<p>That wasn’t the frats’ GPAs. That was the average overall including the the frats I believe. It is essentially a chart created for the purpose of comparing the frat GPAs to the overall. That is simply a piece of w/e document.</p>
<p>bernie2012:</p>
<p>I will not bore you with my credentials, the number of letters after my last name or the fact that I had the privilege of attending the best schools in the land.</p>
<p>What I will tell you is that college is not some survivor contest where the best competitor wins. College is supposed to be an Oasis, a protected area where young people can isolate themselves by age and spend time to find and develop themselves as individuals and human beings. It is a time to explore ideas and concepts in the abstract. It is a time to meet and socialize with individuals you would not normally meet to explore your differences but also your similarities. It is a time to mature.</p>
<p>And your concept that the “best candidates” for anything are somehow the best competitors, the best sharks if you will, is flat out wrong. No matter what you do for a living, to succeed in life you will have to understand and work with people-not grind them into ground by out competiting them.</p>
<p>Believe me, admissions committiees are very experience. All they do is evaluate candidates of the same age and from the same universities. Admissions committee routinely follow the progress of who they admitted and how they have fit in both academically and socially. Overtime, patterns of behavior are recognized. Individuals with high GPAs but without heart are routinely rejected. The same goes later on in life in other pursuits. After all performance on college courses do not reflect how good a doctor, lawyer, architect, businessman, or clergyman you will become. Doing well academic merely reassures admissions committees and businesses that you have the minimal academic skills and maturity to be able to handle the workload.</p>
<p>My advice based upon a long academic career both as student and now as a senior faculty member with a career that has spanned five major Universities is calm down, enjoy school and develop yourself both intellectually and as a person. I assure you success in all facets of life will follow.</p>
<p>Dude, I’m alright and I was only proposing a reason for the B-school model curve, It may not even be right, however, keep in mind that we have a “capitalist” (some may disagree strongly) economy, so that may be their justification if my idea is somewhat correct. School is quite enjoyable to me. And my intellect is developing just fine. And unlike many of my pre-professional peers, I have gotten over the fact that I am not perfect, and that I often do not deserve an A for merely trying hard. Unlike many of them, I am often intellectually curious. If anything some of the “pres” need to calm down and stop worrying so much about their grades. Many are so whiny and annoying complaining about a B+/A- and then venturing the prospect of asking the prof. to find some way to raise their grade. The fact that every tough school has complaints about grade deflation when there is clearly inflation indicates that many students just want to get by and have no real desire for a challenging curriculum that pushes them to the limits and requires “out of the box” thinking. And again, about the grading, if a 69-75 is curved to a B-, then the bar for an A is not set very high anyway. After already curving grades that much, the profs. should reserve the right to cap As to the top 25%. If you can’t attain this area, then oh well. Given that there is an upcurve, no real competition is fostered. This only happens with bell curves, and we still have some classes like that here. And I will say it again, 25% is still a lot of As for a premed course, and is actually generous considering the curve that already took place. One orgo. prof. has a similar curve, where the median of 74-75 was given a B, and the average a B-. However, as a trade off, only 13% received A range grades. This is actually normal for classes that curve up here. Would you honestly rather have a system like one orgo. prof. here (he’s an amazing prof. and perhaps the toughest), where the As/A-s are essentially arbitrary. In other words, he curves like Vandy bio essentially, and grades above B- (except borderlines) are arbitrary. Sometimes, people that would get an A on a set system (say top 10-15%) will get an A- or random people with lower scores will get As (in other words, he looks at each individual in that area, and determines a grade). I rather have a system that makes it clear who will make As, than be left in limbo if I am doing relatively well. </p>
<p>My idea is that the coursework at a top school should also foster or demand intellectual curiosity/thinking out of the box. Or else, many just will not seek it. I bet that many of these types of students with inflated GPAs will still be let into med. school without the maturity or intellectual development you speak of. They will certainly know how to put on a front in the interview though. I can’t imagine the shallow responses when students who w/drew from a class b/c they were going to get a B-/B are asked about that W on their transcript. </p>
<p>I’ll remember you basically saying that we should go out and do our thing, and that the profs. will handle the rest.</p>
<p>Bernie2012:</p>
<p>I did you the courtesy of reading your post fully.</p>
<p>As the years go by, I am certain you will learn alot about life.</p>
<p>I wish you the best in the rest of your college career and in your endeavors afterward.</p>
