harvard law school

sakky · December 5, 2004, 7:09pm

I would have to say that the notion of LSAT scores and different applicant pools really cuts both ways. It is obviously true that Yale College and Harvard College students as a whole will obtain higher-than-average LSAT scores, simply because Yale and Harvard are extremely selective.

But that's not the most relevant question to ask. What is relevant is not the skills of the average student at a particular school, or even the skills of the average prelaw at a particular school, but rather the skills of thart particular group of students who will apply to the top law schools.

Let me explain myself with an example. Let's make up a public school - say the University of X. I'll just call it X for short. Obviously, the average LSAT scores of the prelaws at X will be lower than the average LSAT scores of prelaws at Yale. But for the purposes of this discussion (where we are talking about who gets into elite law schools like HLS or YLS), the average LSAT scores at those schools is not relevant. What is relevant is the average LSAT scores of those prelaws who choose to apply and who get into YLS or HLS. As the data shows, lots of prelaw Yalies (225 to be exact) applied to YLS. How many prelaw X'ers applied to YLS? What if it's only the tiny handful of prelaw superstars at X - those X'ers who just so happened to have star LSAT scores (i.e. 175+)? If that's the case, then we could actually say that, for the purposes of YLS admissions, the applicant pool coming out of X is actually SUPERIOR to the pool coming out of Yale. It's not that the average student at X is equivalent to the average student at Yale, but rather that those X'ers who decide to apply to YLS are a supremely self-selective group. Yalies may be very good students, but for the purposes of YLS admissions, they aren't particularly self-selective.

The point is that the idea of different applicant pools skewing admissions numbers can cut both ways. It is entirely possible that when you account for different applicant pools, that the Yalies who apply to YLS are actually WORSE than the X'ers who apply, and yet if those Yalies are getting into YLS at a high rate anyway, then that is actually very strong evidence that old-school favoritism is indeed taking place (for example, those Xers who have superstar GPA's and LSAT scores and who then apply to YLS are still turned down for Yalies with less impressive GPA's and LSAT scores). I'm not saying that that's what's happening, I'm just pointing out that we cannot discount this possibility. It is not clear to me what the effect of different applicant pools really is.

I would also point out that I don't know if it's really a matter of standing out relative to your peers at your alma mater. I don't think that YLS or any other law school just takes all the applicants from a particular school and judges them against each other, but rather YLS takes all the applicants and judges them all against each other, without regard to what school you went to. In other words, Yale prelaws are not really judged against other Yale prelaws, but are rather judged against all prelaws who are applying. In that case, then it doesn't matter if you stand out relative to your peers at your own school, it only matters if you stand out relative to the applicant pool as a whole. In that case, then all you have to do is take advantage of opportunities to make you stand out relative to the entire applicant pool.

And I would posit that I think it is true that the Ivies tend to provide more opportunities for you to stand out than the publics do. On a per-capita basis, you tend to have more access to profs, more access to research projects, and basically more access to resources in general (again, on a per-capita basis) if you go to an Ivy than at a public. Simply put, it is probably easier for you to build an impressive resume of achievements if you go to an Ivy rather than a public.

Finally, we have to talk about the whole notion of what competition is. I suppose we have to define what competition means. Again, it is unclear to me in the least that attending a public school really is less competitive than an Ivy, under my definition of what it is to be competitive. At an Ivy, generally the worst you are going to do is get a 'B', or if things are really going bad, maybe a 'C', and those are very rare. There are entire swaths of Ivy classes where the lowest grade given out is an 'A-'. True, the students there are very good, but the point is that if the worst grade you are going to get is still a pretty decent grade (i.e. a 'B'), and as long as you are in the middle of the pack, you are going to get a B+ or an A-. I don't know just how "competitive" that truly is. Compare that to a public school where, yes, the students are of lower quality, so it's easier for you to do better. But what does it really mean to do better? At many public schools, it is quite common for many classes to have a mean of a 'C', so even if you work hard and are doing better than everybody else, you may still be getting only a 'B'.

Couple that with the fact that no matter what school you go to, you are inevitably going to run into a class which you just don't understand. Or the prof doesn't like you. Or you just can't produce work that the prof likes. Or you are having a bad semester because your girlfriend broke up with you. Or whatever. The point is that you end up doing poorly because of circumstances that are really not in your control. Again, if this is at an Ivy, the bad grade you are going to get is maybe a B. If it's a public, you may easily get stuck with a C- or even worse. Happened to a guy I know who went to a public school - he had a really really bad breakup with a girlfriend just before his final exam. Prof didn't care, the prof gave him a D in the class.

Susan777 · December 5, 2004, 8:17pm

Hi, Sakky.

I agree with you intial point, that we can't really be sure of anything unless we have actual numbers. In fact, that's my entire point: we can't conclude that there is in fact a Harvard (or even Ivy) preference unless and until we at least control for LSAT.

However, while I also agree that most "X" school applicants will also have higher LSAT's than their school average, I think their average LSAT's would still tend to be lower than those from Harvard/Yale. The reason I believe this is because Harvard is pretty much the one school (along with perhaps Yale), that pretty much everyone aspires to attend. Yale may be better, but it's so exclusive that many will write it off completely. But Harvard, with it's class size, offers at least the illusion of possibility. Therefore, many applicants with subpar numbers will throw it in there for laughs (and with an outside hope).

Now, a lot of applicants from Harvard/Yale will therefore apply, and the same will probably be true at other schools. However, again, the Harvard/Yale grads will tend to have higher LSAT's overall. So there'll be many more people applying with numbers in the 160's from other programs.

I agree that small schools in general will give you more opportunity to stand out, in terms of professor contact, recommendations, etc. However, we can't forget that you're still competing against other Harvard/Yale grads. And I don't believe that it is in fact done on a purely individual basis. I believe that HLS likes to boast that they take the best students from all over the country, and that this means someone from an underrepresented state, region, or school will be examined more closely. On the other hand, I think HLS really does feel uncomfortable taking more than a certain percentage of Harvard/Yale grads. If grade inflation is really as rampant as people claim, than about half the class at either school should probably be eligible for admission to HLS, based on numbers. The fact that only about 25% of applicants from either program are accepted would indicate that you not only have to excel objectively, but you also have to distinguish yourself from the other Harvard/Yale grads. To the extent there is any Harvard/Ivy perference, then, it would likely be mitigated or countervailed by the fact that you're competiing against many other Harvard/Ivy grads who are also generally brighter and more accomplished than most students at other schools.

We can certainly debate the meaning of competition at the various schools. However, while I agree that the ivies are safer in certain respects, I still maintain that, in light of the generally stronger student body, you're more liikey, overall, to have a higher GPA at a public university.

