I’m here as a first year right now and am pulling my first B in a math class lol (I feel like this is to be expected though). Anyway, seeing as how we were all overachieving crazy people in high school, how did you see your grades change when you came to Duke? With that in mind, what would you say is the average GPA of a student here? And how high should your GPA be in order to have a good chance at getting into a competitive high school?
(Also, for the record, I hear that Harvard has had some problems with grade inflation- just for kicks, are the undergraduate academics here at Duke harder than those at Harvard? Would love to complain to some Harvard alums I know if they are ;). )
Duke is definitely not known for grade deflation (schools like MIT, Princeton, etc). So if you are accepted, this means that the admissions committee means that you can do the work.
Its definitely no cake walk, and you will be challenged. But don’t fret because you got a single B.
If it’s of any consolation, my son’s close friend at Cornell said to him after her first semester in freshmen year last year that her 3.0 GPA was better than anyone else in her class… ;))
Another close friend of his at Duke had quite a hard time in his freshmen year, as well.
^Note that average GPA varies considerably major to major. Math, hard sciences, engineering are usually more harshly graded and also typically have students who performed academically better (at least test score-wise) in high school so your “competition” is also tougher. There are many Duke graduate who go on to major career success who have ~3.0 GPAs or even below (gasp!), so I wouldn’t freak out, but certainly you want to do as well as you can without sacrificing other experiences. You get a class rank (at least I did) at Duke after every semester, so you can see how your GPA relates to others at your school (Trinity and Pratt are separate).
And, yes, Harvard is known for having extreme grade inflation such that a few years ago almost 90% of its graduates, graduated with “honors.” I was told previously told you get an A if you try hard and a B if you don’t at Harvard, but obviously, that is way oversimplified and clearly there are very demanding courses offered there with top notch students and professors who have high standards.