<p>I have witnessed the true meaning of "grade inflation" at Harvard. I have taken an "intensive" physics class at Harvard this past summer that covers both mechanics and e&m in which I got an A. However, I couldn't even pass the exam for MIT and have to take physics again... </p>
<p>So what's up with the easiness at Harvard?</p>
<p>From what I've heard, grade inflation has gone way down in the past couple of years. They have capped the number of people who can graduate with honors (I'm not sure of the exact percent, but it's low). Maybe it was because you were taking a summer course? Or maybe it was just that prof?</p>
<p>This is because you took a Physics summer class. I know about 5 people who took Organic Chemistry over the summer and said the exams were much easier than the types of questions they would ask during the term.</p>
<p>I saw a copy of a pre-med summer Biology exam which was all multiple choice questions. That would NEVER happen during the term. For example, our final exam in Chemistry 7 asked us to determine how long it would take Greenland to melt based on the density of water, how thick Greenland was, and how much energy the Earth received from the sun in a given year. (Of course, the presented question was harder, but that was the basic gist of the problem). In essence, they will say "Okay. So you learned X. How would that apply in this situation?"</p>
<p>It is really not that easy.</p>
<p>Who takes physics classes at Harvard if they're going to MIT? That doesn't make much sense to me.</p>
<p>You had Jim Anderson as a professor, didn't you xjayz? I can assure you that a question like that would never have made it onto the old chem 7 exams. Things were much more in line with the Logan notes before he taught the course and actually took the time to do his own thing.</p>
<p>Yes I did! He was a really personable guy. The final exam questions were totally out of the blue as it got toward the end. I missed the cut-off for an A by 1 percentage point, thanks to my less than stellar performance on the final. Woops. He's team-teaching the new Physical Sciences 1 (replacement of Chemistry 7), so I guess it won't be so bad - I didn't find it such a horrible class. The problem sets were out of the blue though, and took a while to figure out.</p>
<p>I actually took the class to prepare for the advanced standing exams at mit during orientation. The class at Harvard was very easy, but the exam at MIT was harsh... mad harsh...</p>
<p>My GPA could use a little grade inflation this semester....</p>
<p>It really depends on the professor.
Everywhere you go, there will be professors who spend more time and make exams harder. Some are just lazy.</p>
<p>MIT is god in math and physics..</p>
<p>No point in comparing them to Harvard.</p>
<p>I love when people make statements like that... :)
Predator- what is your critera when saying MIT is god in math and physics?</p>
<p>Seriously, Harvard may be #1 in the world overall, but MIT is known overall for the strongest math and science background. I also know quite a few friends who go there, I can see why MIT chose them. The few geniuses I know got into MIT.</p>
<p>Also, I know this one kid who got into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, UT, Duke, UPenn, and Johns Hopkins, and he STILL got waitlisted at MIT.</p>
<p>The ones who pass the rigorous standards at MIT really have something to offer to the world.</p>
<p>OP-</p>
<p>take 8.012 then. you won't be in want of a challenge</p>
<p>I believe we have a MIT troll on our hands.</p>
<p>No one is denying that MIT is a fantastic school. However, Harvard is strong in the math and sciences as well. You may say that MIT is "stronger" than Harvard, others may say Harvard is "stronger." In the end, a math or science student can be rest assured that they can receive one of the finest educations in the world from both these schools in their fields of interest. It all comes down to personal preference.</p>
<p>
[quote]
From what I've heard, grade inflation has gone way down in the past couple of years. They have capped the number of people who can graduate with honors (I'm not sure of the exact percent, but it's low).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I wouldn't say that GRADE inflation has gone down. It may have, but there is no evidence of this happening. What has happened is that HONORS inflation has gone down, meaning that it's harder to get honors. But that doesn't necessarily mean that GRADE inflation has decreased. It may just mean that the grade threshold with which to obtain honors has increased, without any change to the level of grades themselves.</p>
