<p>UIUC has a 75% acceptance rate and SAT ranges of:
Verbal: 550-670
Math: 620-730</p>
<p>compared to Chicago's:</p>
<p>40% acceptance rate and
Verbal: 680-770
Math: 670-760</p>
<p>You should take this information into account, as it shows that UIUC admits many students that are, ultimately, not as intelligent as those at UChicago. At the same time, these <em>less intelligent</em> students achieve, on average, a GPA of 3.12. The <em>more intelligent</em> students at Chicago receive, on average, a 3.26. That is not a very large difference at all, and it cannot be denied that Chicago is a more difficult school than UIUC. To argue that it is "easier" to get a higher GPA at Chicago based on the information you have provided (tom) just doesn't add up.</p>
<p>If you were to take the same student and could somehow have him attend both universities, it is highly probable that he would receive a higher GPA at UIUC than at UChicago.</p>
<p>If you are looking at top law schools, most will be able to accept a lower UC GPA and will know how to gauge your GPA and compare it to grade inflating Harvard. UC will give you more personal attention than a state school like UIUC and advisers will help you with law school admissions from day one. Also, UC will help you get jobs out of college more than UIUC based on name recognition (I think jobs help in law school admissions). Also, the LSAT score plays a role in the admissions process, so it may not matter where you go if you get a perfect score on that. I would suggest looking at law school acceptances and which law schools have UC and UIUC kids. I would guess UC will have better numbers at top law schools.</p>
<p>i think you might mean U of C, but i wouldn't suggest looking at which law schools have which undergrad students since that carries assumptions about the general behavior of students rather that possibilities for a particular student. Chicago may attract more students that have a tendency toward law type thinking than schools with very similar numbers, for one small example. </p>
<p>i think it is all a balance of choice between which school will make you most happy and which you can do very well in. if you find a school that is a perfect fit and you think you can do well there, that is clearly ideal. unfortunately this choice is rarely ours. between a state school and an attractive private school is obviously tricky, and for the person who thinks he would be happy at Chicago.. it is very difficult.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you are looking at top law schools, most will be able to accept a lower UC GPA and will know how to gauge your GPA and compare it to grade inflating Harvard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, this claim is completely uncorroborated.</p>
<p>Come on, this is becoming rather silly: do you think you can post claims here without providing a sufficient amount of evidence? Even tomslawsky's arguments specious and simple-minded as they are use the gradeinflation website. You provide nothing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
To the OP-
Chicago GPA's are higher than UIUC GPA's. If you want to maximize your chances of a high GPA, attend Chicago over UIUC.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Tom, I agree with others here when I say that you have not addressed the point that UC students are of higher quality than UIUC students. </p>
<p>To give you an example, I know of a certain advanced engineering seminar at MIT where everybody in the class got A's. Of course it should be noted that everybody taking the class was an advanced MIT PhD student. I would hardly call that class 'grade inflated', because any regular person who walked into that class would be instantly blown away. If you were not an advanced doctoral student yourself, then literally by the first slide of every class presentation, you would already have no idea what the heck anybody was talking about. So any regular person who took this class is assured of getting an F. You are far more likely to get a good grade in a class where you are clearly better than the average student. Who cares if only 10% of a particular class gets A's if you have no problem scoring comfortably within that top 10%? </p>
<p>The truth is, at many schools, there are a lot of mediocre students who aren't that bright and don't want to work hard. It's not that hard to outperform THEM. Heck, even at my old undergrad school, there are students who would literally not go to class or study anything for weeks at a time, spending all that time drinking and partying. And they come into the exam barely having a clue of what is going on. It's not that hard to beat THEM on the exams.</p>
<p>Soul: No respectable institution has a pre-law major. I am pre-law at UChicago - there is a pre-law advisor you can meet with, as well as the entire Career Advising and Planning Services which can help you with resumes, letters of rec, and that sort of thing.</p>
<p>...and I am sure the advising services are excellent (I am not being sarcastic).</p>
<p>The pre-law advising at any top institution would be excellent. In addition, there may be opportunities to gain an advantage in a law school's admission process if you attend the same undergraduate institution; for instance, Georgetown Law Center does group interviews only at Georgetown University.</p>
<p>In addition to nspeds' comment, if anyone is likely to look at a UChicago 3.5 and say "Well, that's basically a Harvard 3.7" it's going to be UChicago Law. I'm not saying they do that, but it stands to reason that if anyone is going to say UChicago 3.5s should count better because UChicago is straight up harder, it's going to be UChicago Law.</p>
<p>Northwestern (on campus visit) said they know how rigorous UChicago is and take that into account during admissions. No further details were given.</p>
<p>For everyone who says that U-Chicago students should have better GPA's because the University only accept people with high SAT scores, please read the following and stop rationalizing the grade inflation. It's a fact of academia and if you go to U-chicago, statistically speaking, you will have a better chance at a higher GPA. Period. The numbers are the numbers- spin them all you want.</p>
<p>" A recent study by the University of California system of matriculates showed that SAT scores explained less than 14% of the variance in GPA. Bowen and Bok, in a 1998 analysis of five highly selective schools, found that SAT scores explained only 20% of the variance in class ranking. Their analysis also indicated that a 100 point increase in SAT was responsible for, at most, a 5.9 percent increase in class rank which corresponds to roughly a 0.10 increase in GPA. This result matches that of Vars and Bowen who looked at the relationship between SAT and GPA for 11 selective institutions. McSpirit and Jones in a 1999 study of grades at a public open-admissions university, found a coefficient of 0.14 for the relationship between a 100 point increase in SAT and GPA."</p>
<p>"Even tomslawsky's arguments – specious and simple-minded as they are – use the gradeinflation website. "</p>
<p>Hey J A C K A S S - I am providing quantifiable data, how is that simple minded? Tell me specifically why the argument is simple minded, please- NOT why you disagree with it- keep to quantafiable data and logically flowing points.</p>
<p>The bottom line- based on the DATA- Chicago grades easier than UIUC and Harvard grades easier than Chicago and Dartmouth grades even easier, etc...</p>
<p>Oh, Georgia Tech students are by no means slouches, yet their average GPA is a 2.8, University of Texas=2.8</p>
<p>
[quote]
The bottom line- based on the DATA- Chicago grades easier than UIUC and Harvard grades easier than Chicago and Dartmouth grades even easier, etc...
