<p>While I know that grade inflation is looked down upon, I want to go to a very good graduate school and would not mind a higher GPA than peers from other schools. :D</p>
<p>I know that grade inflation at top schools might simply reflect a more studious student body, but still, which schools do you think inflate grades the most?</p>
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<p>The good graduate schools know exactly which schools have grade inflation & to what degree, so don’t think you have an advantage at a high grade inflation school.</p>
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<p>Yes, but maybe employers don’t, and getting into a very good MBA program (what I want to do, eventually) will require good work experience between undergrad and grad school. A higher GPA might help for better immediate employment. Plus, I’m guessing grade inflation involves slightly less stress over 4 years, something I won’t reject. Besides, I’m not going to reconstruct my college list based on who inflates or deflates grades, I just wanted to take it into consideration with my current list.</p>
<p>Generally all the Ivies and Standford (except for Princeton and Cornell)… But NOT the next tier down-- such as Berkeley, U Chicago, Wash U, U Mich, etc-- It’s actually pretty hard to get good grades at these colleges. If you do some research at the college you want to go to/apply to, do some research on things like what percentage of students who apply to grad school or med school get accepted?.. if these numbers are high, you know that you have a grade inflation school, if not, well, you’ll have to work your butt off the next four years to get the grades you want.</p>
<p>Brown and Dartmouth are the most notoriously known schools for grade inflation, closely followed by Yale and WU@SL.</p>
<p>Harvard and Stanford are more reputed for grade inflation than Yale is. I read a post that described the differences between Harvard, Yale, and Princeton as that Harvard is unparalleled academics with inflated grades, Yale is unparalleled academics with normal grades, and Princeton is unparalleled academics with deflated grades. Obviously, that brushes over many nuances of the schools, but the relevant point about grade inflation remains the same.</p>
<p>How can three schools all have “unparalleled academics”?</p>
<p>^^^ Parallel Inflation?</p>
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<p>I’d say you’re only half-right. The good professional schools (law and med) will know but won’t care. And it’s not as if the graduate programs have a table saying 3.4 at Princeton is the same as a 3.6 at Harvard.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard the most grade inflated top schools are (from greatest to least):Brown, Yale, Stanford, Dartmouth, Harvard</p>
<p>FWIW, a lot of people say Harvard is grade-inflated, and while the average grades seem pretty high you do have to take into account the type of people who tend to attend Harvard. They have many type A “never say die” people whom you see at all these top schools but a higher proportion at Harvard. It seems pretty logical to me that Harvard students’ grades would be higher than the other students’ grades even if they all went to the same school.</p>
<p>This is why the MCAT, LSAT, and GRE exams are so important.</p>
<p>A 4.0 at UCLA vs. a 4.0 at Harvard vs. a 4.0 at Georgia Southern; how do graduate and professional schools distinguish the real scholars from the socioeconomicly deprived kid without the actual ability to do high level postgrad from the economicaly disadvantaged kid who did not “win the lottery” with respect to admissions but is very capable? The standardized tests tell the tale. </p>
<p>The flow of highly capable former middle class students to state schools will impact post grad admissons for years.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if post grad programs will “defend the franchise” by dissing public school students who have higher test scores than private school applicants.</p>
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<p>I was trying to preserve the original quality of the post. I think they meant unparalleled in the figurative “best in the country” way, rather than literally unparalleled.</p>
<p>Morsmordre, Harvard shouldn’t have a higher percentage of extremely motivated, hard working and intelligent students than similar institutions such as MIT, Princeton or Yale. It’s not like it’s easier to get into these other places or that they require less of their applicants.</p>
<p>If you want an easy 4.0 just go to Caltech. All you do is sit around campus and play Starcraft all day and it’s easy to pull off an A- doing no work.</p>
<p>moosey, I didn’t mean to imply that is more selective (perhaps only slightly is). But the main point is that the tip-toppy upper crust cross-admits in terms of intelligence tend to choose Harvard if given the option (just in my experience) therefore driving up the overall intelligence.</p>
<p>Morsmordre, I don’t know how to measure the overall intelligence. You were from NJ, and in your class, there were about 10 USAMO qualifiers from Bergen Academies and West Windsors, only one went to Harvard. They may not be all-rounded, but I am sure that they were not less-intelligent compared with four or five I knew who went to Harvard last year., and they were all cross-admits with other HYP.</p>
<p>Harvard: 3.41 (2005)
Dartmouth: 3.42 (2007)
Columbia: 3.42 (2006)
Penn: 3.44 (2004)
Yale: 3.51 (2008)
Stanford: 3.55 (2005)
Brown: 3.61 (2007)</p>
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<p>I have never heard WUSTL mentioned as being notorious for grade inflation. If anything, the opposite would seem to be true, since the enormously large percentage of entering pre-med students is very drastically reduced very quickly. </p>
<p>[National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) used to redirect to Harvard’s website.</p>