I’m really interested in majoring in stats, but look at the average GPA makes me cringe. I don’t know if usually stats major in other institutions have on average a lower than 3.0 GPA, but this is rather daunting. Is there anyone who has taken stats at Cal and can tell me why it’s average GPA is even lower than engineering?
My son is a stats major at Cal (as well as a CS major). The stats classes are curved to a B- on average, which is why there is such a low GPA for the major. If you have done well in AP Stats and AP Calc BC (5’s), however, that bodes well for you.
@lfrancis95
Oh, I see. Would you mind telling me how your son is doing?
He has a 3.7 GPA both overall and in the major. So it can be done. But he always was particularly strong in math/stats. And he studies constantly with other stats majors to make sure he masters material. To succeed at Cal, it seems like you have to love your subject and academic challenge. Why do you want to study stats? My son is interested in data science, but many stats majors become actuaries.
@lfrancis95 You hit it right on the head, becoming an actuary like my cousin. I’m starting to prepare for the actuary exams too. Not only that but math is pretty interesting to me!
One thing to note is that many “average GPA” lists are listing the average grades given in department courses, not the average GPAs of statistics majors.
That is, you’ll only have to take 2 math, 6 stats, and 3 more technical courses to do the bare minimum for the major. All of that together makes up only 40 out of the 120-or-so units you’ll take at Berkeley. If you wanted, you could take much easier courses for the rest of your courseload to boost your GPA.
Most stats majors tend to take additional technical courses, though - many of us double-major (I’m doubling in CS, for instance).
I think the average GPA for stats is attributed to the rigor of the upper division courses. Most folks have to take Stat 134 to become a Statistics major, which is a particularly difficult class that is time consuming and requires a lot of focus. A lot of people fail/do poorly in the class and have to retake it again, as I have experienced with my friends who were in the class.
Other courses, like 135, and 15x series, are time consuming. There aren’t so much the proofs because there aren’t a lot of rigorous proofs in upper division Statistics from what I’ve seen so far, but just the mathematical maturity required to synthesize concepts effectively and deal with nasty (aka beautiful) equations can take up a lot of time. Also note that while one may denote the measure of difficulty by the mean or the rigor of the program, it doesn’t fully encapsulate why it has such a low GPA average, for curving and the mathematical/statistical maturity of students taking the course can skew that a lot.
I see, thanks!