<p>Is Harvard overcompetitive? It seems like getting easier A’s would make it less so. </p>
<p>I don’t really understand all this whining about grade defaltion. My son, a freshman, from a very underachieving public school, received stellar grades his first semester simply by working hard. And he still played a lot of Halo. Some of his peers put very few hours into studying. </p>
<p>Did you REALLY study hard and receive sub-par grades?</p>
<p>^What were his grades? This isn’t in disbelief over your son’s exceptional grades, but it’s just so that I may get an idea of what is possible. I’ve always worked my tail off at my high school to get all A’s, and I was just wondering if the same work ethic would get me high grades at Princeton or if this grade-deflation policy really is what I’ve heard it to be. Thanks.</p>
<p>The same work ethic will get you high grades at Princeton. You just might not get A’s in the courses where your natural talent is not at its highest. A great writer/humanities person even with a good work ethic might get some B’s in the math/science courses. Especially if they are involved in a lot of activities. But employers certainly don’t care about a few B’s from Princeton. Trust me. I don’t know about med schools.</p>
<p>^I was looking at stats of med school admits. I was looking at Harvard Medical School, for example, and noticed that the average GPA was a 3.76 and the average MCAT score was a 35 (11, 12, 12 for the average of each section). There are, of course, people above and below (and at) those numbers, but how hard would it be to get a 3.7+ at Princeton, considering the average GPA is a 3.35? Well, I imagine it’s very, very hard, so I guess me question is how possible/manageable is it for Princeton pre-meds to achieve such a GPA?</p>
<p>“Did you REALLY study hard and receive sub-par grades?”</p>
<p>Everyone here studies really hard. And the lowest 10% of Princeton students can easily get straight A’s at an “underachieving state school” without studying much (I’m pretty confident of this).</p>
<p>If you have a GPA of 3.7~, you’re in the top 20% of Princeton. A little over a third of all Princeton students had perfect 4.0’s (unweighted) in high school. Think about that.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, I’m in the top 20% (so I’m not just whining because I got bad grades… my grades are actually quite good).</p>
<p>I took 6 AP classes my junior year in high school and got straight A’s, and I think that’s about the same difficulty as taking 2 Princeton classes and getting A’s in them.</p>
<p>“The same work ethic will get you high grades at Princeton.”</p>
<p>I know very smart people who work extremely hard here who have 3.0’s. It’s just not easy to get good grades at Princeton, even with strong work ethics.</p>
<p>“A little over a third of all Princeton students had perfect 4.0’s (unweighted) in high school.”</p>
<p>You wouldn’t happen to know the percent of those kids in the top 20% at Princeton, would you?</p>
<p>I will be going to Princeton next year and I think its really awful how ubiquitous the complaints of grade deflation are. I’m as of now premed and cannot even process how competitive its going to be, but I also know that the end result justifies all the hard work. I could go to Dartmouth or Columbia, where I’ve seen that the average class grades are A- and B+'s. I could go there, get those grades, just like everyone else…or I could go to Princeton get those grades and FEEL like I’ve actually accomplished something.</p>
<p>^Yes, that’s a great reason to come here. </p>
<p>Personally, I knew that Princeton would work me a lot harder than Harvard and give me a better undergraduate education because of Princeton’s undergrad emphasis. I still think I made the right choice.</p>
<p>No, I don’t know the % of the kids in the top 20% who had a 4.0 in high school… It would be an interesting poll question for the daily prince though.</p>
<p>Peytoncline-my son’s grades (I hope he won’t mind me sharing them, but it is anonymous), were A+, A, A-, B+. He worked very hard for them, but not more hours than he did in high school. He still had fun and got 8 hours of sleep a night.</p>
<p>4.0’s in high school are fairly meaningless, since there is so much grade INFLATION in high school and individual schools differ so much. My son challenged himself out of high school with college classes and research and found that the same effort is required at Princeton.</p>
<p>Ohh haha I thought you meant your son went to a state school.</p>
<p>Well, you can give us anecdotal evidence, but I can guarantee that the average student here is very smart, works his/her ass off, and gets a 3.35 GPA.</p>
<p>randombetch: that explains your odd reply haha, no I meant he went to an average public high school and then on to Princeton.</p>
<p>He’s taking the most challenging freshman classes you can take and finds them very difficult, but I don’t think he is more intelligent than the average Princeton student. He does have very good time management skills (honed from playing two sports and taking classes at three schools simeaultaneously) and amazing concentration. He can study physics or math for 8 hours at a stretch.</p>
<p>My point is that you can do well at Princeton, if you are willing to put in the hours when you need to. And there is still time to have fun.</p>
<p>I would say that the average student doing slightly above average amount of work, gets a 3.5something. Most of my friends had GPAs in that range, and we definitely did not spend all that much time on work–and we were not in easy majors (sciences mostly). To get the 3.7something you need to work significantly harder, or choose your classes wisely.</p>