<p>D3 will be a senior and is narrowing down her list which is looking like a nice mix of safety, match and reach schools. She will be applying to mechanical engineering programs and is trying to decide if she wants to apply ED to one of the 4 reach schools currently on her list. </p>
<p>Based on D1 and D2's experiences, it seems that grading systems really vary from course to course and school to school. D1 attended a school in which some of the science classes were graded on a true curve: 10% of the students received an A or an F, 20% of the students received a B or a D and 40% received a C. D2 attends a school in which some math, science and engineering courses are graded on a curve but it's more frequently to the students' benefit with the highest score in the class becomes an A or higher than it "should" even if it's a 'low' score and everyone's grades are adjusted upward accordingly.</p>
<p>What D3 and I are trying to figure out is how we might learn how classes an engineer would take (science, math, etc.) are graded at her reach schools...if some are graded the way D1's school grades, she would think twice about applying ED to those schools since. </p>
<p>Anyone familiar with these schools and know the answer? Or does anyone know how D or I can find out (other than contacting each school individually)?</p>
<p>The schools are Northwestern, Tufts, Wash U and Cornell.</p>
<p>Many engineering programs’ “average GPAs” reflect true difficulty of the engineering curriculum, where a C grade is not that unusual, student “washout” rate can be quite high, and delayed graduation common. Engineering majors are usually not good choices for pre-med students seeking a high GPA for medical school application purposes, for instance.</p>
<p>That is a pretty harsh curve when 30% of the students get below a C grade. From what I remember from college, many instructors only gave D and F grades to students who were seen as doing poorly in an absolute sense, while the grading curve applied to the rest for A, B, and C grades.</p>
<p>I might not have been totally clear…the reason I’m asking is that I don’t think my daughter would do as well in an environment where grading systems pit students against their fellow students or foster that type of competitiveness. </p>
<p>If she attended one of the other schools on her list (not a reach), then perhaps the grading system and the overall atmosphere around classroom performance wouldn’t be as important since it would be easier for her to succeed/do well there. But if she’s considering applying ED to one of these reaches, I think this issue is more crucial to her happiness at the school.</p>
<p>And, ucbalumnus, yes, that grading system my D1 encountered was pretty awful…I’m a UCB alumnus also and I don’t recall anyone ever receiving a D or an F aside from maybe once by someone who never attended class, etc.</p>
Large, lower-division courses are most likely to be tightly curved. I’ve never seen competition on a personal level in these courses - individual cases don’t vary the curve much.</p>
<p>BTW, if the decision to apply / not apply ED requires this much effort I think the answer should probably be no.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can find the right environment by focusing on how the grading process works at specific schools. Grading on the curve is extremely common among engineering schools and yet there is a broad spectrum of competitiveness at different schools.
What you need to focus on is the culture that the school is trying to create and promote.
My son goes to WPI and even though grading on a curve is pretty much the norm, the students are not competitive. There are lots of group study sessions, group project work etc. This is a selling point for the school with students who are trying to avoid that traditional cut-throat environment. In fact, at the welcome speech on his first day the president told the kids this (paraphrased): “look at the student on your left, now the student on your right. Odds are you will need to help one of those students during the next 4 years, and the other one will be helping you.”
Tufts has a good atmosphere in the engineering school. Cornell seemed a little more competitive, but even they stressed that their goal is helping their engineering students succeed, not trying to weed them out. I don’t know about the other schools you mentioned.
I think your daughter will adapt no matter what though.
