UG Schools' Mean GPAs Forum

[CanadianWolf]

Brown is a poor example for GPA purposes. In the very recent past, Brown University has allowed students to make a decision one month into the term that if their grade is below, for example, an "A", then that student then will be graded only on a pass-fail basis. Brown allows unlimited pass-fail courses in order to encourage students to take courses outside of their comfort zone.

P.S. Brown uses a grading system of "A", "B", "C" or "NC" unless the student elects pass-fail grading for that course.

[NYC Law]

Brown is a poor example for GPA purposes. In the very recent past, Brown University has allowed students to make agreements with profs that if their grade is below, for example, an "A-", then that student then will be graded only on a pass-fail basis. Brown allows unlimited pass-fail courses in order to encourage students to take courses outside of their comfort zone.

Aw man that sounds awesome. I REALLY wanted to be more involved in science courses during UG, but I was scared to death of them since I knew I wanted law school and they'd kill my GPA.

[512]

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[Patriot1208]

LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

Such a high average GPA means the program isn't hard enough by definition. It doesn't matter whether Brown's undergrad programs are harder compared to other schools. What matters is whether Brown's programs are hard enough for the students attending Brown. And apparently they aren't.

Reed College is an example of one of only a few schools that does grading right.

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

[Patriot1208]

haha I've seen some statistic that Brown gives ~60% A's in the Liberal Arts department or something ridiculous like that. Makes me wish I went there... definitely would've if I'd known back then that I wanted to go to Law School.

Ya, brown is the extreme example. They let any class be taken pass/fail and you can switch almost the entire semester. And they don't give +'s or -'s.

[ThomasMN]

LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

Such a high average GPA means the program isn't hard enough by definition. It doesn't matter whether Brown's undergrad programs are harder compared to other schools. What matters is whether Brown's programs are hard enough for the students attending Brown. And apparently they aren't.

Reed College is an example of one of only a few schools that does grading right.

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

I agree. The fact is that most of the people who attend those "grade-inflated" ivies had stellar HS grades and standardized test scores. It should also be noted that all those "grade-inflated" schools also tend to have off the wall average LSAT scorers ( not to mention what their median LSAT might be).

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

[09042014]

Damn, the mean GPA for the college of engineering at U of I is .27 below the school average. That blows.

[Curry]

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

That reason is that its easier to compare students. A shitload of students can have a 3.5 Not many have a 170. It has nothing to do with grade inflation.

[fatdouche]

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

That reason is that its easier to compare students. A shitload of students can have a 3.5 Not many have a 170. It has nothing to do with grade inflation.

This guy knows his stuff.

[ThomasMN]

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

That reason is that its easier to compare students. A shitload of students can have a 3.5 Not many have a 170. It has nothing to do with grade inflation.

A shit-load of students also don't have a 4.0, or even a 3.9+. There is a reason ( beyond just USNWR ) that schools of all sorts use standardized tests like the LSAT to attempt and measure performance. Grades are not all given by a single centralized authority, the LSAT is.

[fatdouche]

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

That reason is that its easier to compare students. A shitload of students can have a 3.5 Not many have a 170. It has nothing to do with grade inflation.

A shit-load of students also don't have a 4.0, or even a 3.9+. There is a reason ( beyond just USNWR ) that schools of all sorts use standardized tests like the LSAT to attempt and measure performance. Grades are not all given by a single centralized authority, the LSAT is.

None of that = Grade Inflation.

[ThomasMN]

It should also be noted that admission deans know what schools are inflated etc. There is a reason that most law schools care more about your LSAT score than your GPA.

That reason is that its easier to compare students. A shitload of students can have a 3.5 Not many have a 170. It has nothing to do with grade inflation.

A shit-load of students also don't have a 4.0, or even a 3.9+. There is a reason ( beyond just USNWR ) that schools of all sorts use standardized tests like the LSAT to attempt and measure performance. Grades are not all given by a single centralized authority, the LSAT is.

