<p>What's the grade inflation like in these schools (particularly for bio/neuroscience/pre med classes)?:</p>
<p>Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Northwestern
Wash U
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
UChicago (well, I know they're pretty deflated already)</p>
<p>Thanks a lot. I'd love to here about the relative difficulity of each school.</p>
<p>bump (10 char)</p>
<p>you can probably keep them in that order and have a pretty solid answer. Brown is heavily inflated, something around half of all grades given out are A's.</p>
<p>There's a website called gradeinflation.com, that helps a little.</p>
<p>Brown is heavily inflated, they give pretty much As and Bs
Dartmouth I don't think has much, but I dont know for sure.
Penn I don't know
NW has it, except in the engineering school
Wash U, I dunno
CMU, no way, not with those geeks
Cornell, no way
Chicago, double/triple/quadruple no way</p>
<p>Cornell/Chicago have grade DEFLATION.</p>
<p>Not really. Cornell/Chicago have average GPA near 3.3. It's funny how it's like some kind of a myth to many when published article/data are readily availalble. They may be demanding with lots of school work but that's not the same as grade deflation.</p>
<p>Wharton is by NO MEANS grade-inflated.</p>
<p>BTW Wharton is a division of Penn.</p>
<p>Sam,</p>
<p>I would say that Cornell and Chicago are relatively deflated compared to their peers.</p>
<p>I agree that Brown is inflated. There's a bit of a controversy there over the fact that they only have A,B,C, no plusses or minuses, and a lot of people don't like it because it ends up getting a lot of grades bumped up to As when they're in the high-B range.</p>
<p>Lol, who wouldn't like getting their grade bumped up to an A?
Anyone know Penn's rep for grade inflation, or others?</p>
<p>The Penn forum might know.</p>
<p>That's why I hope I get into Brown:).</p>
<p>Why worry about grades?</p>
<p>I don't WashU is grade inflated, but I don't think its terrible grade deflated...but its closer to the latter than being inflated</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon? I thought they were deflated.</p>
<p>Yeah, I knew CMU, Cornell and Chicago are all deflated. I'd love to here how the rest are inflated/deflated, esp. Wash U, Penn and Brown. Thanks.</p>
<p>BUMP</p>
<p>For bio/neuroscience/pre-med courses like you mentioned, especially intro courses, the median grade at Dartmouth is a B/B+. The medians of upper level bio and chem courses are around an A-.</p>
<p>Thanks GreenJen! That's good, because it means that most people aren't getting "weeded out" in the intro classes. They're getting not great, but respectable grades in D-mouth bio. </p>
<p>From what I've heard, Dartmouth tries to work with its premeds and prepare them for grad/med school through research opportunities and a more supportive environment, not weed them out. Has anyone heard this too?</p>
<p>I just talked to my pre-med friend at Dartmouth, and she admits that many of the intro courses for bio and pre-med are "weeder" courses. They're large, impersonal, and have low medians (a B median is considered low at Dartmouth). To be honest, I think this is to be expected at any university. And somehow she tells me that she absolutely loves Organic Chemistry even though it is one of the toughest courses she's taken yet.</p>
<p>She did say that the upper-level courses are much more interesting and the professors are really excited about teaching. She recommends taking as many upper-level courses as possible, even as a freshmen. </p>
<p>As always, there are many resources available for both struggling and high-achieving students. She said the pre-med advisors are great, as are the wealth of research opportunities.</p>
<p>I hope this helps!</p>
<p>
[quote]
a B median is considered low at Dartmouth). To be honest, I think this is to be expected at any university. And somehow she tells me that she absolutely loves Organic Chemistry even though it is one of the toughest courses she's taken yet.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A B median is considered low, eh? I know a lot of students who would LOVE to be in a class where a B was considered the median. For example, in engineering at Berkeley, some of the weeders place the median at a C/C+.</p>
<p>Sakky, I'm sure grad schools and employers look at students' grades in relation to the course medians and the school in general. At Dartmouth at least, the course median is even included on transcripts along with students' individual grades.</p>
<p>I meant that I think a lot of other schools have weeder classes that are large, impersonal, and that have low medians. The median itself varies -- I didn't mean that a B median is low everywhere else too. A solid B just happens to be on the low side at Dartmouth.</p>