First off, I'm not so certain that's it's really that impossible to get a C at an Ivy if you screw up. One or two of these can tank your GPA there as easily as anywhere else. And, again, you're competing against the brightest students in the country -- pretty much to bottom. Even if half the class gets A's or A-'s, it's pretty easy to be in the bottom half of your class in that kind of context (even if you do your best).

Now, at public schools, you may also have a lot of very bright students. However, you'll also have a lot of students that are only moderately bright, or are complete slackers. I would submit that the percentage of students at your average public university that are comparable to Harvard students is maybe 10-15% max. Those students, by definition, will be the most academically gifted and hard-working of the class. Therefore, most of them will probably end up in the top 10% of their class. (With very high GPA's.)

Half of these students at Harvard, on the other hand, will be in the bottom half of their class, with good/decent but not stellar GPA's.

So while it's probably more possible (though still very unsual) to completely screw up at a public for external reasons, and I would still attend an Ivy college if possible for many reasons, I'm still not convinced it would really be much harder for the same person to get into a top law school from a public vs. Harvard College. In fact, all things considered, it may actually be easier in various respects.

sakky · December 5, 2004, 8:39pm

I agree that it is difficult to say anything conclusive without hard numbers, and yet since we don't have such numbers available to us right now, conjecture is the best we can do.

But first, I would argue that it is not conclusive to me that the candidates from X who apply to HLS really will have a lower average LSAT than Harvard prelaws who apply to HLS will. You said it yourself - it's a matter of self-selection, and the fact is, X people are going to tend to self-select themselves to apply to a place like HLS at a much higher rate than will Harvard College prelaws. Let's face it - many Harvard College students believe, and not without justification, that they are very very good, and hence good enough to be a worthy candidate for a place like HLS. Students at school X may not. Hence, I believe that quite a few Harvard College prelaws who actually didn't perform that well, will still believe they have a shot at HLS and so will apply. At school X many if not most of the prelaws will think that they are not good enough for HLS and so will not bother to apply. I would argue that the ones who do apply tend to be those particular ones with very strong LSAT (as well as GPA and everything else). This may be due to the intimidation factor or whatnot, but it is precisely what you we have discovered on this thread - there seems to be a lot of doubt about whether somebody who goes to a public school still has a reasonable shot at HLS. Whether people are right or wrong in believing that they don't have a shot, the fact is, a lot of those public school students don't think they have a shot, and so they won't apply. The point is it is certainly not conclusive to me that school X prelaws who apply to HLS wil have lower LSAT's than Harvard College students who apply to HLS.

You say that it's a matter of dreams and aspirations that would compel people to apply to a place like HLS anyway. I don't know about that. Case in point - I would give my right arm to play for the Boston Red Sox. But does that mean I am going to go try to qualify for Sox spring-training tryouts? Of course not. Why? Because I suck, and so I don't think I will ever have a reasonable shot at ever getting on the roster. Sure, I would do anything to get on the roster, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to apply. Whether I'm right or wrong in thinking that I have no reasonable shot (and I'm fairly certain that I am right in that I have zero shot), the point is that at the end of the day, I believe that I don't have a shot, so I don't apply even though it is my aspiration and dream. Now, if I had been born and bred into a system where everybody told me since I was a kid that I am a great baseball player and I have all this athletic ability and all this talent, then maybe I'd think about trying out. I had none of that, so in the final analysis, I am not going to spend time trying out.

Now, onto the subject of competition, what I would say is that getting truly exemplary grades at an Ivy is difficult. But getting just 'good' grades is elementary. Furthermore, I would submit that it's not impossible to tank your GPA at an Ivy with a couple of C's, it is far far easier to do that at a public, where the profs are not afraid to give out C's or even worse. My point is, you screw up at an Ivy class, maybe you'll get a C (maybe). If you screw up in a public-school class, you can easily end up with a D or an F. Which is worse?

Furthermore I would also argue that much of the time, grading is out of your control, and is often times not correlated with your knowledge or how hard you work. This is particularly true of many prelaw classes where grading is highly subjective (they're called "random grade generators" by the students), and basically boils down to whether the prof likes what you write/say, or doesn't like it. You can be the most intelligent and hardest-working person in the class, but if the professor simply doesn't agree with your opinions, you're probably going to get a bad grade. And this is true whether you're at an Ivy or a public school. The difference of course, is that a bad grade at an Ivy is a B, whereas a bad grade at a public is a C or worse. I think you have to concede that you have had classes where some students hardly lifted a finger and weren't particularly bright at all, and still managed to pull a top grade, and conversely other students worked extremely hard and really did know a lot of stuff, and still managed to get a quite bad grade. Grading is not the exact science that we sometimes make it out to be - lots of grades tend to be tremendously subjective and arbitrary.

Susan777 · December 6, 2004, 12:46am

With regard to your first point - I don't believe anyone here actually has said that public school grads don't have a reasonable shot at HLS. What some have said is that there may be a preference for Harvard grads, which is under dispute (though certainly possible). However, that is a very distinct concept from the other idea (an incorrect reversal, I would say, logically speaking). The bottom line is that Harvard grads only occupy about 15% of the slots at any given HLS class, and more admits overall are usually from public schools. Therefore, the effect of any Harvard preference on public school grads is fairly negligible. I certainly know from my own experience that pretty much everyone I knew with a 163+ LSAT took a shot at Harvard as their "dream/reach" school. (And again, I came from a public.) While some people may be intimidated, I doubt this is all that common (especially for ambitious future lawyers), and is almost certainly exceed by the "dream/reach school" factor. (What else would students with good scores consider "dream" schools if not HYS?)

As for your Red Sox hypo -- Maybe you wouldn't try out, as currently situated. However, if you had played college ball, and had stats close to other college players who went on to the Red Sox, then I'm sure you would try out, if it was your dream (unless you were just really fearful in general, at which point you wouldn't make much of a player). This analogy, I believe, is much closer to the X-student HLS situation. It's not about being "born and bred into a system" -- in both cases, its simply about whether or not you have the talent. If you do, you know it, regardless of your background.