<p>I certainly will and am already learning. Just because I don’t have your opinion on how an education at a top college should be does not mean I am very immature. Many people probably agree with me. I’m just calling it by what I see in many here. It’s annoying. And I’m glad I have an awesome group of friends that do really value intellectualism and getting the most out of their experience both in terms of academics and out of school experience. And despite my opinion on grades, I strongly believe in collaboration. So do most students at Emory. The structure of many classrooms/learning facilities indicates the demand for this kind of learning and it has good outcomes. Just because 25-30% of people are not getting A-range grades in science classes does not mean people are doing reasonably well. Why is only getting an A range grade considered doing well? People act as if there first B/B+ is the end of their life instead of striving for better in future coursework. I just simply wish my peers would stop complaining and/or throwing in the towel as soon as they score below A.</p>
<p>Thanks for the luck though :)</p>
<p>Of course college is harder. Of course these courses are tough and demand a tremendous amount of study to do well. But considering the credentials that Vanderbilt students come in with, given they put forth the effort, they should be able to learn the material and do well, whether than get “weeded out” by ridiculous standards while their lesser high school peers in As in the same courses (which don’t demand the same standards) at less competitive institutions.</p>
<p>Not really the case. Less selective private institutions and publics tend to have lower average graduating GPAs than the elite/competitive privates. So we are still doing better than they are for w/e reason rather it be qualifications or inflation. Just as many get weeded out of “pre” classes as do at our institutions. The classes are just easier. Average graduation gpa of 3.3+ is reasonable and is actually quite high I suppose. My understanding is that it does not even correlate well with the SAT scores of students that matriculate at top 20s.</p>
<p>To continue, I’ll site an example. A smaller private, less selective private school, Mercer University, in Macon (or neighbor in middle Georgia) has students that average 2.7 in their freshmen year. At Emory, we average like 3.01 and then average graduating gpa is 3.38, Vandy 3.32. Go figure. Given that, I’ll add that Mercer has as many “pres” as we do, and many/most of them are weeded out too, even though the work is easier than ours. Fact is, schools with lots of pre-meds find a way to weed out, no matter how selective the institution is.<br>
Only people at Princeton should be concerned I guess. Again there average graduating GPAs have been decreasing over the last few years to the new policy actually intended to yield such consequence. That is real deflation. I actually revise my opinion on the 25% “cap”. Given that average grades are already curved upward to B-/B (in other words, exams are scaled in terms of a letter grade, instead of a number based upon a predetermined grading scale you see), the prof./dept. is actually being generous in deciding to give 25% of the students A range grades. Due to the curve, there is no clear cutoff otherwise. A clear cutoff has to be made. The system could be harsher. For example, the bio class I speak of could simply employ the traditional cutoffs for the +/-, thus giving all of those with the average a D+. However, with that curve, the average that is normally a D+ is turned into a B-.<br>
Here’s an example of real deflation that happened my year when taking bio. There was a section with a higher average than the rest, and the department decided to curve the borderline grades downward one level instead of curving the other sections up a little. This is what I would consider unfair because the students could not actually anticipate the section being easier or having a higher average. </p>
<p>Looking at Vandy’s situation. The complaints/issues could probably be combated by having a clear grading scale at the very beginning of the course. The profs. could do like my physics prof. and add points to people’s test if he wants to curve to a certain average. So, basically, an 88 may be curved to 93 which is an A (again the goal, is to provide a numerical curve that results in a certain average in relation to the fixed cutoffs). A 69 (say it’s the average), would be curved to a 78-81 which is C+/B-. However, with such a system, a student should fear that if Vandy did this with it’s biology class even less students would get an A range grade. The other strategy is to simply lower the traditional cutoffs like so: Make 70 B- or something, 76-80 B, 80-84 B+, 85-88 A-, and 88.1+ A. This is similar to the scale in psychobiology here (the notorious Dr. Edwards has this scale), a really difficult class. Only difference is that there is no A-. There is B+ and then A, no in between. However, far less than 25% end up making As anyway.</p>
<p>Bernie, you’re starting to get out of your element. Your suggestion of how Vandy could do things is a very accurate description of how things already occur. I’m not quite sure where you got the 25% A’s figure from, but that is, and I assure you, way more than the intro bio classes have, or the intermediate bio classes. (Some upper level classes are notoriously easy and have over 50% A’s however). </p>
<p>Also, we’ve only used intro Bio as a model so far. I’ve also taken Linear and DiffyQ where a B started at 50%. Not many people managed to get even a B in that class. There is a lot of heterogeneity in grading at Vandy (probably why HOD majors get so much hell).</p>
