<p>So I hear things of Brown having grade inflation, but this seems to be grossly exaggerated. First of all, I’m a freshmen and I got a 3.33 last semester. All of my classes were on the curve such that 33% got A’s, 33% got B’s, and 33% C’s. I hardly call that grade inflation. Even the Economics department is following this as an official guideline</p>
<p>To get a good GPA, you really have to do better than everyone else. That’s pretty tough. SO anyway, my point is that Brown doesn’t just give out A’s. You REALLY have to better than everyone else, which is not easy since EVERYONE IS SMART here. I got a 4.0 in high school, but I’m struggling to get good grades here. </p>
<p>I think reports of “grade inflation” is greatly exaggerated. Try being one of the the top 10 people getting A’s in a class of 30 really smart people. A C is a very likely outcome.</p>
<p>texaspg: that 54% stat is completely skewed since it includes some easy classes in random departments that give out As. If you only take physical sciences, mathematics, economics or a class with a lot of smart logical people who are trying to get into top grad schools for medicine, law, etc, you’re looking at about 30% As per class just like other ivies.
Stonesn: what classes were you taking, i’m assuming economics? did you only take 3 classes first sem?</p>
<p>I took three graded classes and 1 pass/fail. </p>
<p>@Texaspg</p>
<p>Go take a class in the sciences, math, econ, applied math, or engineering. Only 33% get A’s. That means you have to do BETTER THAN 66% of the REALLY SMART AND INTELLIGENT PEOPLE</p>
<p>in some classes it can be. I don’t think any of the classes I took had caps on As thank god. If a department wants to redefine the amount of comprehension needed to get an A that’s fine but I think curves at any school where you have to earn admission are bad.</p>
<p>I agree that it’s much harder to get an A in a science class than a social science, which the 54% statistic doesn’t take into account.</p>
<p>Also the S/NC option contributes to grade inflation in a subtle way(not that I’m against the S/NC option). People who would be in the bottom third of the class are more likely to take the class S/NC so it lops off a portion of the tail of the curve. For instance an English concentrator might take a physics class S/NC, leaving only science/engineering concentrators with the letter grade option.</p>
<p>I would have to agree that it’s harder to get an A in a math or science class than the raw statistics might imply. My son got his first B ever in a math class last semester. To be fair, it was the more rigorous version of that class intended for math majors and he did take a not-recommended 5 classes his first semester, 3 of those classes advanced/honors level. Nevertheless, the material presented at Brown is a far cry from that taught at the local state university, where he got near-perfect test scores without bothering to study for tests and rarely had to even open the book.</p>
<p>^agreed. My student took a number of science (premed) courses that had very hard grading criteria, and much less than 50% As, even after many students also drop or purposely NC the course so it doesn’t show/ affect grade point averages. Same student decided for Orgo to take second semester at state U. in summer (not a remedial course, their “hardest course”) to get a head start on second semester Orgo at Brown. The state U students hated having him in their class, as broke all the curves,and scored almost perfectly on all tests, with half the studying needed for Brown. (Prof loved “having such a talented student”. ) Brown is a lot harder to get the “grades” at for premeds etc. than an “easier” school.</p>
<p>If the last three posts were responding to a (deleted?) post about the “Brown Correction,” agreed, it was pretty silly. However, I googled this and found that there apparently is something called something like the “Spearman-Brown Correction” which is, I guess, some statistical formula invented by Ms/Mr Spearman and Ms/Mr Brown. This may be the source of the mysterious “Brown Correction” myth?</p>
<p>My guess is this is not the source of the rumor but instead it was from the poster’s high school classmate in an attempt deride Brown for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Definitely freshmen adjustment. I now think about how bad I was at test taking in my first semester at Brown. I really thought it was like high school–but I learned the hard way it wasn’t. I have become 100000x better at test taking since that time. Also I am a math-econ major now. Also I still believe Principles of Econ was the hardest econ I have taken since they give the lowest A’s in any of the econ courses. </p>
<p>Does anyone know what the grade distribution is like for computer science? It’s not exactly a physical science like mechanical engineering but it’s far from a social science. </p>
I can give some indirect information. According to our student, the top 20% of Brown undergraduates graduate magna cum laude. In computer science, the number was around 10% this year. That could mean that computer science grades are lower than grades in the humanities and social sciences. But it could also mean that some computer science students care less about grades. After all, if you have interned at top firms already, grades do not matter so much when you are looking for a job. </p>
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