Finally, I doubt there really are all that many Harvard/Yale students with weak academic records. Almost all are very bright, and the schools supposedly have high grade inflation. If your grades are only "good", in the sense of a 3.5, you're highly unlikely to get into HLS, whatever your LSAT score, and especially when competing against other Harvard grads (which you will be to some extent.) Ultimately, however, as noted, we can't conclusively determine what the actual breakdown is, percentage-wise. What we do know is that there are far more public students, in absolute terms, and therefore far more public students in the 163-168 range. On the other hand, there are far fewer HLS/Yale students, and far fewer in the 163-168 range (both in terms of percentages and absolute amounts). Therefore, even if there were an extremely smaller percentage of students from public schools applying (which seems unlikely, given Harvard's attraction), there will still likely be far more public school applicants overall in the 163-168 level. Given that most public school applicants are probably in this range, and given that most Harvard/Yale admits probably have higher numbers, and given that there is probably some desire for academic diversity at HLS, it would therefore appear that the vast majority of the students at the bottom half of HLS's class, if not all, come from other schools, primarily publics. (Again, there will likely be a sufficient number of Harvard/Yale students with LSAT's & GPA's above the median.)

(Looking back at your earlier post, you noted that the average LSAT of an admitted Yale student at HLS was about a 172. You also noted that the 75% percentile of admitted students at HLS was 172. This by definition indicates that Yale students appear to need higher LSAT's to get into HLS than most other students, and if a similar average exists for Harvard students, it would indicate the same thing about them.)

As to your last point: again, getting good grades (as oposed to great grades) at an Ivy may generally be easier, or at least more guaranteed. However, you won't get into HLS with good grades, unless your LSAT is near 180. You'll generally need to place instead in the standard GPA range, which is even higher.

And here is where you and I simply appear to part ways. While I realize grading is an inexact science, and doing well at a public is hardly easy per se, I do think students who are ivy-comparable will tend to end up at the top of their class at a public, if they do the work. Not everyone will -- for one thing, not everyone will do the work. Others may experience various personal problems. It will probably invove more actual work than just doing okay at an ivy. But given someone whose SAT's and high school GPA, etc. are in the top 5% - 10% of their class, they will more likely than not probably end up in the top 15% of their class, particularly if they put in the time and effort. In my own experience, my grades (though widely varying) have generaly mirrored my efforts and focus, and I do believe grades are primarily a function of ability + effort. (I never met anyone who never lifted a finger, and still did very well -- unless they also happened to be extremely intelligent.)

Now, this may at times involve a degree of a**-kissing, but a bright kid should also probably know to do this when necessary.

So, finally, I agree there may be a minority of top students who end up having issues in public school, and mess up their GPA. Those students, fortunately, should still ace their LSAT's and end up at good schools. However, most top students at a public, I believe, will still end up near the top of their class. And again, half of those students at Harvard will end up in the bottom half of their class. If it's true that Yale/Harvard students are expected to have higher LSAT's (which your one post indicates), then this would indicate that it is in fact easier for most top students to get into HLS from a public than from Harvard/Yale. (Or, at the very least, equally possible.)

And again, I'm not saying I would've turned down Harvard or Yale if I'd had the chance to attend. Going there will generally make your life easier in various respects, and has its own benefits (and provides more security). I'm just saying there's no real reason for those of us who didn't get into such programs to whine, as there's no real evidence that we're disadvantaged as far as law school admissions goes, even at top schools like HLS. Rather, our fate is in our hands, just as it is for the HLS students (though they may need higher LSAT's.)

Maybe we can agree on the following: If your goal is to get into a top-tier law school, then you may be better off at Harvard or Yale, as the name will look good on the application, and it's difficult to really screw up, due to grade inflation and more coddling.

However, if your goal is to get into a top law program, and you're someone bright, focused, and motivated, then there's no real reason to feel disadvantaged because you don't attend an Ivy. Most of your application is based on your LSAT, which is dependent on your own abilities and efforts. Most of the rest is based on your GPA, which is primarily (though not completely) based on your abilities and efforts. While we can debate the exent to which grade inflation / safety net counteracts easier competition pool, someone who's bright, motivated and hardworking will generally end up doing well at a public school, especially if they're significantly brighter than the average student. It is, of course, necessary that the student study things they're good at, and that they pick themselves up after tough experiences. But I would submit that this kind of experience also toughens up public school kids for the experience of law school. Someone who's had their hand held through college, with a fat B+/A- mean, will be in for a rude awakening come law school.

sakky · December 6, 2004, 8:49pm

There is no doubt that there are more students at HLS that came from public schools than came from Harvard College, for the simple fact that there simply are far far more students at the aggregate set of public schools than there are at Harvard College. This fact by itself does not disprove that there isn't preference for Harvard College students as it stands.

And about the whole grading business - I believe you are conceding it is easier to get good grades at Harvard than it is at public schools, but not necessarily great grades. I would submit that it is probably easier to get both good and great grades at Harvard than it is at a public school, even when we're talking about a student of equivalent brightness. The fact is, even when we're talking about great grades (i.e. the 3.75+ that any student, including the Harvard College grads, would need to be a truly viable candidate for HLS), I believe it is easier to get such grades in prelaw at Harvard than it is at most public schools. Again, there are entire swaths of classes at Harvard, where the lowest grade given out is an A-. If you're the worst student in that class, you're geting the A-. And there are quite a few classes where everybody gets an A.

What pulls down the general grading scheme at Harvard College as an aggregate tend to be the science and math classes. I agree that those classes tend to give out conspicuously low grades, because for some reason which I still have yet to understand, science/math classes tend to give out lower average grades than non-science classes. The more technical and quantitative a major is, the lower the grades that tend to be given out. Yet the fact is, few prelaws are going to immerse themselves in those kinds of science classes. Let's face it - most Harvard prelaws are going to be hanging out in the non-tech classes where getting good grades is virtually assured and even getting great grades is not all that difficult. You can be a particularly bad student at Harvard and still get great grades by picking your classes and profs carefully.

Now obviously the same thing happens at the publics too. But what I've been saying, and I think you agree, is that the danger is obviously greater. Yes, at that public, you will probably be better than most students, and many classes will be a breeze. But you better make sure you dominate, because if you slip up, you're toast. Furthermore, again, I would argue that many non-tech classes tend to be random-grade generators and you will inevitably get a class where you get a grade that is significantly lower than what you probably should have gotten. If you're at Harvard when that happens, you'll probably end up with a B. If you're at a public when that happens, you may get a C, or even worse. That's the nature of a lot of these highly subjective classes.

Finally, while I agree with the gist of your final 2 paragraph, what I would say is that by far the hardest part about graduating from an elite law school like HLS is getting admitted in the first place. That's the most difficult step by far. Sure, your 1-L year at HLS may be rough if you've been coddled throughout your entire undergrad experience. On the other hand, so what? It's practically impossible to flunk out of HLS. Maybe you won't make Law Review, maybe you won't graduate with great grades, but at least you'll graduate. And forget about HLS, I would say that this sort of thing is particularly true of YLS where classes during the 1-L year (traditionally the roughest year) are all graded pass/fail, class-rank is never tracked, and basically, it's really really impossible to flunk out. It's difficult for me to see much of a rude awakening awaiting some guy who coasted their way into YLS.

