<p>I heard that in your last two years of college, you perform better than you did your first two years. Is this true?</p>
<p>I'm semi-worried because I think my GPA might drop to a 3.7 after this semester, and I need to get into my dream grad school. (I'm a sophomore now.)</p>
<p>Any anecdotal evidence?</p>
<p>It depends on the major. For the majors I took, Econ and MCB, I did not find it so. The classes are large so you're still a statistic. The grad distributions occassiojnally become easier (25% A's instead of 15%) but these are the people that all passed the hard weeder classes that failed all the crappier people so its still very difficult.</p>
<p>Econ has a lot of really bad professors too (I can name 3 or 4 off the top of my head), that are mainly bad because they don't know how to test. And it also has very bad econ grad students.</p>
<p>MCB's a little better since its a real science and its much more objective than social sciences.</p>
<p>In short, no. That's what you get from going to a crappy public school like Berkeley. Of course, all the pro-ucbers will tell you, "nu-uh, you can do well in a [creampuff social scienc here]" but in general its not true.</p>
<p>Have a great day.</p>
<p>Well, I'm majoring in Economics and history...and the classes that brought down my GPA were indeed upper division Economics. hah, at least that is what I am expecting. In fact, people keep telling me to do business at Haas instead because of the GPA boost supposedly...god knows what I should do.</p>
<p>It's just all my friends who are graduating this year (in Engineering, MCB, languages) did better their latter two years because well, they put in more effort.</p>
<p>Any other anecdotes?</p>
<p>Econ and history? I think that research/scholarship and letters of recommendation are incredibly major factors in graduate school acceptances in both fields. Also, your statement of purpose plays a big role. GPA is big, certainly, but if you have amazing letters of rec and are published, I imagine it greatly mitigates the grades. </p>
<p>Graduate programs aren't working for grade whores; they're looking for future colleagues with the ability to understand the subject, potential to understand it a lot more, and the potential to make discoveries/write about it.</p>
<p>Cheers for the advice Drab. I wish it were like that,but I want to go to law school, and law schools are looking for grade whores.</p>
<p>I read a study saying GPAs decline from freshman to sophomore year and then increase later. I dearly hope this is true.</p>
<p>I would just major in history, because I'm a heck of a lot better at history ( I have a department average of 3.9+), but my father will not let me, and he's paying for my education :(</p>
<p>"I would just major in history, because I'm a heck of a lot better at history ( I have a department average of 3.9+), but my father will not let me, and he's paying for my education "</p>
<p>That sucks NeedsAdvice...May I ask why he's refusing?</p>
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Cheers for the advice Drab. I wish it were like that,but I want to go to law school, and law schools are looking for grade whores.</p>
<p>I read a study saying GPAs decline from freshman to sophomore year and then increase later. I dearly hope this is true.
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<p>You are too correct- law schools love their grade whores. Ace the LSAT. Hopefully you'll do better than you think. Shining letters of rec and a good statement of purpose can help for law schools. :)</p>
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That sucks NeedsAdvice...May I ask why he's refusing?
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<p>Well, in case I don't finish law school, I'd at least be able to get a job with Economics. History is generally unemployable.</p>
<p>And secondly, he's a scientist, so he only respects anything remotely related to math or science.</p>
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You are too correct- law schools love their grade whores. Ace the LSAT. Hopefully you'll do better than you think. Shining letters of rec and a good statement of purpose can help for law schools.
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<p>Indeed. I just hope the GPA increase post-sophomore year is not a fallacy. </p>
<p>Of course, I have another 5 semesters left though to see, so hopefully that will help. (I have decided to take an extra semester because now I work part-time.) Sigh, life sucks.</p>