<p>Hey all,
I’m well aware of the requirements to graduate with honors in my major, but are those the only honors you can graduate with? Are people within say, the top 10% of their class, eligible for honors from Brown University itself? Thanks!</p>
<p>Brown designates the top 20 percent (I think that's the right number) of the class academically as magna cum laude graduates. Because Brown does not calculate GPAs, there is a rather convoluted way that they determine academic rankings for this purpose; I think it involves number of A's divided by the number of classes you've taken, or taken for a grade, or something like that--no one seems exactly sure how it works. But yes, Brown does give University honors. Most students don't know for certain until graduation day, though, whether or not they are graduating magna.</p>
<p>what do you mean brown does not calculate GPAs? How is that possible?</p>
<p>yeahh.. and how does that work for grad school admission?</p>
<p>College Curriculum Council Statement on Grade Point Average:
With the inception of its New Curriculum in 1969, Brown University eliminated the calculation of Grade Point Averages (GPA) for its students. Students and others may sometimes make their own calculations from transcript records, but such calculations in no way reflect an official university statistic. Instead, Brown University promotes the use of criteria for assessment and evaluation that go beyond grades and GPA. These include portfolios of a students work, Course Performance Reports, and letters of recommendation. Furthermore, given Browns unique grading system, it is difficult to compare a GPA calculated from a Brown transcript with ones from other schools. Brown allows students to take an unlimited number of courses S/NC (Satisfactory/No Credit) and only records full-letter grades of A, B or C (without plusses and minuses). There is no grade of D, and failing grades are not recorded. Employers as well as graduate and professional schools seek Brown graduates for their analytical ability, independence, creativity, communication, and leadership skills, qualities not necessarily reflected in a GPA. All students and alumni who choose not to compute a GPA for resumes, applications, or wherever else it may be requested are acting consistently with Browns educational policies. </p>
<p>That said, it is very easy to compute one's own GPA in the standard way--giving yourself 2, 3, or 4 points for grades as you receive them and then dividing by the number of grades you have. I would say that most students do this at some point, usually for resume and grad school application purposes. But the University does not issue GPAs.</p>
<p>i see, i see..</p>
<p>Would you say that Brown's grading system usually works out to be fair? I was thinking that because of the lack of +s and -s, you can't differentiate between, say, a B+ and a B-. That might hurt the person who was on the verge of an A and benefit someone who barely avoided a C. On the other hand, this system probably reduces competitiveness.</p>
<p>What's the grading distribution like in most classes? Mostly B's?</p>
<p>I think it usually works out to be fair. I bet most students would tell you that if they evaluated themselves honestly, they received the grade they deserved in most classes. I agree that pluses and minuses would allow for a more specific delineation, of course, but it does even out--some professors are more forgivng, others are harsh. Very few are outright unreasonable. There has been more and more of an effort over the past few years to make sure everyone is on a level playing field, too--especially in the larger classes where you don't necessarily have the same grader for the whole class...a big effort is made to make the grading criteria clear.</p>
<p>As for the grading distribution, my honest answer is that I have absolutely no idea, because students really don't talk much about grades here. I hadn't really thought about that until the question was posed, but the truth is that students don't compare grades outwardly. That's not to say that people don't care about grades, though. Some care a lot and some (who often excel even more than those who do) don't care too much at all. Of the schools I looked at, I found Brown to be the most interesting balance of high self-motvation/drive to excel INDIVIDUALLY, and low incidence of competitiveness BETWEEN students.</p>
<p>thanks very much :) that's really cool...very much what you'd expect of Brown, I guess.</p>