<p>I’m a rising a sophomore next year at Brown, and was looking at the differences between APMA 33 and 35. On the website of the teacher who teaches APMA 33, it says a 92-100 is the range for an A, and 82-91 for a B. I don’t understand why the teacher is making it so difficult to get an A in this class??? Any idea??? This is very unfair and discouraging.</p>
<p>Sounds like enough people habitually get above 92% in the class that they make that the grade border. In orgo, it’s the opposite - the grade border can be down in the 80th percentile, since so few people get above that. Professors can decide their own grade borders, and usually move them around from year to year.</p>
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<p>So take the harder version APMA 35 instead, where the class is filled of those intending to major in math and yet the media test score is around 60%. You’ll get a more lenient curve – and you’ll need it.</p>
<p>^but presumably the tests are also more difficult in 35?</p>
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<p>I get the sense that 35 is a really tough course – it’s the first math course my son ever took where he got a B instead of a high A. That came as a bit of a surprise from a kid who has in the past only needed to glance at a new math concept once and move on to the next thing, while often inventing his own more-efficient way of solving problems on the fly.</p>
<p>Yes, I know Brown is filled with the nation’s best students and that many former vals suddenly become B students – there are no gimme A’s at Brown, at least in the STEM subjects. Still, he’s had no trouble getting mid to high A’s in his CS courses, physics courses and 1000-level stats course. APMA 35 is one of those courses, I think, where his strengths work against him: he’s a strongly visual learner who “sees” a solution in his head and tackles a problem simultaneously back to front and front to back and from the middle outward. Unfortunately, he’s been unable to visualize the meaning of his answers in this class. I would speculate that the A’s in this course end up going to those rare students comfortable enough with raw math theory to take it to the phD level.</p>
<p>i was more just saying that since so far i’ve only seen OP posting about how hard it has been for him to get As at Brown so I doubt taking a harder class would make it easier.</p>
<p>I actually ended up with a solid 3.5 (had a 3.33 last semester) at the end of freshmen year 
but I still think it’s unimaginably hard to get A’s here. All of the courses I’ve gotten A’s so far have been on the curve (only top 30% get A’s), but I have NOT taken a class like APMA 33 where there’s no set quotas for A’s and Bs but instead there are cutoffs. I was just really turned down by the high 92 percent the teacher has set because I wanted to take this next semester…</p>
<p>Stonesn, you’re doing great! Freshman year can often be the worst: first time away from home in an unfamiliar environment, constant distractions, tougher peer competition and higher professor expectations. It takes a little bit of time to get fully in sync – what athletes call being “in the zone.” Once you get prerequisites for your intended major out of the way, you are also better able to pick-and-choose classes and professors that are best attuned to your interests and learning style – classes where you are more likely to get the A’s.</p>
<p>What’s your intended concentration? Have you taken CS15? It’s good for concentrators as well as others with a passing interest. It’s not too hard to get a low A in that class if you do the work on time, but special competitions (for a trivial number of bonus points) provide challenges for those who wish to push their abilities to the limit. And it’s fun.</p>
<p>I thought Brown was known for grade inflation with 66% A’s and an average GPA of 3.63?</p>
<p>The highest % I have ever seen for As is 49% but often S/NC people are not in the denominator and brown’s grading system/curriculum make it a little unfair to compare 1:1 with other schools.</p>
<p>Also, since brown doesn’t calculate GPA, whenever you see an average GPA reported for brown, it is extrapolated from the school wide grade distribution and is not an actual average of the GPAs of students.</p>
<p>No one outside of CC looks at brown like that.</p>
<p>I think it’s harder to get an A in a STEM class where there is in fact a single correct answer as opposed to a humanities class where they may be many different correct interpretations. In any case, there are often more rigorous versions of many of the freshman and sophomore math and physics classes, so those who take the high road for advanced knowledge often run the risk of doing more work for slightly lower grades.</p>