Also, try posting this on the engineering majors forum for more feedback…</p>
My thoughts exactly. GradeInflation mentions the following average GPA at the colleges you listed. When current year isn’t available, I extrapolated based on the recent rate of grade inflation:</p>
<p>Cornell: 3.42
Northwestern: 3.45
Tufts: ~3.5 (no data since 2004, so less accurate)
WU: >3.41 (only 2 data points of 3.41 in 2008, so no extrapolation)</p>
<p>Note that all of these schools are similar with an average GPA just below midway between a B and A, implying that the vast majority of grades are A’s and B’s. Most more selective private schools have similar mean GPAs in this range.</p>
<p>It’s been my experience at a selective engineering school with a similar mean GPA that engineering classes are also mostly A’s and B’s. The average GPA across engineering classes is probably lower than the overall GPA for the university across all classes, but not by a huge amount, certainly not enough to bring the average GPA for engineering classes below a B. </p>
<p>This doesn’t mean that it will be easy to get an A/B or that you can’t fail. I once had an upper level engineering class where 90% of the grade was based on a 3 question file, all of which I considered to be difficult questions. A student who missed 1 of the questions completely in such a way that they didn’t get any partial credit and had full credit on the other 2 told me he received a C+ for the course. I’d expect missing 2+, would be a failing grade. Lower level math & science courses are more likely to be graded on a curve, with the curve set up such that the mean grade is in the B+/B range.</p>
<p>Thank you for the responses…BeanTown Girl, I agree with you completely about the culture of the school although, for those students majoring in math, a physical science or engineering, one factor around that can be how certain classes are graded. I love how WPI shared it’s expectation for learning and collaboration with the ‘look left and look right’ example and, yes, I do think my D would fare much better within that type of environment rather than one like where D1 attended. </p>
<p>Whether it’s a reach, match or safety, an environment where “their goal is helping their engineering students succeed, not trying to weed them out” is really what I’m trying to ascertain about these 4 schools. (BeanTown Girl’s wording about what she heard at Cornell–I’m not sure how to quote!)</p>
<p>Thanks for the responses thus far and either D or I will check the engineering forum but if anyone else has any insight, I’d love to hear.</p>
<p>Grading on a curve is fairly typical in the sciences and engineering courses, particularly in large courses. If they didn’t curve, many more students would fail. In my experience most professors will curve down if needed, but won’t curve against the class. I had one professor that did a straight curve against the students (the cutoff for an A- was 93%), but that’s generally the exception, not the rule.</p>
<p>You might be hard pressed to find a school where no one curves, but I don’t think the grading system really says anything about the competitiveness of the students. I went to a large school where nearly every professor I had curved, and students still had study groups, helped each other with homework, had a Facebook group where students posted notes, answered questions, shared lecture recordings, etc. And the majority of professors curved in the students interest (I.e. the average was low so they set the average score to be a C or B-). If the average score is high, most professors won’t curve to lower it, but some may.</p>
<p>If your daughter is looking for a supportive, non-competive enviroment, she might want to add Harvey Mudd to the mix. The workload can be crushing, and the grades are generally low (there is no curve), but for the first semester all the courses are pass-fail and the environment is extremely cooperative. It is also very supportive of women. The one thing she may not like, given her choice of mechanical engineering, is that Mudd only offers a general engineering degree, and all students must complete the core curriculum in all the sciences and complete a humanities concentration.</p>
<p>Other schools that we visited that we felt were not cut-throat included Clarkson, Bucknell, Lafayette, Union, GWU. Tufts was already mentioned above.</p>
<p>I agree with baktrax in just because a class curves doesn’t mean it’ll be a competitive atmosphere. Almost all of my engineering and science classes were curved in undergrad, even the smaller ones with only ~10 people. My regular study group was probably 1/3 of the people in my major (we only had about 18 of us), and it was completely collaborative.</p>
<p>Clarkson was not cut-throat even in my day (BSME 1984). Loved that! At the time, RPI was had a reputation of being somewhat cut-throat. During tours of various engineering schools (including RPI) in recent years, we were impressed by the emphasis on teamwork and collaborative learning. </p>
<p>Some engineering programs (MIT, Mudd, Olin, probably others) have first semester pass/fail grading. That seems a great idea - it allows students to transition to college and encourages collaborative habits.</p>