Susan777 · December 7, 2004, 3:28am

Hey Sakky.

Obviously there are more students, overall, at public schools, and this may be one reason why there are more such students than Harvard students at HLS. I don't claim that this in itself precludes the possibility of a Harvard bias, rather, I simply cite it as evidence that public school graduates do in fact have a reasonable shot at HLS. What's important, however, (for this discussion) is not the total number of students, per se, but the total number of "top" students, in terms of test scores and high-school performance, from each pool, and how those students end up doing in law school apps.

I imagine only someone who's studied at both Harvard and a public can say which is really easier, grade-wise. However, I certainly don't think we can conclusively say it's easier to get great grades from Harvard than it is from a Public. Again, at Harvard, your pool of fellow students is incredibly competitive -- both in terms of intelligence and achievement. (25% or so may be legacies or such, but even most of those will be fairly gifted.) Many will be working hard to get straight A's, simply by temperment, regardless of the curve. (You'll have to cite the evidence that in some classes, the lowest grade is a an A-.) Therefore, I can't imagine it's very predictable that you'll get a 3.75+ at Harvard, regardless of how hard you work.

At a public, on the other hand, I think you generally will, as a top student, end up near the top of your class as long as you do the work, and maintain some focus. I can only speak from my own experience, but I know I generally got A's or A-'s as long a I put in the effort. I had my share of issues and distractions, and even a couple bad grades, but this was not enough to bring my GPA down significantly. There will certainly be exceptions, and even some very bright student who really strive and still get B's, perhaps because theyr'e in a difficult major. But I would say such students are in the minority, and I'm not convinced this outweighs the corresponding challenge of excelling at an Ivy.

I think the best you can say it is that it's unclear which program (Harvard v. Public) will really give you a GPA advantage. I would submit it's still easier to excel at the public, but we can disagree on that.

However, again, if we look at the LSAT info you posted, it indicates two things: First off, Yale students appear to get into HLS at a higher rate than Harvard grads. This would indicate there is no per-se Harvard bias, at least not in comparision to other top colleges.

Secondly, the LSAT info you provided also indicates that Yale students actually need significantly higher LSAT scores than other applicants to be accepted to HLS. This would indicate that it's actually harder to get into HLS from a top ivy, in that more is expected of you, score-wise.

Therefore, until we get more info, it would seem that any potential advantage of attending a top Ivy (being coddled, greater grade inflation, etc.) is probably counterbalanced by the negatives of attending a top Ivy (competing against generally extremely talented students, and having to stand out relative to them, not just in classes, but also in applications, in terms of test scores, etc.) Again, the vast majority of Harvard, Yale, etc. applicants do not in fact get into HLS, despite the fact that most of them probably have very high test scores, and inflated grades. Thereore, there does appear to be some side-by-side comparisons made between such grads, which puts them at a relative disadvantage.

(We would need the actual LSAT numbers of admitted Harvard students to really know about them -- I'm just extrapolating.)

All in all, without further info, I think all one can really conclude is that any Ivy bias, if it exists, is less than overwhelming. Going to Harvard may give you a slight advantage at HLS (though going to Yale apparently doesn't). However, the bigger determinant, by far, will be how you do on your LSAT, and in your classes, and this is pretty much completely up to you. About half will be up to your efforts and choices, and about half (more or less) will be due to your inherent abilities. Some may simply be due to luck, but I suspect this is a relatively small factor, overall. Either way, neither of these are really dependent on where you go to college.

(There is, of course, a bias at HLS for highly intelligent students who do well on standardized tests, and do well in class. However, this bias is not school specific.)

I agree to some extent with your last point -- if you get into a top ten program, you'll probably graduate (though some still don't). However, even at HLS, how you perform will affect what kind of job you get. And when you look more broadly at top schools generally, your ability to succeed on your own becomes even more important. Top of the class at Georgetown Law is a very different thing from bottom of your class at GL.

So again: If you get into an Ivy undergrad -- sure, go, for a number of reasons. 
Bright students body, small classes, prestige, powerful alumni networks, etc. Your degree will open doors generally, and may help ensure you get into a decent graduate program, if that is your goal.

However, it's important to realize that even if you don't get into an ivy, you can still attend a top graduate program, including HLS. It may even be easier in certain respects. All you really need are the numbers, and if you get them, you'll probably get in. And this is true regardless of where you study.

In the end, I'm pretty sure that SAT/high school GPA + effort/focus would overwhelmingly dwarf undergraduate college as a predictor of where you'll end up in law school, and that's all I'm really saying.

Susan777 · December 7, 2004, 3:59am

(P.S.: I agree that students near the bottom of their class at Harvard in terms of effort/ability/luck probably have a significant advantage over the same student at a public. It will probably be harder for them to really mess up, or even get below a 3.0. They will therefore probably have a more secure chance at getting into a good graduate program. This is, I would think, one of the main reasons to attend an Ivy if possible. However, these students still won't be attending HLS.)

sakky · December 9, 2004, 6:53pm

Speaking specifically of whether there are indeed classes at Harvard where the lowest grade is an A-, I can tell you without a doubt that no only do these classes exist, but that these classes are fairly well known and sought out by many Harvard students as grade-boosters. I probably shouldn't say which specific classes these are, but let's just say that there are some well-known classes at Harvard where basically, as long as everybody does the work, everybody will get an A (not just an A-, but an A). I am not saying that they are the majority of classes, but the point is that they're out there and the Harvard student body knows full well what they are. In fact, those classes have become the butt of jokes in that if one person may ask another what are they taking and they will reply "I need to boost my GPA, so I'm loading up on boosters/inflaters". That sort of thing.

I would also point out that except for certain courses at Harvard, notably the premed sequence, competition at Harvard is not explicit and emphasized. Suffice it to say that there are certain public schools that actually seem to want to emphasize a 'pit-fighter' or 'gladiator' mentality in their students, in that they explicitly foster inter-student competition. At those publics, your grades are explicitly driven by how the other students are doing, and the curve is both harsh and set-in-stone (i.e. if everybody in the class happens to be brilliant, it doesn't matter, because by class policy some set percentage of the class must get a bad grade). Basically, the culture explicitly rewards individual glory to the point that students wants the other students to do badly, because that sort of would make your grade better. At Harvard, again with the exception of certain sequences, this competition is far less intense. At many Harvard classes, everybody in a particular class could in theory get an A (even that may not be common in practice), and the inter-student competition is far less intense and explicit. The upshot of that is that while Harvard students are indeed extremely talented and bright, they also in many cases aren't exactly trying their hardest, because they don't feel they really have to. It's not like certain public schools where everybody feels they have to give their 100% or else they might get an F. At Harvard, a lot of students are coasting, not really working that hard, because a lot of them are perfectly fine with a B (they have no plans to go to HLS or YLS). They'd rather spend time doing extracurriculars or setting themselves up with the job they do want upon graduation, or whatever. The point is that this is another take upon whether it matters that much that Harvard students are so well qualified and talented that that makes it harder to get top grades at Harvard.

