What is the grading like at Rochester? According to Wikipedia, it is among the colleges known for “rigorous grading policies.” Is this true? Would it be hard to earn a high enough GPA to get into a decent graduate school?
Believe it or not GPA is not that critical for grad school admission. (Usually a 3.0 will get past any academic screens at almost all grad programs.) Your research & publications, LORs, and performance in upper level electives are much more critical than your overall GPA or GRE scores for grad school admission.
Professional school (med, dental, vet, law, business) is another matter entirely. For those GPA does matter. A lot.
Rochester does have some pretty strict curves in intro level science & math classes. (Can’t talk about other disciplines because I don’t know much about them.) Some science courses limit As to the top 15-25% of students. (Varies by instructor/course.)
How “hard” it is to be among those top 15% or 25%? That is highly dependent upon the individual involved, his academic preparation, study skills, work ethic, native talent or ability in the academic area, etc.
I don’t think grade levels are an issue. UR isn’t a low grading school - like Georgia Tech or Princeton - and it isn’t a high grading school. I haven’t seen a listing of gpa at UR but I’ve seen them for a number of schools, including some that have been accused of “grade deflation” and in every case grades had actually been going up and it appeared people were cherry picking the rate of inflation versus some particular school with a very high rate of inflation.
Most schools have no set grading policy; it’s usually up to departments. Sciences tend to grade harder everywhere.
Just quoting this because I think it’s the main answer to your question. My guy (current junior) has something like a 3.96 currently, but no one can guarantee YOU will get that as no one knows your work ethic (while in college and totally on your own) or native talent to get it. I only mention that he has it to show that it’s entirely possible. He also does a boatload of other things AND studies. I’m pretty sure the only time he actually sleeps is when he’s home on breaks. But he loves it all…