<p>I completely agree with sakky with this one. I happen to know quite a few Yale alums since my cousin and his gf are recent graduates of Y and I know many of their friends. From their story, there are, surprisingly, quite a few average joes at Yale in terms of intelligence/motivation/academic skills. My cousin and his gf remarked how surprised they were back in their freshmen year when they had met people that led them to question, “how the heck did people like this get into Yale?” And, these students exclude those who got in through atheletic merits.</p>
<p>With that said, many of these mediocre students, and I mean really mediocre judging from their complete lack of interest for their studies and their lack of intellectual ambition, they still got away with decent gpa while doing a minimal level of work. My cousin remarked that most of these ‘medicore’ students still managed to pull of at least 2.8-2.9, and due to the grade inflation, getting a 3.0 is considered to be terrible since it will place you at the bottom 10-20% of the class. A 3.0 at other schools are far from being considered terrible and many people actually go on to flunk out at these other schools, like sakky indicated. </p>
<p>Also, I happen to attend an ivy myself. Even though I know several mediocre students here, I get the impression that these students, too, walk away with at least 2.7-2.8. My roomate, who came from grade inflated hs and did no work back in hs, struggled his freshmen yr at college and didn’t do so well bc he wasn’t conditioned to studying hard. Yet, he pulled off a 2.9 w/o much effort.</p>
<p>Not just Yale. The 2 kids that got into Harvard this year from my daughter’s highschool do not exhibit high intelligence either. One often falls asleep in class and the other one is just average.
This is not sourgrape, D did not even apply to HYP. It’s just an observation. The real brilliant kid of her high school is probably going to UCB. So unless you are real brilliant don’t go there, go to some private schools that don’t have grade deflation.</p>
<p>sakky–where do you get your information from? There are certainly a number of students who get Ds and Fs at Yale and Harvard. I am sure there are not as many as at UCB, but it is far from impossible to do so; I know some students who did work hard and received Ds occasionally at these schools. I think it’s wrong to assume that a student performing no work at Yale will still receive a C. Possibly that’s changed since Bush and Kerry’s time…I wouldn’t be surprised–the Ivies are far less “old boy” focused than they were a generation ago. My guess is that while Bush and Kerry were slackers, they were smart about picking easier classes and did just enough work to get by. There is no doubt in my mind that a student determined to pass and do no more at <i> either</i> Yale or Berkeley will be able to pull that off pretty equally easily.</p>
<p>I think the biggest reason why Berkeley and Yale have such different graduation rates and grade distribution is not because Yale has so much more grade inflation. I think grade deflation at Berkeley is a contributing factor, but I believe that it is a minor contributing factor. Rather, I think a more reasonable explanation is that Yale takes much greater measures to ensure that struggling students receive help than Berkeley does. Put another way, it is much harder to fall between the cracks at Yale than at Berkeley, and that is one of the primary reasons why students fail out at schools. I am sure that students who fail or are on track to fail at Yale have significantly more mandatory meetings with Deans and counselors than at Berkeley. Furthermore, it’s pretty difficult to half-ass a class of 25 and get away with it, and pretty hard not to get away with it in a class of 250.</p>
<p>Actually, no, not really. John Kerry actually received 5 or 6 D’s at Yale. But it is now widely acknowledged that Yale is actually easier now due to the well-documented nationwide grade inflation of the Vietnam War era (because professors at that time knew that flunking students out would cause them to lose their draft deferments). What earned Kerry a D in his classes would almost certainly earn him no worse than a C these days. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well then, there you go, as we’re now basically talking about the same thing. For whatever reason, you are far less likely to end up with bad grades at Yale than at Berkeley. And that has been my entire point.</p>
<p>I go to Duke, which is similar to Yale, and its EXTREMELY easy to get at least a 3.3-3.5 GPA - as in, missing the majority of classes, doing very little homework, and cramming 9-10 different nights a semester and doing virtually nothing the rest of it (aside from turning in small assignments, attendance to classes where that matters). I’m a political science major and also an economics major, as a point of reference. Engineers have it MUCH worse than me.</p>
<p>^that’s true. I agree that it is pretty darn easy to get at least 3.3 at my school too, considering the fact that most people I know manage to pull off at least 3.3-3.5 w/o that much work involved. At grade inflated schools, it isn’t hard to pull of mediocre grades. However, it is still very competitive to get a top gpa, 3.8-3.9 range. So, I would say that grade inflation rewards those who are in the bottom, but not much effect on those who are already on the top.</p>
<p>*an online survey of graduates from the Class of 2006, conducted by the News last week, suggests that the median grade-point average at graduation fell between 3.6 and 3.7 last year. Less than 5 percent of the 201 respondents to the poll reported a GPA lower than 3.0.</p>
<p>…Jonathan Bittner 07, who wrote a paper about grade inflation for an English class, said he was surprised that the median was so high, but not by the dearth of GPAs below 3.0.</p>
<p>Most people think the GPA scale goes from 3.0 to 4.0, he said. *</p>
<p>Actually, I think it is a distinction without a difference, for it’s all just a matter of perspective. </p>
<p>But at the end of the day, the truth is, certain schools are easier to get better grades at, even after factoring out the quality of the students. Grade inflation is therefore inherently a relative phenomenon.</p>
<p>TheThoughtProcess wrote: “I go to Duke, which is similar to Yale”. </p>
<p>I think I’ll leave that alone, as the last five words are not necessary to the point about grade inflation at elite private universities (though I think not at elite LACs).</p>
<p>sakky, I agree that the student you describe as having achieved primarily because of the pressure and structure from the parents’ home is <em>much</em> better off at a school that can devote the personal attention to encouraging a turn-around, than at a prestigious state university that doesn’t have the resources to hand-hold-- i.e. would be better off at Stanford than UCB.</p>
<p>I would expand that point further. After all, consider who we’re really talking about here: 17-18 year old kids. Most of them don’t really know how motivated they really are. Most of them have never lived away from their parents and consequently won’t know what will happen once they do. Most of them don’t have that kind of self-awareness. These are just kids we’re talking about here. </p>
<p>Yet you’re asking them to make a potentially fateful choice that is irreversible. For example, if you turn down Harvard or Stanford to go to some difficult, grade-deflated school where you then do poorly, you can’t just say “Oops, my bad”, and then decide that you’d rather take the Harvard or Stanford offer after all. Once you’ve turned it down, it’s done. </p>
<p>The grade-inflated private schools are therefore safe, risk-averse choices. They’re like insurance. Most people are risk-averse. Most people want to insure themselves. For example, if given the choice between a guaranteed $400k and a 50/50 chance at $1 million, most people will take the former. </p>
<p>Like I said, one of the best features of the top private schools is the assurance that you are going to graduate if you want to, and almost certainly with half-decent grades. You can’t really say that at other schools.</p>