<p>I've heard that many ivies inflate undergrad GPA's to boost admits to Grad School. Is this the case with GU? Or does GU deflate them for which JHU is notorious for. </p>
<p>Oh, and does GU rank? </p>
<p>Ok, one more question, I promise: Do first year grades count? or is it Pass/Fail like some Private colleges?</p>
<p>I have no idea what the average GPA is here, but I would suspect overall that it's pretty easy to get a B at Georgetown for the most part, but A's can be really hard to get in some classes, especially at the introductory level. Specifically the Econ department seems to have a strong desire to give out C's to students en masse in the 000-level classes. </p>
<p>In my Econ class presently the curve is 25% get A's, 50% get B's and 25% get C's--no matter what. I scored percentage wise in the A-range on a mid-term exam (over 90) and had that curved down to a B, which I think is somewhat sinister at the undergraduate level. </p>
<p>My experience, however, is that in smaller classes professors are much more willing to give higher grades. The grading in intensively-taught language classes appears to be especially generous, in my experience and that of my friends. I'm pretty sure the lowest grade that has been given out in my Russian classes is B or B-. </p>
<p>First year grades do count, and Georgetown only ranks internally. You can find it out from the Registrar, but it's not on the transcript.</p>
<p>Copley - you mentioned you were taking a Russian class... are you a native speaker? I want to take Russian and I'm wondering how difficult the intermediate levels are.</p>
<p>Study abroad does NOT count towards your GPA though does it.</p>
<p>Anyutachka, I'm a native Russian speaker and I've taken a few Russian classes at Georgetown.</p>
<p>The first two levels are intensive, with all that that entails, but they are geared toward people who come in with no prior knowledge of the language. Based on what my friends have told me, it's challenging only in so far as the language itself is challenging (and God knows it is) and the professors tend to be pretty forgiving. I can tell you which ones in particular, if you really want to know.</p>
<p>On the intermediate level, it tends to be a mix of people who are Russian majors, grad students polishing up their skills, and a "heritage" speaker here or there. Here, a lot depends on the individual professor, as they have much more leeway with how they structure the course, i.e. grammar-heavy, literary analysis, etc.</p>
<p>The advanced classes can be really interesting. One problem is that there's still a pretty wide disconnect between the native speakers and even the advanced learners - Russian is too hard to learn to true proficiency just going by 6 or 7 semesters of work. So I get the feeling that the non-native speakers tend to miss some of what is being said. That's going to happen regardless, but I think it's a wider gap with Russian than with, say, French or Spanish.</p>
<p>As for classes and grading in general, intro and survey classes are really annoying when it comes to grading, with Bell curves and anal TAs and non-tenured profs who feel they have to prove they don't inflate grades. In the more advanced classes, it's definitely dependent on the individual professors, but by and large it's easier to get A's, especially in the more specialized classes.</p>
<p>Akajjred, most study abroad programs don't count into your GPA. Two exceptions I can think of offhand are the Villa Le Balze and the McGhee Center (Georgetown's villa in Alanya, Turkey). Courses in those programs are taught by Georgetown faculty, which is why they are the exception.</p>
<p>Thanks dzleprechaun! What year are you right now? I want to major in comparative literature with Russian as my primary focus (I speak it fluently, read pretty well, write like a 5 year old) and French as my secondary focus (I don't speak a word of it, but am fluent in Spanish after four years of high school and a summer studying abroad in Barcelona). I will definitely be asking you more detailed questions about professors, etc... when it comes time for me to pick classes. Where are you from originally by the way?</p>
<p>I'm a junior doing a 5-year BSFS/MA program, so I have two more years left at Gtown. I was pretty much in your same position, linguistically speaking, when I came to Georgetown (except I took 4 years of French in high school instead of Spanish...and didn't really learn it all that well, hah). I'm from Moscow originally, lived in Rostov-on-Don as well, although, as they say, "eto bylo davno i nepravda" :)</p>
<p>So when you came to Georgetown did you begin by taking the first year level Russian class or did you jump straight into intermediate/advanced. What is your major by the way? I am considering doing the BA/MA under the FLL but I would have to change my major (which at the moment is comparative literature). Also, do you know if the summer program in St. Petersburg is geared toward native speakers or non-native speakers?</p>
<p>The St. Petersburg summer program is designed to cover most of the components of third level Russian at Georgetown, or at least 2/3, according to the people in the department I've talked to about it. </p>
<p>In terms of placement, all I know is that non-native speakers with 4 years of HS Russian apparently get placed into first year. I'd expect you'd be placed into third year Russian, though that's just my guestimation. First year covers all the cases, a lot of verbs, and most of the common grammatical constructions one needs to speak/read/write...but we're all still pretty miserable at speaking. So you're still going to be way ahead of anyone who's non-native even at third level i'd suspect.</p>
<p>I did the third-year classes my freshman year and that was enough for me to (re)learn the grammar up to a respectable level. My major is IPOL, security studies concentration.</p>
<p>As for the St.Program, it's obviously geared toward non-native speakers, but I know they do get heritage speakers from time to time and try to accomodate them as well.</p>
<p>As for placement, I have a friend who took Russian in high school and she went into second-year, I believe. I have no idea what high school Russian classes would cover and in what depth, though.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! I've never actually taken Russian in high school - just speak it at home. In any case, we'll just see how I do on the placement test. Do either of you know of any summer study abroad programs that are actually geared more toward native speakers. I looked at the course descriptions of the CIEE program online but I've also heard the CIEE isn't a very intense language program and there are better options out there, I just can't seem to find any summer programs in Russian that would be more challenging.</p>
<p>I don't really know if there's something quite what like what you're looking for. The problem is that any language-intensive program is going to be geared toward people who NEED intensive language training, i.e. non-native speakers. If you already have the "feel" of the language (i.e. for Russian you instinctively know what cases to use) then you don't really need intensive language training. </p>
<p>For example, the language intensive Russian programs like the one in St.P have many hours of phonetics training. For a foreigner, this can be very important in making one's self understood; it's largely wasted on someone who's grown up hearing the language on a daily basis.</p>
<p>I don't know about CIEE Russia for sure (I did CIEE Prague), but from my understanding, it's not a very language-intensive curriculum. At the same time, as any good language teacher will tell you, the deeper acquisition of the language comes outside of the formal classroom, so it may not be that big of a deal that the language classes aren't geared to a very high level.</p>
<p>You are absolutely right. I studied abroad in Barcelona this past summer and I can't say my Spanish noticeably improved or anything but it was a great experience. I'm not sure why I've been getting so worked up over this whole studying abroad in Russia thing especially since I'm planning to do a year in France and was hoping to do the summer program at Georgetown's villa in Florence. Plus I'm sure the professors at Georgetown are better than ones I will find abroad. Thanks for all your answers and sorry about all the annoying questions :)</p>
<p>Ne za chto. Feel free to ask any time.</p>