I would agree with you if we were talking about a school like, say, MIT, where the students are equivalently talented, but the culture at MIT encourages extremely hard work and putting your killer-best effort. At MIT, it's actually considered to be somewhat "cool" to stay up for 2 days straight working on a project without sleeping, shaving, or showering. The study-aholic nerd image is 'cool' at MIT. Not so at Harvard. If Harvard College had the culture of MIT, then I would agree with you. But it doesn't. Harvard College has a culture of collegiality and, for many students, that means taking it easy (or at least, easier than MIT).

Susan777 · December 9, 2004, 7:11pm

Okay, Sakky. At this point I pretty much have to call bull*****, because there's no way you can have such an intimate knowledge of both Harvard and Public university academic life, unless you maybe started at one, and transferred to the other. Rather, at least one has to be based on hearsay, and therefore highly questionable in terms of accuracy.

Again, I didn't find studying at a public university particularly difficult or onerous (challenging, yes, but I didn't have to strain to avoid an F). I'm sure some do, but I'm not sure those folks could excel at Harvard either.

So which did you attend? Public or Harvard? I'll take you seriously with regard to one or the other, but not both. Secondhand info from friends is hardly reliable.

ariesathena · December 9, 2004, 7:28pm

Will agree with the Harvard assessment by Sakky. I know people who went there - and know them well - and they were under much less strain than we were (top private). Just a quick thought - Princeton Review made a list of the top "professional boot camp" schools, which are: Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Tufts. No Harvard.

If you can't understand that some schools make you work harder than others, and some majors make you work harder than others - wow, I'm just sorry.

concerneddad · December 9, 2004, 9:00pm

There is plenty of room to disagree, without being disagreeable. Let's keep the level of discourse high, Thanks,

CD

sakky · December 9, 2004, 10:03pm

Susan777, have you discounted the possibility that a person can do undergrad at one, and grad at another - keeping in mind that many of one's grad-classes in the first year or two are often times classes that have lots of advanced undergraduates - and not only that, but some of those grad-classes are colloquially known (obviously not all the classes, but some) within the student body as the booster classes of which I was referring? In fact, as soon as one arrives at graduate school, other grad-students pull you over and basically tell you which classes to watch out for, and which ones are creampuffs, so that you can balance your schedule accordingly.

Look, I don't want to get into specifics, because I think we are going off-subject but the reality is that many graduate-level classes not only at Harvard, but also at many other schools, tend to be significantly grade-inflated. There are swaths of graduate- classes that rarely give out anything less than an A-, and a not-insignificant number that basically give out all A's, as long as everybody does the work. The difference is many Harvard undergraduates also choose to enroll in such classes, not only because many are interested in the subject, but also because, well, many of those classes are boosters. Nor are these graduate-courses particularly difficult or have a long string of prereqs. There are quite a few graduate-level courses where very little specific previous subject knowledge is assumed, and that makes sense because some of them are offered primarily to graduate students who want to expand their knowledge base to something they've never seen before, and are often times taken by graduate students from entirely different departments who just want some basic survey knowledge of some topic to help them with their future research. Yet many of these classes also have plenty of undergrads.

And it's entirely logical that such classes are grade-inflated in the way that they are. As a graduate student you're not really there to be graded. Grades don't matter very much. You're there basically to prepare yourself for qual's and to do your research. Grades, in the grand scheme of, are a minor affair. When graduate-students don't make it, it's because they either can't complete their qual's (which is fairly common), or can't complete their research (also somewhat common), or determine that they don't want to be academics (probably the most common reason of all to leave). As a grad-student, once you graduate (if you graduate), nobody's going to be looking at your grades, they're going to be looking at the quality of your publications. I have rarely if ever heard of a graduate-student not making it because of bad grades. Fail the quals? Yes. Can't complete the research? Yes. Find something better to do with their lives? Yes. But get thrown out because of bad grades? Pretty darn rare.

And the point is that lots of undergrads (at least at Harvard) have figured out the inflated nature of grad-school classes, and some of them will load up. Looks good on the transcript (because they have 'graduate-level numbering') and tend to give out lots of high grades. Looks like a win-win for them.

I remember as an undergrad doing the same thing - taking a bunch of graduate-level classes that really weren't all that difficult and where everybody got a very good grade. The difference betwen that and Harvard is that public schools often times place heavy restrictions on undergrads enrolling in classes that cater to grad-students. I had to negotiate with the profs and go through a bunch of rigamarole. Harvard has relatively few such restrictions.

I also remember back in undergrad how some students (including myself) loaded up on 'research' units - basically participate in a research project with a prof and the prof pays you back with some research units graded with an A. At the time, I wasn't doing it just to get an easy A, because I was there because I wanted to do a project, but I now see that it certainly was an easy A. As long as you were making satisfactory progress on your project, you were going to get an A in those research units. Again, the difference between a school like Harvard and the publics is that it is easier at Harvard to hook up with a prof and arrange a project.

And this is why I had to seriously question your linkage of high-powered students and lower grades. One of your previous contentions was that it may not be easy to get top grades at a place like Harvard because of the competition from other high-powered students. I would generalize that point and say that no matter what school you're talking about, I think it's safe to say that the graduate-students are (obviously) far more knowledgeable and qualified than the undergrads. So does that mean that at any school - whether it's public, private, or whatever - that in any class that has a mix of both graduate and undergraduate students, that the undergrads just simply get pasted every time? I don't think so. But why not - if anybody can give a fierce fight, it's going to be the graduate students, right? Not really, for 2 reasons. #1, if it's a graduate-class, the grade curve tends to be very high. And #2, graduate- students are usually in the class to learn something that will help them on their quals and/or their research. They're not going to be studying superhard and trying to grub their way to get an A+ on the exams, because for the most part, they don't really care about their grades. There are obviously exceptions to this rule (the "graduate-core" group of classes, for example), but the point is that it is not a secret as to which such classes are going to hand out lots of high grades.