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Of course, there is the argument that one cannot derive such conclusions based solely on that... DATA.</p>
<p>I think that argument was made more than three times in this thread.</p>
<p>Still, despite whatever study you may bring up, I don't believe that the students at Chicago are academically <em>on par</em> (on average) with the students at UIUC. A state school with a 75% acceptance rate and considerably lower average SATs is, logically, going to bring in less competitive applicants than UChicago. Therefore it seems a bit absurd to compare a GPA earned at Chicago as equivalent to one earned at UIUC. The students at UChicago are still, ON AVERAGE, going to be smarter than those at UIUC. If Chicago wasn't a more difficult school, why else would they be earning a similar GPA?</p>
<p>1.) Your study ignores the impact of HS GPA.
2.) The study you quoted ignores the possibility that SAT scores are failing to predict precisely because students go to different schools based on their SAT scores.</p>
<p>Grade inflation is clearly happening. It's clearly a trend.</p>
<p>Time and time again, you fail convincingly to use that fact to support your actual conclusion.</p>
<p>You'd have to demonstrate a differential in grade inflation between the two schools, controlling for major distribution and student ability.</p>
<p>Arguing that grade inflation happens is true but irrelevant; arguing that SATs do not predict college GPA is also true but also irrelevant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For everyone who says that U-Chicago students should have better GPA's because the University only accept people with high SAT scores, please read the following and stop rationalizing the grade inflation.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't speak for others, but my basis is not SOLELY the SAT score. The fact is, UC is a more selective school that UIUC due to a NUMBER of selection criteria. Hence, at the end of the day, UC students are, on average, better students, than UIUC students, and that can explain at least some, potentially all, of the difference in grading. </p>
<p>
[quote]
It's a fact of academia and if you go to U-chicago, statistically speaking, you will have a better chance at a higher GPA. Period. The numbers are the numbers- spin them all you want.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, the numbers are 'not' the numbers. Again, the question is where do you stack up relative to the students at any particular school. THAT is how you truly measure grade inflation. </p>
<p>Put another way, it doesn't matter if 90% of your school gets A's if you are clearly the worst student in your school. If that is the case, then statistically speaking, you have a poor chance of getting an A because you can't beat anybody.</p>
<p>Once again, I disagree- I strongly feel that grade inflation can be measured using trends within the same school. Actually, at the uooer tier of schools, this should be even more accurate. The admission standards at the IVY's have not really changed much, but the GPAs have continued to rise.</p>
<p>Tom, nobody is arguing that the Ivies have increased their grading standards. * But so have many non-Ivies *. For example, UIUC has inflated its grades over time too. Just like you have argued that admissions standards have not changed much with time, I could also argue that admissions standads at UIUC have not changed much with time either. </p>
<p>But that's neither here nor there. What we are talking about are not * longitudinal * comparisons of grades, but rather * cross-sectional* comparisons of grades. Nobody disputes that college grades today are, in general, inflated relative to that in those in the past, but this is true whether we are talking about Ivies or non-Ivies. What is important in this discussion is a comparison of grading standards * between schools today *. After all, nobody has the choice of using a time machine and going to a school in the past or in the future. All we can do is make a choice between two schools * in the present time *. </p>
<p>Hence, it's not clear to me that UC is grade-inflated relative to UIUC * today *. We can all talk about how schools were inflated relative to how they were in the past. But that has nothing to do with the issue on the table, which is to make a cross-sectional choice between schools, keeping time constant.</p>