<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>which LACs are notorious for their grade deflation? Which are known for their grade inflation?</p>
<p>Which ones have the highest med school acceptance rate?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>i also know Colgate is know for grade deflation, what else?</p>
<p>I'm not aware of any top tier LAC that has seen grade deflation. Average grades at Swarthmore have certainly not declined over time. The average grades are higher today than they were 10 or 20 years ago...for a number of reasons.</p>
<p>The average GPA of graduates in 1997 was reported to be 3.24 or about a B+.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com%5B/url%5D">www.gradeinflation.com</a> has some information.</p>
<p>PS Don't worry about it at all. And some reputations are misleading. :)</p>
<p>Footloop, Middlebury's average GPA is a 3.33. While certainly not deflated, it doesn't really correspond to inflation either.</p>
<p>nafeiniar, there are ways to guess at how tough good grades are to come by. </p>
<p>1) How many seniors graduated with honors?
2) What is the GPA required for honors (or the dean's list)?
3) What is the GPA required for departmental honors?</p>
<p>Much of this can be found on college websites or their course catalogues.</p>
<p>Be careful when examining admit rates at med schools; LACs can be tricky. Find out how many (raw numbers) were admitted to med school and where they were admitted.</p>
<p>Only on CC, would someone consider an avg GPA of 3.33 not inflated. I know it was published in the school newspaper at Colgate in the mid-'90's that the avg GPA was 2.92. I think it's climbed to ~ 3.1 in the ten years since. Someone on here posted not too long ago a study by Cal Berkeley Boalt law school that equated GPA with LSAT scores to determine what schools were grade inflated. I remember that Swarthmore, Colgate, Carleton were three of the top five most grade-deflated schools. JHU was also up there, but don't remember the rest, but I'm sure you could search for the study.</p>
<p>This is the Boalt Hall study. Colleges at the top have less grade inflation than those at the bottom. Keep in mind that these numbers are somewhat outdated...</p>
<p>The following is UC Berkeley's rankings of
the toughest schools to get an "A"</p>
<p>Swarthmore 89.5
Williams 89.0
Duke 88.5
Carleton 88.0
Colgate 88.0
J. Hopkins 87.5
Chicago 87.0
Dartmouth 87.0
Wesleyan 87.0
Cornell 86.5
Harvard 86.5
Middlebury 86.0
Princeton 86.0
Bates 85.5
MIT 85.5
Haverford 85.0
Pomona 85.0
Virginia 85.0
Amherst 84.5
Reed 84.5
Vanderbilt 84.5
Wm & Mary 84.5
Bowdoin 83.5
Tufts 83.5
Vassar 83.5
Bryn Mawr 83.0
Hamilton 83.0
Oberlin 83.0
Rice 83.0
U. Pennsylvania 83.0
Clrmt. McK. 82.5
Yale 82.5
Brandeis 82.0
Northwestern 82.0
Colby 81.5
Michigan 81.5
Notre Dame 81.5
Wash. U. 81.0
Barnard 80.5
Columbia 80.5
Stanford 80.5
Brown 80.0
Georgetown 80.0
Smith 80.0
Wellesley 80.0
Emory 79.5
U. North Carolina 79.5
Whitman C. 79.5
Rochester 79.0
UC Berkeley 78.5
UC San Diego 78.5
Illinois 78.0
SUNY Bing 78.0
Texas 78.0
Trinity U. 77.5
Boston College 77.0
UC S. Barbara 77.0
Wisconsin 77.0
Florida 76.5
U. Washington 76.5
Santa Clara 76.0
Geo. Wash. 75.5
UC Davis 75.5
UCLA 75.5
Colorado 75.0
Michigan State 75.0
Boston University 74.5
Cal Poly SLO 74.5
Massachusetts 74.0
Penn State 74.0
Iowa 73.5
Purdue 73.5
SMU 73.5
SUNY Albany 73.5
BYU 73.0
Minnesota 73.0
Ohio State 73.0
Oregon 73.0
UC Irvine 73.0
Indiana 72.5
NYU 72.0
SUNY Buff 72.0
SUNY Stony 72.0
Mills 71.5
American 71.0
Arizona 71.0
Loyola Mary. 71.0
Maryland 71.0
