<p>Are grades curved to fit your rank in the class? (i.e. top 10-15% get A's), or is there a little grade inflation? Anyone w/ info on their grading system please feel welcome to respond!</p>
<p>My son is a freshman now and the grades are definately curved in all classes.</p>
<p>I'm an Econ major and the grades are curved - for my macro class it was something like top 11% get As. I think the Math classes grades are curved too. From the four courses I took in the fall i'd say that there might have been some grade inflation in one of them, but the rest were quite strict. I guess it pretty much depends on your major and the profs you are taking.</p>
<p>is that only for core classes or the higher up classes as well?</p>
<p>I've taken only core classes so far, but from what I've heard from some upperclassmen the higher classes are curved too, only the curve is shifted up at the higher end - meaning, instead of 10% As for intro macro, there'd be probably something like 15% for intermediate macro.</p>
<p>so northwestern is very tough then?</p>
<p>none of my classes were statistically curved this quarter, but all of my classes, with the exception of spanish, were graded entirely off of essays i wrote. even the midterms/final tests were primarily essays. i would say that i put a pretty reasonable effort into this quarter, but i would also say i partyed just as hard as i worked. i went out probably 4 nights/week, and got 2 A's and 2 B+'s. if a class isn't in your major, you may have to put a lot of extra work into it to get in the A-/A range, if the grade is going to be based off of research papers/other essays</p>
<p>shoot i was afraid of that.. so all the journalist/english majors are going to be writing the better essays in the classes hurting the grades of engineers/etc in non-engineering classes.</p>
<p>what about pre-med courses? Are they inflated?</p>
<p>Don't think so unless things have changed since I took them like 8 years ago. The mean for organic chemistry was B-.</p>
<p>why would Northwestern NOT be tough? lt didn't get its reputation for being an easy school, that's for sure.</p>
<p>NU's intense but by all means not impossible. Work hard, you'll get good grades. If you don't get the grade you wanted...work harder.</p>
<p>Yeah, it was first in the Academics ranking of Princeton Review two years ago, so it's supposed to be pretty tough.</p>
<p>Intro classes usually have tougher curve than upper-level ones. The classes many of you mentioned are tougher than average. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/northwestern.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/northwestern.html</a> lists the average GPA for the entire undergrad.</p>
<p>Keep in mind GPA varies widely across schools with the school of music having a ridiculous 3.7 average; school of engineering has something like 3.2. WCAS has the second lowest GPA and it's around 3.26 or so if I remember right.</p>
<p>pre-med classes are somewhat inflated, usually the mean will be at a b-, but regularly it would be a c. For example my first bio midterm, class average was a 59, so a 59 became a B-. I'm in both bio and orgo right now and the classes each have 300 people, they'll usually let around 40 get A's or A-, maybe half that get actual A's. They're alot more stingy with the A then the A-. You'll have to put in like 4 hours a day and be bright but acing courses can be done. I went out 2 nights a week, and aced both bio and orgo. Freshman year will be alot easier than sophomore year, and if you can you should try to split up the bio/orgo combo somehow.</p>