Finally, you might say that all of these examples aren't examples of 'real' classes. Research units aren't 'real' units, for example. To that, I would say au-contraire. For the purposes of admission to law school, they're all treated the same way. 4-research units that are graded with an A is, for the purposes of law-school admission, the same as an A in a real 4-unit class. Taking a proseminar/colloquium class where basically the entire class is run by students, and each student is there to present things that are of interest to him, and everybody basically gets an A as long as they show up and participate is, for the purposes of law-school admission, basically the same as taking a 'real' class and getting an A.

ariesathena · December 10, 2004, 12:23am

A note from an engineer/liberal arts double major: it really, really depends on the grad class. Many engineering firms reimburse for classes, but only if the student gets at least a B-. Also, to complete the masters, a student needs to get at least a B average. Most of our classes were scaled to a B-/C+ (2.5 GPA) standard - which means that the grad student has to be in the top half. In one class, because of the number of grad students, the prof gave out Cs and Ds to about 2/3 of the undergrads.

Contrast with liberal arts, where, if you did the work, went to class, you would get at least a B or B+: more than enough for the grades to count.

When you are under the threat of reeling in Cs if you don't beat out 1/2 of your (highly intelligent) classmates, you work harder. There becomes a type of work inflation - you have to work a lot harder to keep up. Now - as someone on these boards said with respect to H engineering: "It isn't engineering when half the class gets As and A-s." Likewise - I firmly believe that grade deflation forces you to work harder, while grade inflation (such as, oh, giving out honours to 92% of the grads) allows you to slack. This is the top private/grade deflating major perspective.

I must say, applying to law schools was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life. I know that, had I gone to a school with grade inflation or taken an easier major, I would have gotten into so many more schools. I worked much harder than my liberal arts friends for worse grades. We joked that you could tell who the engineers were because they lost weight soph and junior year - but we really weren't joking. I can honestly say that my first semester of law school is EASIER than most semesters I had undergrad. Data point - average GPA of chem and physics majors was about a 2.7; many engineering majors were close to that, whereas liberal arts overall was about a 3.4 or so. Moral: a group of as talented or more talented (engin. being more difficult to get into) people worked harder (per class, I spent about three times as much time on engineering courses than lib. arts and got a much higher GPA) , and wound up with lower GPAs. Now, I'll make a massive leap here: if that can happen within a school and with certain majors, it can certainly happen between schools, with some forcing others to work much harder than others. I will further suppose that it has little to do with intelligence so much as grade distributions (people kill themselves over organic chemistry, when 1/3 of the class drops or fails out, and the remaining 2/3 are graded to a 2.5 GPA median) and general requirements of the course. Furthermore - let's be honest - the schools which make it easiest to get into law schools aren't necessarily the most prestigous, but the ones that have their students getting the highest GPAs. I am utterly convinced that law school admissions never accounts enough for the difference between different schools and different majors. There is some consideration for that (a Penn admissions dean said that a kid in the middle of a class at Williams might win out over the 4.0 no-name grad), but not nearly enough.

I'll also go out on a limb and say that the tougher curriculum - the same one that trashed my GPA - made me a much better student and thinker. Given the huge strings of courses, all of which built upon the previous, and the fact that most of the concepts worked together (contrast say English, where you can forget about Shakespeare when you learn Chaucer), I believe that I'm much better at synthesizing and digesting information than I would be otherwise. After taking six courses per semseter to do my double major (most liberal arts took four), the four plus legal writing seems much more manageable. Also, having been held to such a horrible curve undergrad, the one we are facing now (mandatory 3.1) makes the profs seem like Santa Claus. It doesn't flip me out the way that it scares other people. Small difference, yes - but nonetheless important. I just can't think that a person who comes out of a school with grade inflation (and thus hasn't nearly killed themselves to avoid getting Cs and Ds), with an easier major, can ever really be as good a student as one who is under, say, a Rice or Georgia Tech grading scheme (the latter where recruiters waive their usual 3.0 requirement, realizing that it's quite an achievement to get a 3.0 at GT). For the purposes of admission, I'd rather be the former student any day - but once in the door, I would rather be the latter. More perspective, better study habits, better ability to crunch information.

Enough rambling - study time.

chloe173 · December 10, 2004, 1:40am

You all sound like lawyers already...jeez! You all should just cut and paste this argument for your law school admissions essays.

Actually, you better not. Every single reply on here would be WAY, WAY over the word limit!

Susan777 · December 10, 2004, 7:22am

With all due respect, Sakky, graduate and undergraduate programs are apples and oranges. Even if Harvard students can take some graduate courses, I imagine that they have to take a number of undergraduate courses as well. And I'm not convinced that taking a course with graduate students is necessarily that much easier, especially if they're actually genuinely interested in the subject matter. (I think Aries backs up the point.)

The bottom line is that at least the bottom half of Harvard students probably end up with GPA's that are subpar HLS standards. (What is the mean at Harvard?) And we know the vast majority of Harvard applicants don't get into HLS, despite the likelihood of higher average scores.

The question remains whether grade inflation at Harvard cancels out the less competitive pool at most other universities (Not, obviously, those like MIT). I honestly don't know the answer, as I haven't studied at both. It has been my experience that someone with higher student numbers at a competitive public can consistenly get very good grades as long as they focus and work. I can't comment on Harvard undergrad because I've never been there, though I have met people who say it's very rigorous. Ultimately, only someone who's studied at both can really say which is "easier", and unless one has, I don't think they can speak with any real authority (as opposed to simply having an opinion.)

Susan777 · December 10, 2004, 7:56am

"Will agree with the Harvard assessment by Sakky. I know people who went there - and know them well - and they were under much less strain than we were (top private). Just a quick thought - Princeton Review made a list of the top "professional boot camp" schools, which are: Johns Hopkins, MIT, and Tufts. No Harvard.

If you can't understand that some schools make you work harder than others, and some majors make you work harder than others - wow, I'm just sorry."

Hey, Aries -- Who exactly are you responding to? Have you actually read any of the posts on this thread? If you're going to make sardonic comments, that might be a good first step.

I don't believe anyone here has claimed that some schools don't make you work harder than others, or that some majors aren't more difficult than others. I certainly know I haven't.

I'm quite certain that some top privates are more rigorous, grade-wise, than Harvard. I would expect MIT to be, along with Chicago and perhaps a number of other schools. (I actually made a post along these lines in the "undergrad" thread.)