<p>I just assumed. I was wrong (made an a** of myself lol, thank you for calling me out) for that I guess. I got such an idea from another thread I read on CC with a Vandy student complaining about the “grade deflation” there and how difficult it is to get an A in intro. science courses. He cited that they cap them at 25%. Perhaps he didn’t actually understand how grades were being awarded. Sorry I took this as truth. I was essentially taking on the idea that Vandy does indeed have such capping at this level. You actually went there right? I rather trust you b/c you don’t seem stressed out over how hard it is, and you’re probably telling it how it is. What I get from this is, that y’all basically grade the same way as we do. We also have some very easy upperlevel biology courses (I’ve actually taken 2) and we also have lots of heterogeneity (rather from course to course, or prof. to prof). Out of curiosity, do you think the overall grading in our schools is too harsh? As I have demonstrated, I do not. However, the heterogeneity is perhaps an issue of concern. It’s clear that some fields grade easier. As for science/math, it seems as if many harder classes make the C+/B-/B (not to say that a C+/B- is good for a pre-med, but it’s better than the grade they would get without it) attainable by curving up/adjusted scale, but getting the A is tougher since they were generous with Bs. Sorry if I came off as some harsh zealot wanting to completely rid of curving/means of adjustment. I regret doing that, but I just think that the grading is still generous regardless of the % As given. Can you see some of what I’m saying?</p>
<ol>
<li>Parking</li>
<li>Parking</li>
<li>Parking</li>
</ol>
<p>No worries, I recently graduated from Vandy as a Bio major. I agree with your general sentiment, that the hard sciences grading is far more difficult than other subjects. For the example Medicine health and society major is nothing compared to molecular and cellular biology, (where chemistry makes them both look easy). I found it very possible to cruise and get a B in most of my science classes, however to get the A required an extraordinary level of work (which it should).</p>
<p>GCN2, may we ask where you are headed? You don’t have to specify name or city of where you go next but as a Bio major who was not going premed, it would be cool to hear what you are doing next and how your graduate school application process went. Did you find you got good advising and support? (My son gave up a near full ride at a great LAC where we knew advising would be really personal to come to Vandy on a lesser scholarship) because he personally felt that Vandy had so much to offer him in terms of his own needs re personal growth/breadth in student body and in great town/gown dynamics. But I do regret sometimes that he may not get that personal touch re support for grad school apps that he would have received in a school with all small classrooms.<br>
Was senior year app season difficult? Did you have mentors who were interested in your next best move?
thanks for the comments when you get the time!</p>
<p>As far as my advisers go, I couldn’t have done it without them. I had 5-6 professors in the bio department who were willing to listen to my neurotic freakouts in the fall, proof read and lend suggestions on my statement of purpose, and of course write LORs that were excellent. They were also there to tell me “I told you so” when everything went perfectly in the spring. Professors will honestly care about your future if you come to them for help. I was active in searching out profs who I knew could help me in their courses, and in graduate school applications. I strongly advise students to reach past the traditional major adviser and first year adviser and engage other profs they connect with in class.</p>
<p>Senior year app season was pretty stressful, all of my best friends were applying to medical school, so they were stressed out as well. I made a goal to finish my apps by Halloween, so I wrote most of my personal statement over the summer. My LOR writers thought I was crazy on how many schools I applied to (14, I was crazy). But overall it worked out great, I received interviews from every school and acceptances at the ones I chose to interview.</p>
<p>I’ll be entering a Cancer bio phd program at Sloan Kettering (i figure it’s on the graduate school forum, it can be posted here too). This was one of my top two choices as I started the application process and I couldn’t be more excited to go.</p>
<p>If students have a strong interest in doing research, look no further than Vandy. You will not beat the undergraduate opportunities here. There are few of us who applied to grad school this year, but all who did placed very well.</p>
<p>Wow! That is so terrific! Congrats on earning a chair in such an important graduate school in Biology…and kudos to your mentors and Profs at Vanderbilt. We know you worked very very hard for this opportunity. I hope it leads to open doors for a fulfilling niche in the job market in a few years for you …and that you meet lovely new people to add to your circle of friends and mentors. </p>
<p>Wonder if you will be a college professor some day</p>
<p>thanks for the many times you stop in to advise students with questions</p>
<p>Appears we have something in common GCN2, two science majors (I’m a biology and chem. major that are not pre-med 
. Rarities at Vandy or Emory I’d imagine (don’t exactly know if that’s the case there). I hope to maybe to join a pharmacology program. Neuropharmacology in particular. I wanted to do NBB, but I would be very behind if I declared, so I’ll simply take the NBB courses that cross-list with bio (including NBB 301, the hard one).</p>
<p>GCN2 - very impressive! You’ve given great advice on the Vandy forum. Best wishes to you as you begin your new program!</p>
<p>Thanks, good luck with your future options bernie. Scientific research is an exciting place to be these days.</p>