<p>Deflation. Is this true, especially for biology majors?</p>
<p>Some people will probably not agree with me on this …</p>
<p>I feel like there IS deflation in some courses at Cal, but usually, if you get a bad grade, it’s because you didn’t fully grasp the course material and not because your professor is on a one-man war to fight high grades.</p>
<p>Yeah he’s right. Berkeley just makes sure that you understand the concepts. If you don’t, you’re screwed. But on the bright side, if you learn everything properly, then you’ll do fine after you get out of here in 4 years. It’s like a private high school that challenges their students. It may be harder than a public high school and you may get a lower gpa, but if you do your best, you’ll be better prepared for college. I wish I knew this before. : ]</p>
<p>Most People who complain about their GPA should blame themselves, not Berkeley. Most people here cannot handle their freedom, manage their time, can’t work when there is no pressure, or are simply too immature. They are used to hand-holding from parents and high school and when they come here they are suddenly by themselves and can’t handle it. The waste their time with videogames, facebook, weed, drugs, alcohol, etc or can finally be lazy the first time in their lives. THAT’s what causes a low GPA for most people here, not Berkeley’s evil grade deflation. Berkeley is just filled with those E-Mom spoiled kids who just can’t handle living their own life.</p>
<p>Now, I’m not saying the grade deflation myths are totally wrong. Even if you’re not one of those kids you’ll probably end up with a GPA lower than at most other schools. If you are premed or any other major where you career heavily depends on GPA you’ll have a very hard time at Berkeley due to the competition. You’d be much better off at any other school.</p>
<p>I can’t talk for Biology majors in particular since I don’t have much experience with it. But I guess you’ll share a lot of classes with the premed kids, so it will be pretty though.</p>
<p>
Uh, I don’t wanna burst your bubble, but probably 90% of what you learn in university will be totally irrelevant after you graduate. That is, if you work in the industry. If you go to graduate school you may be lucky and only 80% is irrelevant 
On top of that, you will forget most of what you have learned over the years anyway.</p>
<p>You GPA on the other hand won’t be irrelevant. Employers will look at it. Graduate schools will look at it. If it’s not good enough you simply won’t get hired/get in despite all your (irrelevant) “knowledge”.</p>
<p>I think an important thing is picking classes that aren’t going to wreck your gpa (not picking easy classes). </p>
<p>I would be getting straight A’s this semester if I swapped Physics 7C and CS 47B for CS 61B. The amount of work do for 47B and the way they grade it, makes it so if you did not have time to do the work until November, you will do really poorly. I had no idea how much work there was in that class until the beginning of this month, when its like I have 2 normal sized projects and one huge project due Dec. 3rd, as well as 3 quizzes and a final, and no time to do it in.</p>
<p>Had I picked a schedule that made more sense (read: had I found people who took the course before) I would have saved myself a lot of frustration and would’ve saved my GPA a lot.</p>
<p>So find people who have taken the classes before (better with same professor) and they’ll help you avoid classes that will unnecessarily hurt your gpa.</p>
<p>Actually, several UCB graduates said that themselves. After getting out of Berkeley, med school isn’t that hard because Berkeley really challenged them. These are people who went to UCSF right now and other well-known med schools. The work is much more intense, and they LEARN to study here if they made it there.</p>
<p>i took a look at your stats from your post history. with a 2370 SAT (assuming that you didn’t prep-course your way to that score), you should be fine here.</p>
<p>25-30% of the students in most of the pre-med classes get A’s, and the median score is a B-. there is no grade deflation here lol.</p>
<p>^Uh…I hate to start another good ol’ CC “SAT score v. success in college” debate…but isn’t it pretty much accepted that SAT scores DON’T predict college success? What does his high SAT score have to do with grade deflation?</p>
<p>As a student here, I would argue that if you can’t cut it in Berkeley, than you can’t cut it in Medical / Law school either. Only in a few classes (Econ 1) have I been curved against because the test was just too easy. Usually, you’ll get an A if you understand the material throughly</p>
<p>On a side note, I feel there is a good way to predict whether or not you’ll be academically successful in Berkeley. If you go to a decently good high school and have been the leader of your class and get solid A’s then I think you’d be fine here. On the other hand, if you’ve been a strong student but usually scrape by with a 90% or 89.8 in most of your classes, then you’ll probably be struggling. Of course if you go to a very rigorous high school or a very weak one, then this isn’t true, but for many high schools this is.</p>
