<p>I've heard that Berkeley is really competitive because the the professors cap grades so that only the top 15% get As. Is this true??
If not is there any other grade deflation or inflation at Berkeley??</p>
<p>The 15% rule was true back in the good ole days, now it's far from being the case. The average campus undergraduate GPA is 3.25, which means more As than Cs. No way you can get that without at least 30% As.</p>
<p>Inflation/deflation is the trend over time. I think the term is commonly misused, but what you're asking is about the current average GPA.</p>
<p>CalX is partially wrong. Where there are some classes where more than 15% get A's, a great deal of grade inflation comes from students dropping and retaking classes as well. </p>
<p>Also, there is self-selection against C's, because if you get below a 2.0 you are on probation and expelled. This will tend to inflate gpa's as well as people who get C grades and below are more likely to be expelled. </p>
<p>Thus the average gpa at Berkeley is an unreliable indicator of the points he/she makes.</p>
<p>Actually "cantsilencetruth", the avg GPA at Cal has moved from something like 2.8 a decade or two ago to 3.25 today. The two issues you refer to have always existed, so your argument is moot. And the dropout rate has dropped significantly as well, as the graduation rate is now up to 86.6% (and a lot of that is due to students with financial difficulties as opposed to academic casualties.) As well, the fact that there are fewer Ds and Fs and more Cs now should actually drag the GPA down, because people who get Ds and Fs retake the class.</p>
<p>Avg GPA and the trend of that measurement over time is actually the best indicator for grade inflation.</p>
<p>Your point was that there are more than 15% A's for all classes and you pointed to the average GPA of Cal as proof of this.</p>
<p>This point is wrong in general. All the sciences and engineering disciplines have a 15% A grade distribution.</p>
<p>The humanities, however do not. Grade inflation has occurred but has been concentrated in the humanities as previous articles posted on this site has stated. The article pointed out the high rate of drops and retakes for the humanities too, pulling the average gpa up.</p>
<p>So you are right that there has been grade inflation, but you are wrong to generalize upon all of Cal.</p>
<p>Most math/science/engineering professors give out at least 25% A's. But unfortunately, there are no grade distributions here like those at Stanford, as shown in the above link.</p>
<p>^ Wow they sure hand out lots of A+</p>
<p>Part of the reason why Stanford students are "relaxed"</p>
<p>Yes, and graduate schools see Stanford A+'s as superior to Berkeley A's.</p>
<p>"All the sciences and engineering disciplines have a 15% A grade distribution."</p>
<p>Definitely not, even back in my time at Cal, where upper div Eng. classes had about twice that % of As, and certainly not today either. That's only true of some classes, mostly lower division. You can't have the campus avg GPA go up to 3.25 and not have part of that inflation come from sciences and engineering, which are a good chunk of the university at large.</p>