<p>Your intro science classes, what do they curve to? What's the average grade in your physics class/chem/calc classes? (And what shcool are you at?) Do you consider your grades inflated or deflated?</p>
<p>Most schools don't have a set curve grade. None of the schools I have ever been to or taught at did. This is up to the individual professor, as I think it should be. I would say that on average, curves I have seen are set so that the average is right on the B/C line.</p>
<p>You copied my topic from the cafe forum</p>
<p>Oh well, no one was answering there. Hopefully I'll get some replies here.</p>
<p>Mine is like dr_reynolds. My first year science courses are generally curved to a 2.6</p>
<p>I think most MIT classes set the average at a B. Macroeconomics' average is allegedly an A-, which looks to be true. Apparently linear algebra puts their average at a B/C range, but I don't know how true that is.</p>
<p>Most UCLA science/engineering classes curve to a B- median (2.7), with a few exceptions which curve to a B median (3.0).</p>
<p>Most UIUC science/engineering classes curve to a B- median, but some curve to a C+ or a B. Stanford EE curves to a B+ median, with a suggested departmental policy of 40% A, 50% B, 10% C, and +/- grades for the top and bottom third within each letter grade range. I think among top programs, most publics are similar to UIUC and UCLA, while privates tend to curve like Stanford does.</p>
<p>40% A, 50% B, 10% C << that's crazy. You have a 90% Chance of having an A/B...</p>
<p>UCSD curves around B-/B depending on the class and level, much like UCLA.</p>
<p>
[quote]
40% A, 50% B, 10% C << that's crazy. You have a 90% Chance of having an A/B...
[/quote]
The competition is very stiff at Stanford, and everyone works very hard. Typical average homework grades are over 95%, and you can study your ass off and still fall well below the mean. I've TAed classes where people from industry were taking the class and they spent every waking hour outside of work on the class and still got a C.</p>
<p>yes, but still 90% of the people can get A's or B's?</p>
<p>No matter how you cut it, having 90% of an engineering class receive A's or B's is simply remarkable. Yes, obviously the competition is still very stiff and everybody works very hard. But hey, the same can be said for the other elite engineering schools like MIT and Caltech, yet you don't have 90% of the class receive A's or B' there. Not even close.</p>
<p>How can I find out what the school's policy/curves are? IE Johns Hopkins.</p>
<p>every school's different</p>
<p>
[quote]
No matter how you cut it, having 90% of an engineering class receive A's or B's is simply remarkable.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I definitely agree with this. Given our curve is usually to a B-, less than half the students get A's or B's in the class - a much lower probability of getting an equally high GPA.</p>
<p>My accelerated organic class was curved to a C. More people got D's than A's. That whole thing sucked.</p>
<p>
[quote]
No matter how you cut it, having 90% of an engineering class receive A's or B's is simply remarkable. Yes, obviously the competition is still very stiff and everybody works very hard. But hey, the same can be said for the other elite engineering schools like MIT and Caltech, yet you don't have 90% of the class receive A's or B' there. Not even close.
[/quote]
I'll be the first to admit that Stanford has grade inflation, but grad schools know what the deal is. A guy from Caltech with a 3.4 can still get into top grad programs, while the same guy from Stanford probably would not. From talking to the Caltech people I know, they're surprised that the average incoming GPAs of top students are around 3.8 to 3.9, because they're used to seeing their friends go off to top programs.</p>
<p>at my school it just depends on the professor, all my math classes have been 90%-A, 80%-B,70%-C but my computer science classes generally curve.