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<p>Take away the mediocre and the lazy (not admitted) and the rest will naturally have better grades overall. My son took 5 courses at our local state university before formally beginning college and it was easy to get A’s with minimal studying there. At Brown, there are no gimme A’s for just showing up-- all the classes at a minimum require a lot of work and good comprehension of the material presented.</p>
<p>That’s VERY true. There is not even ONE class at Brown that automatically gives you an A. You really have to go above and beyond to get that A. As a student who just finished his first year (I’m undecided concentration), I found this out the hard way first semester (ended up with a 3.33 gpa), but now rose it up to a 3.5 overall by the end of this last semester. I really had to push my mental boundary and adapt to the new expectations. I actually think my brain physically grew by the end of this year.</p>
<p>Let’s be careful now. These are the true statistics for Brown’s grades: <a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University;
<p>If you’re too lazy to read it, it says that a little more than 50% of grades given out are A’s. Most grades are A’s. This is undeniable. Brown is not stingy about giving out A’s, it’s just that the students taking classes at Brown are very bright, so it will always be tough for a lot of people to get A’s.</p>
<p>You are right, sorry for the wrong number earlier. Brown is not shy about giving As to those who have earned them. Other than Econ with its new policy, the vast vast majority of professors believe you should be evaluated on your work alone, not your peers. This means a higher proportion of students getting As compared to our peers (who are being forced to compete against each other) but it doesn’t mean they just get handed out willy nilly.</p>
<p>Also, we have an extremely liberal drop policy where students can drop a class with no mark on their transcript up until reading period. I wonder (as much as i disagree with doing it) how many students, especially ones who would be in the C or even B range exercise that option to avoid receiving such grades.</p>
<p>I agree the average Brown student would set the curve at most universities but compared to the top 20’s Brown is very generous with A’s.<br>
53% of all students get A’s, 67% of students receiving a grade in the class get an A, only 4% earn a C (originally meant to mean average), 77% of grades in humanities are A’s, and you can drop classes late in the semester. I do think Ivy students should receive more A’s compared to most universities but I would not complain about how hard it is to get an A at Brown.</p>
<p>Looking at the table linked in post 13, it looks like the vast bulk of the grade inflation over the last decade has been in the life sciences: A’s have risen from 44.5% of the class to 57.2%. What’s with that? Are life science professors under pressure to help their students get into medical school? Also, as I suspected, physical sciences are still the toughest area to consistently get A’s.</p>
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<p>I don’t think one can conclude that earning an A is any easier at Brown than at other top 20 schools. A couple tenths difference in average GPAs can largely be explained by the lack of distribution requirements – if you only take classes that interest you rather than ones which are required of everyone, of course you’ll tend to work harder and test better. Then, too, the ability to take any class pass/fail (S/NC) and the ability to late drop also allows students to primarily focus on their core courses for the best grades.</p>
<p>Ya, its not like EARNING an A is easy. I think the “high” GPA mean of Brown is due to the fact that Brown students take classes in which they’re interested in and not classes they don’t want to be in.</p>
<p>Some As were much easier than others. Part of that was having a natural ability in the field instead of having to work hard to produce the same quality work.</p>
<p>I have TAed courses in CS where 90%+ did not require an outstanding knowledge of the material and nearly everyone received an A (this has since been fixed). I have TAed a curved class (33% As, 33% Bs, 33% Cs) where the cutoffs ended up being 90-100=A, 80-89%=B. I’ve also had language professors who considered A to mean perfection…it really does depend.</p>
<p>In a number of advanced classes, being able to survive the work was deemed to warrant an A. In some advanced classes, this was far from the case. I think it’s hard to generalize without more information; where do most of the Bs and Cs come from - big classes? Lower level classes? Classes without prerequisites? Students taking 5 courses?</p>
<p>I know pretty much no one ends up with all As. Presumably this means everyone meets their match somewhere. I don’t have answers, sadly, just thoughts.</p>