However, the debate here is simply whether the grade inflation at Harvard outweighs the less competitive environments at most public universities. Sakky appears convinced it does, but I'm not. My position is that the same person, studying liberal arts at most public schools, will probably get grades at least as good as they would've gotten at Harvard. The reason I believe this, despite the greater grade inflation at Harvard, is that the student pool at most publics simply isn't as competitive. Students have far lower average SAT's and grades, and most of the students simply aren't as driven or motivated as most Harvard students. (This is certainly not to say all, it's just a question of overall comparison.) Sakky, on the other hand, takes a different view. My point was simply that since neither of us have actually been in both environments, we really can't say definitively which is "easier".

The above analysis, obviously, would not apply to a top private with less grade inflation, where students had comparable numbers. If you'd like to start a debate on that issue, however, it would probably be best to start a new thread, since that would be a completely different topic.

sakky · December 10, 2004, 9:40pm

At Harvard, it's not a matter of 'some' undergraduates taking graduate classes, as susann777 has stated. Rather, the upper division undergraduate classes at many if not most Harvard divisions are basically a mixed-bag of both upper-division students and beginning graduate-students - and these classes tend to employ a 'grad-school curve', which basically means that everybody is going to get a relatively high grade. In fact, I would say that it is quite a rare thing to find somebody who graduated from Harvard College who didn't take at least one of these classes to fulfill requirements in the major. Quite a few Harvard College students take many such classes. In some majors, it's practically impossible to graduate without taking quite a few such classes.

And to ariesthena, again, I would argue that for the purposes of grad-school, even engineering classes are loathe to give out bad grades. You are correct that you need to get at least a B average to finish your graduate degree. And I can tell you with prime authority that in MIT graduate-engineering classes, it's extremely rare for anybody to get less than a B. In fact, at MIT, graduate students know to stay far away from undergraduate classes (those designated with an U), simply because they know full well how harsh the curve is. Instead, they will go and take graduate-level classes (G or H designation) because they know that the curve is far easier. Ironic but true - MIT graduate engineering classes are curved easier than MIT undergraduate classes, and hence, it is often times true that those graduate classes are therefore easier than the undergraduate classes. The same, I know, is true at Caltech, Berkeley, and basically every other elite engineering school. It is extremely rare to see anybody get a grade less than a B in an graduate-level engineering class. Undergraduate-level engineering classes are a totally different story, which is, again, why graduate engineering students at such schools learn to stay away from those classes.

But don't take my word for it. Go and ask anybody who holds a graduate-engineering degree from MIT and they will surely confirm that it was rare for anybody in those graduate-level classes to get anything less than a B. Hence, that gets to what I was saying before - one of the 'tricks' to getting a higher GPA in engineering is to load up on graduate-level classes. If you can handle the admittedly faster pace (although it's really not THAT much faster), you will probably get a higher grade than if you had taken an undergraduate class.

Look, the reality is that as a graduate student, it is very unlikely for you to flunk out because of bad grades (i.e. less than the B average that you need). You might flunk out because you can't pass your quals. You might drop out because you see that your research is taking you nowhere. You might also drop out because you decide that you don't like the academic lifestyle. But to actually flunk out because of bad grades? That's a tremendously rare occurrence. Think about it - what is the flunkout rate for engineering graduate students vs. the flunkout rate for engineering undergraduate students? I think you'd agree that the latter is far larger, despite the fact that to flunk out of undergrad, you have to get lower than a C, whereas to flunk out of grad-school, you have to get lower than a B. That goes to show you that graduate-level grading is almost always heavily inflated, and the reason is that as a grad-student, people don't really care about your grades. They care about your research.

The other 'trick' was what I used, if inadvertently, which is to load up on relatively easy research and field-study credits. Basically, as long as you complete the research, you are pretty much guaranteed an A for those units. Even if you don't complete those units, you can petition for an I (incomplete) which can be converted to an A once you do complete the research. I didn't use this tactic because I wanted to boost my GPA (I did it because I wanted to do research), but I found out that it really is a grade-booster. I know guys who fulfilled almost their entire engineering elective requirement by just doing research project after research project, and racking up A after A after A.

The point is that I believe that Harvard does in fact provide some advantage to grading, despite the fact that Harvard does have many high-achieving go-getters, and the fact that Harvard undergrads often times end up in graduate-level classes (where graduate-level curving is in effect) and/or can rack up lots of easy A's via research/field-study/independent study credits is part of the reason.

Again, take a look at graduate school. Graduate-school is full of high-achieving students, but that doesn't mean that they're going to go around fighting for high grades, because graduate students know that grades don't really matter. What matters are their quals and their research, so it's not like they're going to strain themselves to get the absolute best grade they can. They're in the class to learn something and to prepare for quals, not to kill themselves to get the A+. Is working superhard to get the A+ really going to help them? For the most part, probably not. Grades are beside the point. And professors realize that which is why they tend to hand out high grades basically to most everybody in their graduate classes, including the undergrads who happen to be there.

Now obviously, a Harvard College student who is 'stupid' and deliberately goes seeking out those classes that have the most work and the harshest curves will obviously get a lower GPA. But that's not the norm. What I'm saying is that there are plenty of opportunities for Harvard College students to load up on easy A's. Susan777 has stated that she doesn't believe that there exist such classes where everybody gets a good grade. I would disagree and point directly at the graduate-level classes (which are open to undergrads and which many undergrads taken) and the independent research classes where everybody is going to get a good grade as the prime counterexample.

sakky · December 19, 2004, 2:02am

At the expense of reviving a moribund thread, I think I should elaborate on the point I made earlier that graduate-school grading tends to be highly inflated.

The first thing I would ask people to consider is something I asked before. When exactly was the last time any of us ever heard of a PhD student who flunked out because of bad grades? I have heard of such students flunking out because they couldn't pass their qual's. But because of bad grades? A pretty darn rare event, I think we would all agree.

I would also point out something that I'm sure ariesathena is well aware of. Graduate students don't have the option of 'fleeing a major' the way that undergraduates do. Many undergraduate students will try a difficult major, like engineering, and then realize it is extremely difficult and then switch to something easier. You can't come in as a PhD electrical engineering student, get a bunch of bad grades, and then decide that EE is too hard so you'll just switch to the PhD program in, say, Film Studies. And the engineering departments know this, which is why the graduate-level engineering classes tend to be easily graded.

Now, I know what you're all thinking - you're probably thinking that all of this can be easily explained away if those PhD students are just really really highly qualified and so it only makes sense that they all get high grades in their graduate-level classes just because those students really are that good. Well, consider the following.

I was just talking to some students in the MIT LFM program. The LFM program is the dual-degree MBA/SM-engineering program run at MIT. You get an MBA from MIT-Sloan and an SM from any of the engineering departments at the MIT School of Engineering. The program is open to anybody with an engineering undergraduate degree who has significant and strong work experience. Specifically, I'm going to talk about the engineering portion of the LFM program.

