<p>Is anyone taking biology classes or science classes at the univeristy of maryland college park knows if the prof. gives any curves to the grades ? and how hard are these classes?
thinking of going to this school , major in bio,
also thinking of BU, heard that its harder to get A in their classes,
also heard that some colleges does grade inflation and some deflate them
thanks for any info</p>
<p>I don’t think you can universally say that there is inflation or deflation of grades, especially in the science classes. Some professors curve, and some do not. D2 is taking a biology class in which the biology professor says she will NOT curve, but both D’s have benefited in the past by curves. </p>
<p>If there are curves, it is (almost?) always because all of the grades in the class are way low. The curve doesn’t negatively impact students. One of D1’s physics classes was crazy hard. Her overall grade at the end of the semester (2 midterms and a final) was a 61%. She got an A in the course, as hers was the highest grade in the class 
I don’t know how this fits in your definition of grade inflation/deflation, but I think there were maybe 3 A’s in the class of 20-something people.</p>
<p>You can look at ourumd.com for grade distribution for specific courses and/or professors. This is HIGHLY recommended before registering, especially after the first semester, when you will probably have more choices for courses/times/profs etc. This is usually much more helpful for grade distribution and comments than ratemyprofessor.com.</p>
<p>You will notice that there are few to no F’s that show in most class grade distributions…keep in mind that most students who would have received an F withdraw from a class rather than get an F…;it is certainly NOT the case that no one flunks classes. There are a few courses (some of the CORE classes come to mind) that have a pretty high distribution of A’s and B’s compared to C’s and D’s. Especially for science classes that count towards a major, this will rarely be the case.</p>
<p>Just an addendum to what astro-mom is saying, a D at UMD is failing. So most teachers will just group any F students into D as you can’t use a D towards any major or CORE requirements anyway.
So the amount of failures are the D’s.</p>
<p>@APM, “One of D1’s physics classes was crazy hard. Her overall grade at the end of the semester (2 midterms and a final) was a 61%.”</p>
<p>Hmm, which physics class was that? I’m taking 270/71 this fall and I wasn’t expecting it to be that difficult, but since this will be my first (and only) physics course at Maryland I can’t be certain. I hope you are talking about some upper level “majors only” type course. :)</p>
<p>Plum, I don’t remember which course it was, but no sane person who isn’t majoring in physics would take it!!! (It was either a 300 level or 400 level, and was certainly one of her least favorite classes!!)</p>