usually around the top 20% get A's the next 20% get B's and then next 30% get Cs and the rest fail. and due to this I took a class where 40% was an A, and another class where the professor failed about half the class :(
this class was bad, there were people taking this class for the 4rth time</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'll be the first to admit that Stanford has grade inflation, but grad schools know what the deal is. A guy from Caltech with a 3.4 can still get into top grad programs, while the same guy from Stanford probably would not. From talking to the Caltech people I know, they're surprised that the average incoming GPAs of top students are around 3.8 to 3.9, because they're used to seeing their friends go off to top programs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree that MS and PhD programs do know and correct for the grade inflation disparity. Hence, if your goal is to get one of these degrees, then you should have little fear of attending a difficult school like MIT or Stanford.</p>
<p>However, there are certain other graduate schools that either don't know about the grade deflation in the more difficult programs, or (more likely) don't care. As I've discussed numerous times on CC, law school and med-school admissions are tremendously numbers-driven. These adcoms either don't know or don't want to know that different schools have wildly varying grading standards. I now see that the consensus opinion on the Caltech CC section is that if you want to later go to law school or med-school, you shouldn't come to Caltech. Sadly, the same can probably be said about MIT. I wish it wasn't true, but it is true. </p>
<p>The same can be said for the various 'prestige' scholarship competitions like the Rhodes Scholarship and its prestigious cousins like the Truman Scholarship, Marshall Scholarship, and the like. These scholarship competitions are also highly GPA-intensive. While I have no proof of this, I would not be surprised to see that relatively few engineers and/or students from difficult schools become Rhodes Scholars. To even become eligible to compete for a Rhodes Scholarship, you have to be endorsed by your school, and many schools have specific policies that state that they will not endorse you if you don't have a minimum GPA. No consideration is given to whether you are in a difficult major or not. You either have that minimum GPA to get your school's endorsement, or you don't. </p>
<p>And then there are of course the other benefits associated with grade inflation. Some of them are admittedly rather trivial, i.e. I know my car insurance policy gives college students a 10% discount on premiums if they maintain a 3.0 GPA, but without any consideration for how difficult it is to get that 3.0. So some dude who has a 3.0 in an easy major at a no-name school will get that discount, but a guy at Caltech with a 2.9 in engineering won't get that discount. Sure, that's a pretty trivial example, but hey, it's always nice to have a discount. And then there are certain jobs that will actually start you at a higher paygrade if you have a certain GPA, without regard for how difficult your school is. Certain government jobs are notorious for this. So some guy who got a high GPA at a no-name school may end up with a better job offer from that government agency than a guy from MIT with a mediocre GPA. </p>
<p>The upshot is that I would say that Stanford probably has the 'perfect' undergraduate engineering program in the sense that not only is it an extremely highly regarded program, but it also is one of the most lenient programs in terms of grading. That keeps your options open. If you get your engineering degree and you decide that you'd rather be a doctor or a lawyer, you can do that more readily coming out of Stanford. </p>
<p>In fact, I think that Caltech and MIT should move towards the Stanford model. By instituting tough grading policies, MIT and Caltech are only hurting their own students. Their students become less competitive to win bigtime international scholarships. They become less competitive to enter certain professional schools. It's a sad thing to say, because I believe that hard work and rigor ought to be rewarded. But sometimes it's not.</p>
<p>I'm an undergrad majoring in EE at Stanford. Actually, im_blue is partially correct about grade dist. The 40% (A) 50% (B) 10% (C) grade distribution that he cited as the curve at Stanford is for EE graduate level courses (courses numbered above 200). While undergrads need to take some 200 level courses as electives, in the undergraduate core classes (100 level courses), the profs give As to about the top 25-30 percent of the class This grade distrubution is still grade inflated but more in line with other schools im my opinion. </p>
<p>Generally, at all schools graduate level courses tend to have more generous grading than undergradute classes, but the GPA requirements also go up. When you keep in mind that Stanford EE graduate students need to maintain a 3.5 GPA in order to qualify for the Ph.D program, it is easy to see how competitive Stanford EE grad school is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Given our curve is usually to a B-, less than half the students get A's or B's in the class - a much lower probability of getting an equally high GPA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How come less than half the students get A's and B's, when the median is set to B- (which is a B)?</p>