Here are the important points to keep in mind

*Grade inflation in the school?

We're not talking about a school that is known for grade inflation. This is MIT we're talking about here. Furthermore, we're not talking about a major that is known for grade inflation. We're talking about hard-core engineering subjects here. Engineering at MIT - that's about as far away from grade-inflation as you're ever going to get.

*"Real" engineers - not.

These LFM'ers might have an engineering undergraduate background, but the fact is, they're not 'academic' engineers in any real sense. Most of them haven't been in the classroom for many years, they've been out working as engineers, or in many cases, as managers, and consequently it's been years since most of them have even done so much as calculated a simple calculus derivative. Not only that, but they have no intention of going back to the working world as engineers ever again in their lives. They intend to go back as managers or consultants (that's why they're getting an MBA from Sloan, after all). They're certainly not out to get their PhD's the way that most MIT engineering graduate students are.

<ul>
<li>Time and resources - not</li>
</ul>

Most MIT engineering graduate students take at most 2 or 3 graduate classes in a semester, as well as research for their thesis. Many take 1 class or often times just zero (they're just doing research). LFM'ers are expected to also take 1 or 2 graduate-level classes, IN ADDITION to completing the extensive Sloan MBA requirements AND ALSO to be doing work for their thesis too (LFM'ers have to complete a research thesis just like any MIT engineering graduate student does). Furthermore, regular MIT engineering graduate students have an engineering lab/research-group they can go to where they can hang around other graduate students who are just like them, and often times hang around with the professor who happens to be teaching their classes. Not LFM'ers - they generally spend all their free time hanging around at Sloan with the other MBA students. So clearly you can see that LFM'ers are basically "gypsy engineers" who have neither the time nor the resources to match the regular engineering grad-students. It's a completely unfair fight - like running a sprint with a 50 pound weight strapped to your back.

*Background - often times not.

While many LFM'ers will get their engineering master's in the subject that they got their engineering undergrad, many will not. For example, I know one LFM'er who's getting his SM in EECS. His undergrad is in chemical engineering. Basically, this guy has none of the academic background that an EECS graduate student usually has, and fulfills almost none of the true 'prereqs' for any of the classes he takes. I know other guys whose undergrad is in EE who are getting their master's in civil engineering, and other such weird contortions.

*Example

I was talking to the guy who had the undergrad in chemE and is now studying EECS. Remember everything I said - he has no formal background in EECS, he's going up against MIT engineering graduate students, who are arguably the best engineering students in the world, he also has to take care of all the Sloan stuff that those other students do not, and yet he took the 2 EECS graduate classes that LFM demands, and grades came back, and he got a B+ and an A-. Think about that in light of all the handicaps he has.

Now some of you might try to explain that away by just saying that that guy must be a genius. Well, he himself says that that's not so, it's just that, quite frankly, what helps is that the classes are indeed grade-inflated. LFM'ers have all basically said to a man that they are heartened by the fact that they know that they can basically expect to get at least a B- in any graduate engineering class they take. It's extremely rare to get anything lower than that. And pretty much every LFM'er will all admit and agree that they are not as good academically as the 'true' MIT engineering graduate students. Yet the fact is, every single LFM'er has successfully graduated from the program with both degrees, and LFM has been around since the 1980's. If either of the two programs would be liable of tripping any of them up, it would obviously be the enginering part, yet every single LFM'er in the history of the program has successfully completed their engineering degree.

*My take on the events.

So I just said that every single LFM'er in the history of the program has successfully completed both degrees that comprise their program. Yet, how is that possible? It seems to me that the only logical explanation is that graduate-school grading must be significantly inflated relative to undergrad-grading. So I have to disagree with the tone of ariesathena's post and say that it doesn't really depend on the graduate-level class. Rather, it's basically a general rule that graduate-level classes seem to be quite grade-inflated. Might there be some that are not? Sure. But they are clearly in the minority. In general, they seem to be inflated.

Let's summarize the evidence. We're not talking about a school that is known for grade inflation at the undergraduate level. This is MIT we're talking about. Furthermore, we're not talking about a major that is known for grade inflation at the undergraduate level. This is engineering we're talking about. LFM students, by their own admission, are not as good as the 'real' engineering graduate students. They care less about engineering (they are really hybrid grad-students who care far more about management than about engineering). They have far less time to study engineering than do the pure engineering grad-students, for they have to take care of all the Sloan stuff, which is substantial. Many of them don't even have the "right" academic background to be studying the engineering they're studying. And yet they all manage to complete their engineering degrees, which means that all of them pull at least a B average, and most of them clearly do substantially better than that. The only reasonable interpretation of these events is that graduate-school grading must be inflated. I've knocked down all the other possibilities, and this is the only one left standing. Heck, in many cases, LFM'ers are actually getting better engineering grades than they did as undergrads, despite all their handicaps. How else can that be explained, except by graduate-level grade inflation?

*So what's the point?

The point of this whole digression is that it is indeed possible for many if not most undergraduates to find classes where everybody is going to get a high grade. Susan777 has stated that if you go to a place like Harvard College, you are going to compete against some of the best students in the world, and so you may find it difficult to be at the top of your class. My response is that you don't really need to be anywhere near the top of your class at Harvard and still get very very good grades, because of grade inflation, and I specifically finger the graduate-level classes as prime examples. Note that at MIT, most graduate-level classes actually have a substantial number of undergrads, and sometimes a particular grad-level class consists of about half-undergrads. Harvard is the same, and in fact at many universities, it is also the same. If LFM'ers can pull at least B's in graduate-level engineering classes despite all their handicaps, undergraduates should be able to do the same. Like I said, many LFM'ers are actually getting better engineering grades than they did as undergrads, despite all their handicaps. Hence, one 'trick' you can play as an undergrad to boost your GPA is to sign up for as many graduate-level classes as you can get away with and use them as substitutes for undergraduate classes. That'll make you look good for Harvard Law.

Post_Hoc · February 10, 2009, 7:54pm

Thank you to some of you for writing this. I am going to be a freshman at an Ivy League College next fall and am looking to attend HLS (as are many I suppose). However, I'm hoping that getting prepared early might provide me with an edge. Are there any suggestions that any of you could give me?

thetruthcomesout · February 10, 2009, 8:06pm

wow--- an almost 5 year bump.

There's really no way to get prepared early for law school IMO. Just take a wide range of courses at the highest levels possible, do good in them, work during your summers, & get involved in EC leadership.

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