<p>Yeah, the latin honors thing was getting out of hand before they finally clamped down. They used to have a minimum baseline GPA for latin honors, and the baseline was really low (around 3.0), resulting in pretty much everyone getting some sort of honor. Now they are doing the logical thing by capping things at a set percentage, although it's still ridiculously high (50% of the graduating class are supposed to have some sort of latin honors). So basically, at Harvard above average is all you have to be to get special recognition.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Now they are doing the logical thing by capping things at a set percentage, although it's still ridiculously high (50% of the graduating class are supposed to have some sort of latin honors). So basically, at Harvard above average is all you have to be to get special recognition.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think that having 50% of the class getting honors is necessarily ridiculously high. I believe that 50% of the class at Caltech gets honors too, or at least that was true during my brother's commencement.</p>
<p>I think the real problem is that there really are a lot of classes at Harvard that, frankly, aren't that hard to get a good grade in, and there really are some students who don't work very hard, and get decent grades anyway. While the problem is less prevalent than in the old days, the fact is, there still are some rich priveleged kids at Harvard who are simply not interested in studying hard, because they know full well that once they graduate, they are going to get a job arranged by Daddy or one of Daddy's friends. Either that, or they're going to come into a trust fund. </p>
<p>The truth is, it's practically impossible to actually flunk out of Harvard. Even an extremely lazy student will still most likely pass. In many cases, that student will do even better than just pass. As said by an article in the Boston Globe:</p>
<p>"Trevor Cox is in the throes of his greatest challenge at Harvard University: A senior honors thesis about Abraham Lincoln's wartime attorney general. It's exciting and gut-churning, he says; it's also his first Harvard paper that doesn't feel like a sham. </p>
<p>''I've coasted on far higher grades than I deserve,'' said Cox, who has a B-plus average and leads Harvard's student volunteer group. ''It's scandalous. You can get very good grades, and earn honors, without ever producing quality work.'' </p>
<p>"The humanities are indeed a harbor for A's, which account for half of all the grades given in those classes; humanities professors teach about 30 percent of Harvard students. The hard sciences enroll a similar proportion and give more B's, while the social sciences enroll about 50 percent and fall toward the middle of grading trends. </p>
<p>Alexandra Mack, a 1991 anthropology major, received a C in calculus and a B-minus in Stephen Jay Gould's evolution class, but recalls breezing through one humanities exam by simply regurgitating the professor's ideas.</p>
<p>''The comments back from the professor were <code>great insights, great thoughts,' '' Mack said. ''I felt,</code>I'm glad you think I'm brilliant, but c'mon.' '' "</p>
<p>To be fair, Harvard is clearly not unique in this respect. Grade inflation is a well-worn and widespread phenonomom throughout higher education, especially in the humanities. What I think Harvard and all other schools should do is, at least, calculate honors based on being in the top X% of students IN THE CONCENTRATION YOU ARE IN, and ideally, in the specific classes that you take. For example, a computer algorithm could compare your grades to to the grades of a theoretical student who took the exact same courses you took, and got the mean grade of each course. Earning honors would mean performing better than this theoretical student. This would reduce the incentive for students to deliberately avoid classes taught by harsh graders, and cherry-pick classes known to give out lots of high grades, because the more high grades given out, the better you have to do to get honors. </p>
<p>Of course this doesn't solve the problem of classes that tend to have weaker students in general (i.e. the classes that are popular with, say, the football players), nor does it solve the problem of students deliberately taking classes on things that they already know (i.e. a student who is fluent in French deciding to take all of the intro French classes just to get a string of easy A's while doing very little work). But it still would be better than the current situation where students who take difficult concentrations with harsh grading like physics get unfairly penalized vis-a-vis those who do easier concentrations.</p>
<p>At MIT, there aren't any honors. The honor lies in graduating.. ekkkk</p>
<p>yeah, mit pretty much rocks.</p>
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<p>What I think Harvard and all other schools should do is, at least, calculate honors based on being in the top X% of students IN THE CONCENTRATION YOU ARE IN</p>
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<p>They basically do. General cum laude from the college is now a very small group; most honors are bestowed by the department of concentration. Every department decides its own criteria for magna, summa, etc. Phi Beta Kappa election is also divided; humanities, social science, and natural science concentrators are evaluated separately by people from those fields.</p>