions recalculates with A+ = 4.33).
How many B students take class pass/fail affects the percentage of Bs in the class, but it isn’t going to affect the percentage of As given in the class. The percentage of As has risen to nearly 70% from under 40% according to the linked article, and that’s independent of pass/fail grading. It has to be grade inflation.
I didn’t say there wasn’t grade inflation. My point was that I do not think it is notably easier to get A’s at Brown than at other HYS type colleges. It could have been worded more better. For example, Princeton is perhaps the harshest graded Ivy due to their history with attempted “grade deflation.” Median GPAs at Princeton always lag significantly behind HYS, Brown, and typical Ivy-type colleges. Even at Princeton, the number of A grades is not far behind Brown. A comparison of pre-COVID/remote grade distribution at Brown and Princeton is below. The % A grade was nearly identical. The differences instead related to Brown has more S grades and fewer B grades. I expect would be ‘B’ grades at Brown are more likely to become P/F than elsewhere.
2018-19 Grade Distribution
Brown – 57% A, 17% B, 22% S
Princeton – 55% A, 34% B, 3% P
The Brown link suggests ~1% C grades in 2019-20 and later… maybe less. Brown’s grading scale does not have D grades. Princeton does have C and D grades on their grading scale, but the distribution is not listed in their grading report. I expect them to be very uncommon.
And indeed they are. According to a Daily Princetonian analysis, in 2018-2019, 6% of course grades were C’s and less than 1% were D’s or F’s. Another 4% of courses were taken pass/fail, presumably by students who didn’t expect to get a stellar grade in the class, so some of those would have been C’s.
Nothing like when I was at UCLA log ago where C’s were common. Average GPA’s much lower than today. But they never let you switch to pass/no-pass after 3 weeks which was usually before you had any graded feedback so you couldn’t avoid a lesser grade that way.
Right. The only place that a high mean GPA really counts is for prelaw students, as law schools don’t care much about what’s in the transcript, just the cumulative GPA on it.
btw: since Yale College has similar grade inflation to Brown, and since Yale Law has been the #1 LS forever, and since Yale Law gives a small bump to its own College undergrads, Yale College is a no-brainer for prelaw.
since Yale Law has been the #1 LS forever, and since Yale Law gives a small bump to its own College undergrads, Yale College is a no-brainer for prelaw.
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This is not the point I was trying to make. You surely don’t think the kids heading off to third tier law school are doing so because they weren’t shrewd enough to attend Yale undergrad?
Just the opposite. My point was that teh vast majority of law schools do not care about P/F’s on transcripts. And law schools are the only grad/professional schools that have such a position; all others care about what’s on the transcript, which supports your point. (Yale Law is an exception however as is so small, it can pick and choose so it does care about transcripts as well as EC’s.)
I don’t understand your question as ‘shrewdness’ has very little to go with getting into Yale College (or any other tippy top college for that matter). But for those law wannabes that are fortunate to have a choice of Yale or its peers, choose Yale if other things are similar.
Actually, law schools do not care what GPA is on the college transcript, since they recalculate college GPAs for admission purposes. See Transcript Summarization | The Law School Admission Council (note that the value of +/- may differ from what many college use).
Disagree. Med schools do care about individual coursework that comprises the GPA. Law schools don’t care if you get an A in basketweaving, even if taken at a Junior college, as long as it’s an A. In contrast, med schools want to see a rigorous curriculum in addition to a bunch of A’s. And they’ll look down on a transcript with an A and a bunch of P’s. For example, that A in Organic Chem will look rather suspect if its surrounded by 4 P’s that term.
I’d love to see evidence (other than in Legally Blond) that law schools don’t care about basketweaving vs. philosophy.
Although on CC it’s fashionable to claim that law schools are neutral on which college, major, rigor, etc. that doesn’t necessarily jive with reality.
The only actual data I have ever seen was “back in the day” when MIT used to post the law school (and med school, I think) results for their undergrads. It was surprising to see just how low an MIT GPA could go and still get into top law and med programs. Yes, there are “splitters” in the law school community, so a tippy top LSAT score does carry the day in many cases. But it does suggest that law school admissions committees aren’t accepting the A+ kids in basketweaving over the B+ kids in chemical engineering, assuming everyone is within the acceptable LSAT range.
Anyone have actual, national data on this? Besides the fictional Elle Wood???
I have no idea whether or not law schools care about actual underlying coursework in a transcript. But if they don’t, they aren’t going to be very good, or won’t remain very good for long.
But your argument seems to be that it’s MIT that provides a boost, regardless of major. Maybe Elle Woods attending UCLA (CULA) counted for more than her 4.0 in Fashion Merchandising? And UCLA gives A+ grades so her law school GPA could easily have been higher than 4.0