<p>@kev: it doesn’t have anything to do with grade deflation. i’m just saying that if the OP scored that well on the SAT it probably means he/she is pretty smart and can probably do well at any college. that being said, hard work is far more important than smarts at getting a high GPA.</p>
<p>work hard, keep up, and don’t get distracted. A weak work ethic leads to a lower GPA, not the school.</p>
<p>^ Agreed.</p>
<p>I can almost guarantee that what you did in high school will not work here, especially for bio majors. Cal is what college should be- challenge you to step up your game.</p>
<p>by providing me with some bad teachers/GSIs? that’s not my idea of college at all.</p>
<p>@Thomas: I really don’t mean for this to come across as hostile, but you sounded incredibly self-righteous in your post. Would you hold the same opinion about students who have mental illnesses and as this is the first time in their lives where they don’t have support structure, it often degenerates into full blown depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorders, or schizophrenia – if they get poor grades through college is that their fault? </p>
<p>Or are you one of these types that believes that those, especially the former three are dumbass fake diseases and you need to get over it and study harder / get out more / get laid, etc. I ask this because I suffer from the first two, (though admittedly, I did not want to face it really – pride and fear of being seen weak on my part) – but my GPA could probably have been about .2 points higher if I had sought treatment rather than buying into the stigma. For me, alcohol, weed, exercise, and video game were coping mechanisms. Yet, I still managed to hold my own. There are thousands more people like me who were unable to cope or find what worked for them.</p>
<p>Are those students stupid, lazy, or unmotivated? I, myself, graduated with a reasonably high GPA and honors in my major, but it hurts to know what I lost because I was sick. Cal is rough, there are ways to cope and resources there – though generally Tang isn’t the best to get real psychiatric help, but its a step. I just think it’s unfair to paint all students whose first time away from home is scarred by the horrors of mental illness as lazy and needing to get up off their asses and work.</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure out discussion does not include people who have mental diseases or are suffering family hardships etc </p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Thomas_ says “Most people …” </p>
<p>So of course those without special circumstances don’t fall under the category of “most.”</p>
<p>Bottom line is: Don’t be a victim. Don’t come out of a class and say “Oh, I got a low grade because this class was hard” Don’t come out of Berkeley and say “Oh I have a low GPA because Berkeley is tough” </p>
<p>You got a low grade because you didn’t work hard enough or because your not born with enough intelligence or because you had to hold a part time job and didn’t have time or …
It’s not the college that gives people low grades, it’s a person’s circumstances and choices.</p>
<p>lol. If everyone thought like that, there would be an unimaginable amount of suicides and depressed kids.</p>
<p>
Of course not. I’m sorry if it came across like that and that you are one of these cases. But it seems like you are still pretty well off, graduating with honors and a .2 difference won’t hurt you that much I was more talking about the people screwing up big time and then realizing it later on. Glad you made it out with great graded despite of your problems. </p>
<p>When rereading my post I can totally understand how it sounds offensive. I am simply disappointed by my experience at Cal, which makes me angry sometimes. I was expecting to meet like-minded and mature people here, but I haven’t met a lot of them (I did meet some). Most people I have met are in my opinion immature and spoiled kids who I can’t relate to. I haven’t met anyone having the diseases you mentioned so they are of course not included.</p>
<p>Now, a question for you.</p>
<p>
If there are really thousands of people like that, then maybe something is going on here? Do you think you would have fallen into a depression at another school? Before I came to Berkeley I was a motivated, outgoing, social and happy person. That was not in High School, I transferred to Berkeley and lived at UCLA for 2 years before. I was extremely happy. These days I am even thinking about going to the Tang center to get some counseling ; ) I would say that I am still pretty social, only a few days ago someone told me that I’m one of the more social and outgoing people at Berkeley. However, since I came here my life has basically turned around, in a bad way. And I am not the only one here thinking like that.</p>