<p>How is the grading at Cornell? Is there evident grade inflation or deflation? Has anybody here ever pulled off a 4.0 for a semester?</p>
<p>Everyone said it was difficult, but I pulled off a 4.0 for my entire freshman year at St. John's and for a summer session at NYU with nothing more than a good work ethic and dedication. If accepted at Cornell, I'm hoping I can pull it off for my first semester, but my physics teacher, a Cornell alum, told me about ridiculous curves and serious grade deflation (he was in engineering).</p>
<p>I know that's only one person's side of it, but how about everyone else? I'm interested in studying Law so I applied to ILR if anybody can shed light on that specific school as well.</p>
<p>I think we have a mix of both. There are plenty of people on this forum who have pulled off a 4.0 and some who even pulled off over a 4.3 (Cornell gives A+'s...so you have a 4.3).</p>
<p>You can pull off a 4.0...but it's not always easy. Some classes (like orgo) curve to a B- and others may curve to a B+. Some don't curve at all. So...it's a lot of curve surfing :-)</p>
<p>It seems like all my Human Development friends have insanely high GPAs and my science friends tend to be around 3.2-3.5.</p>
<p>It largely depends on the major and the courses you take. Cornell, just like any other school, will have classes and majors that are more difficult than others. Engineering, hard sciences, and pre-med courses immediately come to mind when thinking of more of 'tough' courses. But, if you major in something that you are interested in and that you are good at, and if you put in good efforts, you should be able to walk away with at least 3.5-3.7 gpa range. I don't think Cornell has either grade inflation or deflation. It is pretty fair in terms of grading.</p>
<p>For ILR and pre-law in general, I don't think GPA is an issue. It amazes me that Cornell's pre-law applicants have just a 3.3 GPA. There's no course requirements or anything and you can major in whatever you want so I don't understand not having a 3.5 GPA.</p>
<p>Dewdrop87 did your friend happen to be a child prodigy or anything of that sorts? If not, thanks for the reassurance!!! Atleast I know I won't die at Cornell</p>
<p>What is an "A" calculated as? I believe it's supposed to be a 3.7, but some schools put it as a 3.66.</p>
<p>Honor Societies? Deans list requirements? Any good awards or grants given to academically successful students? </p>
<p>That A+ = 4.3 is interesting; how many students actually ever attain an A+?</p>
<p>Is attendance factored into any of the grading? I find it absolutely annoying and ridiculous that some of my teachers take off points on students' average for absence/lateness in college. All of my teachers currently do.</p>
<p>Best honor society (as is the case at every school) is Phi Beta Kappa. It's only open to CAS students though as it is an liberal arts honor society. I know there are other honor societies for engineers, etc. </p>
<p>Difficulty of getting an A+ will depend on the class. Some professors don't give A+'s. Some professors only give an A+ to the top student. Some professors give A+'s to the top few students. Some professors give an A+ as long as you pass the score cutoff (for example, 98%+ in Bio290 is an A+). </p>
<p>I graduated with around 8 A+'s (1 per semester) so it can't be that hard.</p>
<p>P huck Phi Beta Kappa. I could never understand while liberal arts oriented ILRies, Aggies, or PAM majors couldn't be inducted into PBK.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm just bitter. But there are honor societies for every college. Not to mention a lot of University wide honors (Merrill Scholars, etc.) and individual honors for top essays, outstanding students in selected majors, etc. I won a prize for the best statistics student in my graduating class, and I'm currently working with some alums to endow a prize for best student-written paper in the field of labor economics.</p>
<p>I think it's due to laziness. At most colleges, induction into PBK requires being at the top 5% of your class or whatever and also an academic record that includes liberal arts courses (usually a foreign language requiremen as well). Since CAS students already have to take a lot of liberal arts courses (including foreign language) to graduate, all you need to do to determine PBK status is to look at their GPA. I don't think the PBK committee wants to pour through ILR/CALS, etc. transcripts to see if they've taken liberal arts courses.</p>
<p>made<em>in</em>china: from what I've heard (and from two classes I've taken), PAM is really easy. I got an A+ and an A in the two classes I took. If you're in PAM and are looking for classes to pad your GPA, take something with Rick Geddes. It's not necessarily the most interesting material, but the curve it tremendous, because somehow most of the class did really poorly on his tests.</p>
<p>One of the reasons I liked Cornell was grade deflation. Rejoice people!! Your GPA's actually mean something at Cornell. A 4.0 at Cornell means 100 times more than a 4.0 at most other Universities. So be happy at this. Your grades will mean much more, and You'll learn much more to keep up with the other students at other Universities. You'll be that much smarter :)</p>
<p>To resurrect an old thread I found while searching "Geddes," can anyone comment on the PAM 2000 experience? I'm in the class now and liking it a lot so far, but I am worried about those tests and problem sets. I also don't know anyone in the class, which is pretty rare for an ILRie who is used to taking classes with the same 158 people. Any thoughts/is it worth staying in? I would only drop if if I completely bomb the first prelim.</p>