<p>I know that at big universities or even Ivy League institutions, things are graded based off the curve. How does that work in the seminar-style classes seen at liberal arts colleges such as Swarthmore? Are there like only 3 A's in a class of 15?</p>
<p>There are no strict curves at swat. There may be exams where grades are curved up (for instance, in a bio one exam where the average is a 63, they may set that as a C+, meaning that an 85 would be an A) ... in small seminars in the humanities and social sciences there are not curves.</p>
<p>So small liberal arts schools are basically like a really competitive highschool...and collaboration doesn't hurt anyone?</p>
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So small liberal arts schools are basically like a really competitive highschool...
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<p>I don't understand the question. I can't think of anything at Swarthmore that is even remotely like high school, but I'm not sure what you mean.</p>
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and collaboration doesn't hurt anyone?
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<p>Hurt? Heck no. Collaboration is encouraged and a strong part of the Swarthmore campus culture. A great deal of the learning takes place outside of the classroom -- whether it's reviewing a draft of a paper with a WA, participating in study group preparing physics problem sets, or continuing a classroom discussion with friends over lunch.</p>
<p>I suspect that there are many classes at Swarthmore where everyone gets As to Bs because everyone has done A to B work. I don't know if Prof. Burke is representative, but he's posted on his blog after finishing a course about how great the students were -- which he seems to measure by the ability to really engage the material and wrestle with conflicting issues in classroom discussions and papers.</p>
<p>Cardene,
I am also lost concerning the first half of your question, but I'll try for the second half. My son is a senior at Swat in the Honors program. As such, during the course of his junior and senior years he will have taken 4 honors seminars. Each class has from 7-12 students. Because of the amount of material covered in the class, I know that one of his Honors seminars got together before the final last year and divided up the material and then everyone shared their outlines/notes, etc. In preparation for the four Honors exams at the conclusion of senior year, it is customary for the students to do this and to study together and quiz each other in preparation for the oral part of the exams. My S went to an extraordinarily competitive high school, and I don't think he would tell you that it bears any resemblance to Swarthmore.</p>
<p>What I meant by that statement was that at a competitive highschool, your performance is not hampered by the performances of others (on a 90-80-70 grading scale) whereas traditional college curriculum is graded on the curve.</p>
<p>Are classes at Swarthmore graded on a 90-80-70 scale?</p>
<p>Is the answer to this really going to be essential for you to make your college decision? Will it have any bearing? I think its safe to say that every department, and possibly every class will have a somewhat different grading policy, but that there is no competition over grades, and you will never be put in a position where you have to compete for a top grade with a classmate. You should worry about something else, like the Eagles, or the weird weather.</p>
<p>No, there is no curve which links your grades to those of others. So there are no problems in seminars.</p>
<p>As hellohowareyou describes, pretty much every instructor or course has their own grading system and policy. There are certainly no fixed percentages that map to letter grades (unless that is what the instructor decides).</p>
<p>To the best of my knowledge, no course has any direct competition for scores. However, your score may be compared against the class aggregate scores for classes where fixed percentages might not work (e.g, where the highest score on the exam was 75% or similar). In a seminar type course, there might be 2 big clusters of scores that end up being A's and B's for instance, but you aren't really competing.</p>
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Is the answer to this really going to be essential for you to make your college decision? Will it have any bearing?
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<p>I am possibly considering going Pre-Med, so yes, it does have a bearing.</p>
<p>You might consider Swarthmore's record in placing pre-med students in med school. My understanding is that, unlike some colleges, Swarthmore will support all applicants to med school, not just those with high GPAs. Even so, Swarthmore's placement percentage into med school has been very high.</p>
<p>I believe that for the most recent year, Swat's med school acceptance rate for the seven graduating seniors was 100% and 86% for the 36 alums applying. Overall, that was 37 acceptance that year (more than 10% of an entire graduating class at Swarthmore).</p>
<p>Swat's med school admissions FAQ stats that a 3.3 GPA is a solid basis for a med school acceptance and that the average GPA for Swatties accepted to Ivy League med schools in the most recent year was a 3.7 GPA.</p>
<p>Luckily, with Swarthmore, first semester grades of freshman year are on a pass/fail basis, if you do well you keep the grades if you don't they vanish and it's like you never took the class. This is pretty good if you want to keep your GPA relatively high and don't mind having to retake the class or take another class in it's place</p>
<p>Sadly, you can't actually choose to keep grades. They are hidden no matter what: that said, you can show people your un-offical grade reports.</p>
<p>arador is absolutely correct. My S is graduating in June and applying to grad schools. He dug up the old emails (except for the one he accidentally deleted!) which had the "shadow grades" and were the only indication of those grades, and then passed them along to the graduate schools shich requested them.</p>
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which had the "shadow grades" and were the only indication of those grades, and then passed them along to the graduate schools shich requested them.
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<p>What!!! Does that mean that the 1st semester is really not a Pass/Fail semester since Grad Schools will see the shadow grades?</p>
<p>I assumed that getting C's were acceptable first semester at Swat, since all that is shown on the report card is a P.</p>
<p>Noone I know kept their first semester shadow grades, or was asked for them by graudate schools.</p>
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What!!! Does that mean that the 1st semester is really not a Pass/Fail semester since Grad Schools will see the shadow grades?
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<p>The college doesn't keep records of those shadow grades. If you saved the e-mails, you may be able to include them in a grad school application in exceptional circumstances. From the College Bulletin:</p>
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If available, letter-grade equivalents for first-semester first-year students may be provided to other institutions only if requested by the student and absolutely required by the other institution. Students should save their copies of these evaluations for their records.
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<p>I think medical schools require the first semester grades.</p>
<p>So basically my 1st semester at Swat is just like any other semester. I'm going to have to do really well.</p>
<p>Darn. :-/</p>