Grading at Dartmouth

<p>What grades does Dartmouth give out? A A/B B etc or A A- B B- etc.</p>

<p>I looked at medium grades by term and it mentioned A-'s and B+'s as well.</p>

<p>Yes, minuses and plusses are awarded, and factored into gpa. An A equals 12 grade points, an A- equals 11 grade points, a B+=10 grade points...</p>

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At the end of each term every student’s term and cumulative grade point average (GPA) are calculated. The GPA calculation includes solely courses taken at Dartmouth on a regular A through E grading scale (GPA courses). The calculation uses quality points which are three times the usual grade values to prevent the accumulation of errors: </p>

<p>an A counts as 12 points, A- as 11, B+ as 10, B as 9, B- as 8, C+ as 7, C as 6, C- as 5, D as 3, and E as 0. </p>

<p>The GPA is the sum of the quality points divided by three times the GPA courses. This quotient is rounded to two decimal places.</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ereg/regulations/undergrad/degree-req.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/regulations/undergrad/degree-req.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Does dartmouth have a lot of grade inflation?</p>

<p>yea it does, the median grades for most classes is a B+ ... lower for intro science, higher for some other classes (usually higher numbers)...</p>

<p>Yep, the grade inflation here's a bit shocking. My math 5 professor did assure us that a C is "pretty decent", but if he's being sincere, he's still an outlier in his grading. Several of my friends taking other classes in the math department said the median score for their midterms has been a B. Still, take this anecdotal evidence with a pinch of salt...</p>

<p>Alright John...and on the other spectrum...</p>

<p>That Math 11 midterm was seriously the easiest college math test I have ever taken. In fact, it was even easier than anything I had to deal with at a 3rd tier state university. I'm not even joking.</p>

<p>The median grades for a typical Multivariable Calculus midterm there was like...an F though haha. Here, the median was something B- to C+ of the like. Also, the language medians here are around a B+/A-.</p>

<p>It's even more ridiculous at Harvard though. A lot of my friends there are absolutely destroying the curve.</p>

<p>oh god math 11 ... how people managed to do poorly in that class i'll never figure out ... if you had half a brain you were pretty much guaranteed to get over 85% on the exams ... they were so ridiculously easy.. though that's probably why we had median grades in the 80s.</p>

<p>With respect to other people dude, I can see why the examination grades were saturated in the lower B range. Not everybody's a Math type person - and that's perfectly OK. There will definitely be some good stuff at the upper level, since the WebWork right now isn't exactly <em>real</em> Math per se.</p>

<p>well yea ... math 11's just pretty much a joke anyway ... though i fail to see how people who <em>supposedly</em> got 4s and 5s on the BC exam would not be "math people" ... or at least enough of "math people" to understand the material in 11, since the transition from thinking from non-calc to calc is a much bigger transition than thinking from 1 to multiple variables.</p>

<p>i don't know what 11's like this year, but given the exams that were written, having medians in the 80s does seem appropriate ... it's just that those medians are ridiculous...</p>

<p>Well that's reassuring, that probably means I just won't have to come to class anymore, heh, heh (I've been pretty bad with attendance these past few weeks for Math anyways, but at least I've been to every class with my other courses - raging takes it toll on the soul).</p>

<p>But keep in mind that one only really needs to get about 60% of the questions right on the BC exam to get a 5, and almost half of all test takers actually make that score. I guess the REAL question is, how can people seemingly do so well on the homework and WebWork, and then absolutely bomb the exam? </p>

<p>Regardless, the salient point here is that Calculus is Calculus, regardless of where it's taken - at MIT, Dartmouth, or even some third tier university. The flagship textbook seems to be Stewart's 5th or 6th ED and so the true value of an Ivy League education is not what actually comes from the classroom.</p>

<p>So it always baffles me why every time I go out on a weeknight, my suitemates always feel like staying back in the dorms to study how to take the derivative of 3*x^2. There's more to life...</p>

<p>See, you're missing out on the intellectual discussions we have when we play cards/foosball. You're probably not going to find "the true value of an Ivy League education" in a frat - but that's a whole different issue altogether.</p>

<p>Also, whoever doesn't know how to take the derivative of 3*x^2 probably really needs to be studying it.</p>

<p>intriguing, does dartmouth offer "honors math" courses?</p>

<p>Yes, at least for most of the calc courses.</p>

<p>and BB1984, are you using Stewart for multivariable?</p>

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You're probably not going to find "the true value of an Ivy League education" in a frat - but that's a whole different issue altogether.

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<p>Huh, what? GREAT value can be found in a fraternity - reread my statement. Note that whenever I talk about intellectualism here at Dartmouth, my response is always rather nonchalant.</p>

<p>IK, the Honors Math classes here aren't as rigorous as the Honors Analysis sequence that you've been looking up a lot about at Chicago. In fact, replace a couple of problems in Math 11 here and there, and you basically have the Honors Multivariable class. It's <em>still</em> not even real Math.</p>

<p>And yes, both Honors and non-Honors sequences use Stewart (I believe), which basically takes the cake in trivial brain exercises. Richard Rusczyk would absolutely puke himself to death at the sight of that book.</p>

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Huh, what? GREAT value can be found in a fraternity - reread my statement. Note that whenever I talk about intellectualism here at Dartmouth, my response is always rather nonchalant.

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<p>You know very well that if you want intellectual discussion outside the classroom - which I believe most of us agree constitutes the main educational value of studying at a place like Dartmouth - you're not going to find it at a frat. You can have fun, probably make connections at frats...but those have little to do with education per se.</p>

<p>Yes johnleemk, because everyone goes to an Ivy League for intellectual discussions.</p>

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Yes johnleemk, because everyone goes to an Ivy League for intellectual discussions.

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<p>oh please, we should already know too many Ivy League ppl who don't give a crap about intellectual discussions (which is logical, as most smart people seem to prefer material goods to abstract discussions). rather, it's connections</p>

<p>As I said earlier, that has nothing to do with education per se; networking is not part of the "true value of an Ivy League education" - an Ivy League experience, perhaps. (Also, BB1984 fails to take into account the possibility of networking without raging.)</p>