Fordham 70.5
Kansas 70.0
Syracuse 70.0
USC 70.0
Arizona St. 69.5
CS San Diego 69.5
Catholic U. 69.5
Oklahoma 69.5
Pacific 69.5
Hofstra 69.0
UC Riverside 68.5
Utah 68.5
CS Chico 68.5
Miami 68.0
New Mexico 68.0
San Diego 68.0
CS Northridge 67.0
Pepperdine 67.0
CS San Fran. 66.0
CS Sacramento 65.0
Hawaii 64.5
Denver 63.5
CS Fullerton 63.0
CS Hayward 63.0
CS Long Beach 63.0
CS San Jose 63.0
CS Fresno 62.5
St. Mary's 61.5
CCNY 59.0
CS LA 58.5
Howard 57.5
San Francisco 57.5</p>
<p>The study shows GPA in light (or as a function of or compared to) LSAT score of applicants from a school. I think it might also include only those who applied to Boalt (but I could be wrong). It is also years old, but it's somewhat interetesting and informative if you keep in mind that it shows a relationship between LSAT score and GPA from different institutions.</p>
<p>Edit- it is also only Boalt, and not "UC Berkeley."</p>
<p>Reed is known for grade constancy. The average GPA for all students in 2004-05 was 3.0 on a 4.0 scale. This figure has remained essentially unchanged for the past 21 years. The 2005 graduates averaged 3.1.</p>
<p>The Boalt “study” was an internal document, prepared about 10 years ago, that was used to weigh the GPAs of law school applicants from different undergraduate institutions. It was based on the historic performance of graduates from those schools at Boalt. It only became public because it was discovered and introduced as evidence in a lawsuit about Berkeley admissions policies. </p>
<p>It’s admittedly interesting as a behind-the-scenes “snapshot” of one professional school’s judgements at one time. But I wouldn’t necessarily draw broad conclusions from it, or assume that it is still relevant today.</p>
<p>Ah! There are two COMPLETELY different questions being discussed here:</p>
<p>1) Which schools are known for grade deflation/inflation
2) In which schools is it easier for a GIVEN STUDENT to get an A.</p>
<p>The first question 1) is about the average GPA across all majors in the entire school. So you see Brown is about 3.6 and some State Flagship is 3.1. And you try to figure out how that matters since the student quality is worlds apart at those two schools. It doesn’t answer the question about how a GIVEN student will do GPA-wise at Brown vs. State Flagship.</p>
<p>The Berkeley-Boalt list is about a GIVEN STUDENT… that a GIVEN Student, which is to say, a student with an X LSAT score, will find it difficult to get an A at Swarthmore. However, take that GIVEN Student and enroll them at Cal State LA (3rd from the bottom – the lowest school I actually recognize) and that SAME student will find it very easy to get an A. In fact a C student at Swarthmore may very well have been a Straight A student at Cal St. LA. We don’t know but I’ll bet Berkeley-Boalt has tracked students like this to get a way to “normalize” grades across schools and within majors within schools.</p>
<p>OP asked the first question. I suspect however, that OP was actually asking the second question, which is why some of the replies have gone that different direction.</p>
<p>Corbett – why would you assume the grade comparisons that Berkeley-Boalt found to be true ten or even fifteen years ago would not be true today? Things change V E R Y s l o w l y in educational institutions.</p>
<p>You can however check the gradeinflation.com wesite to see which schools have changed a lot over time relative to their peers. There are likely to be some who resist the generally upward slope of the average GPA line, and those that have embraced the higher GPAs.</p>