<p>I was wondering if I can get some opinions about the difficulty of the biology major (or relative fields) at Stanford. What is the environment like? Is it like a cutthroat environment where everyone competes for an 'A', or does it have a more laid back atmosphere? I heard it was more laid back like Duke compared to the ivies. </p>
<p>Generally, is biology one of the tougher majors at Princeton? How doable is a 3.7+ at Stanford as a molecular biology major? </p>
<p>How competitive is it within the classroom? In your opinion, what do you think of the course breadth and difficulty in the classroom?</p>
<p>It’s laid back. Grade-based conversations are more taboo than jokes about cutting up babies. Given how common the latter are, I’d say a lot more taboo.</p>
<p>My Academic Director joked that doing engineering pre-meds and pre-laws get relegated to engineering grad school because great techie classes on your transcript don’t come with great grades. But it was a joke. At the end of the quarter my friends in math/science classes claim to get good grades without trying much. Except that [strike]duck[/strike] swan syndrome may be very alive. Science != Eng </p>
<p>And it seems that once you get over the ridiculous curves on the Bio/Chem core (they’re sieves), the classes pipe down to the level of the rest of the school.</p>
<p>But still, one needs to realize that, in class, one will be among a large group of students who were top 1-10% of their high school classes. It’s bound to be somewhat competitive by virtue of the caliber of students.</p>