<p>I know stanford has grade inflation in fuzzy majors but how is it in engineering majors. What is the average gpa of engineering students? Im particularly interested chemical engineering, mechanical engineering and aerospace engineering. Also wat gpa do i need to coterm in chemical engineering i have seen the website but it doesnt talk about the average gpa of students to coterm.</p>
<p>My S is a freshman. All I can say is that we haven’t seen any grade inflation at all. If anything it might be just the opposite (grade deflation) As a whole the student body is very experienced going into many of these classes which makes it very difficult to compete. So many kids have so much prior experience that its hard for the kids who don’t and no one is making it easy by inflating grades. What ever grade you get you earn. Thats the bottomline, I would never think for a second that when you score a 60 that thats somehow going to turn into an A- at the end. Nope just doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>Neither of those statistics are released. I don’t think there’s much grade inflation in engineering; there most likely isn’t any at all.</p>
<p>Is it difficult to keep a good GPA while majoring in an engineering field? How is the workload? Do students have big psets in every class each week where they are up very late getting them done most week nights? Are weekends fun time or more studying?</p>
<p>The workload is tremendous and I’ve heard it only get worse. There’s always psets and an early night is getting to bed by 2am. My S had very few weekends that were 'fun times" this last quarter. Although I don’t want to make it sound like its all work and no play. Every once and awhile he did manage to get to a frat party. Plus the dorms are very cohesive. They always have fun functions for the kids, which help to break away for the workload. But as a whole its lots of work and at the end I wish I could say that he was ‘richly’ rewarded with perfect grades. Even in classes like Ihum, they can be so subjective that you can’t ever truly figure out what your grade is until you get your final score at the end of the quarter. Stanford is a great school and there’s a reason why the graduating classes are in demand. You work for everything that you get. The student body is fantastic and as a whole kids are extremely collaborative but you are also always going up against some of the brightest minds in the world. So its tough. If you think its work hard all week and then party all weekend, I think you may be surprised at how few weekends are truly left for fun. I don’t want to make it sound negative, I just want to be honest. The truth is that at the end of the day my S loves Stanford and is ready to start anew this spring quarter. I think the one thing thats very helpful is th weather. The sunny, warm weather and gorgeous campus helps kids to get through the tough times. Might sound silly but apparently its true!!!</p>
<p>I want to clarify that “grade inflation” can be interpreted in two ways: temporally (i.e. grades trending higher and higher over the years), or differentially (grades relative to the amount of difficulty). I think in the latter sense, which is what most people think of, Stanford engineering is not grade-inflated. In the former sense, it may be, but they’ve never released data on it, so it’s impossible to say.</p>
<p>bluebird, engineering is difficult, but I think most students, who are naturally hard-working, can manage a decent GPA if they put their mind to it. The workload is of course intense, but the key is to balance your schedule: it’s a good idea to take 1-2, sometimes 3, engineering classes in a single quarter. (And if you do take 3, the rest of your schedule should be easy and fun.) You usually have psets, but students usually aren’t up every night trying to finish them; rather, they’re up the night before trying to finish them. 
I’d say there’s more procrastination on the weekends than people like to admit. The “play time” of weekends also varies; most weekends, you should be able to get in some relaxation time (assuming that you balanced your schedule), but there are some weekends where you have to keep your game face on.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how the workload compares with Harvard’s engineering?</p>
<p>Thanks phantasmagoric and Dungareedoll, your posts are really helpful, I appreciate it.</p>
<p>Would you say the same workload applies for the Graduate program at Stanford? Or is Graduate even more intense?</p>
<p>If you’re strong at calculations, engineering at Stanford is very doable.</p>
<p>I often tell people that I’m majoring in biomechanical engineering because I had to pick a major (if I could choose, I would spread classes more evenly between fields) and that, among my academic interests, BME was the easiest option at that point and would allow the most time for other classes/pursuits. I generally get some “haha, are you serious” looks but I’m speaking the truth. For me, learning the material and doing well is not too challenging. </p>
<p>I’m strong with numbers, I guess. I test very well. I am resourceful enough to use the internet when my professor doesn’t explain something well enough. I try to optimize my classes so that if I have to take a hard engineering class, I only have one other mild to medium engineering class that same quarter. Since I have all the AP credit, I am able to pull that off. That’s all it really takes for me. I still spend a lot of time on psets and such, but it tends not to dominate my life. It dominates some nights, yeah, but that’s mainly because I prefer to leave Thursday through Saturday nights free of work.</p>
<p>Some of my peers aren’t so lucky, but with liberal use of office hours and a bit more time spent on the material they generally manage to do just fine. Like your standard bell curve, most fall in between.</p>