None of that = Grade Inflation.

The whole concept of why grade inflation happens is what pushes those: subjectivity of grade issuing authorities, serious statistical differences between the average grades given at different universities, and serious differences between grades given to different majors / colleges within a university. An admissions dean may not say outright grade inflation, but they will label every factor that goes INTO grade inflation as to why they use the LSAT.

[Corwin]

LOL at the grade inflation at the Ivys.

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

Such a high average GPA means the program isn't hard enough by definition. It doesn't matter whether Brown's undergrad programs are harder compared to other schools. What matters is whether Brown's programs are hard enough for the students attending Brown. And apparently they aren't.

Reed College is an example of one of only a few schools that does grading right.

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

"A" level work should never be 50% of the class if the class is appropriately geared to the student body. Yes, we could all do "A" level work in finger painting, but why go to college to take classes like that? College courses should be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. As for the claim that strict grading hurts hiring, it simply doesn't. The average GPA of Reed College is somewhere around 3.0 and their student body does very well: http://web.reed.edu/ir/awards.html. Same goes for top Engineering programs where the average GPA is usually around a 3.0 as well.

[Corwin]

Damn, the mean GPA for the college of engineering at U of I is .27 below the school average. That blows.

How do you know what the mean GPA is for the college of engineering at U of I?

[09042014]

Damn, the mean GPA for the college of engineering at U of I is .27 below the school average. That blows.

How do you know what the mean GPA is for the college of engineering at U of I?

They accidentally emailed everyone in my depart a list of everyones; names, address, student ID, GPA, and other info.

It was interesting. All different sub groups, asian, white, indian, black, hispanic, male, female all ended up at damn near 3.0 mean, and 3.1 median.

[Patriot1208]

You do realize that it is extremely flawed to assume that a higher average gpa means it is easier to get a higher grade, right?

Such a high average GPA means the program isn't hard enough by definition. It doesn't matter whether Brown's undergrad programs are harder compared to other schools. What matters is whether Brown's programs are hard enough for the students attending Brown. And apparently they aren't.

Reed College is an example of one of only a few schools that does grading right.

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

"A" level work should never be 50% of the class if the class is appropriately geared to the student body. Yes, we could all do "A" level work in finger painting, but why go to college to take classes like that? College courses should be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. As for the claim that strict grading hurts hiring, it simply doesn't. The average GPA of Reed College is somewhere around 3.0 and their student body does very well: http://web.reed.edu/ir/awards.html. Same goes for top Engineering programs where the average GPA is usually around a 3.0 as well.

Except, it does hurt people in jobs. Mckinsey has a fairly strict 3.5 cutoff, no matter what school you go to. There will still be people above those grades because someone has to do well. But it will certainly hurt the number of people who get these tops of jobs. Same things with law schools, other graduate programs, etc. Then people lose their incentive to go to Harvard. Harvard stops placing as many people into consulting, banking, top law schools, top graduate programs, etc. Engineering is a different story because it's that way across the field, not at one school or the other. What happens is the median kid (say 3.0 in your scenario) at Harvard ends up being worse off in the job market than the top 25% kid at Notre Dame. Sorry, there is only so much you can ask of undergrads. In your scenario you want the median kid at Wisconsin to have the same law school possibilities as the median kid at Harvard, even though you'd suspect that the median kid at Harvard has had a lot more academic success in his lifetime.

[Corwin]

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

"A" level work should never be 50% of the class if the class is appropriately geared to the student body. Yes, we could all do "A" level work in finger painting, but why go to college to take classes like that? College courses should be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. As for the claim that strict grading hurts hiring, it simply doesn't. The average GPA of Reed College is somewhere around 3.0 and their student body does very well: http://web.reed.edu/ir/awards.html. Same goes for top Engineering programs where the average GPA is usually around a 3.0 as well.

Except, it does hurt people in jobs. Mckinsey has a fairly strict 3.5 cutoff, no matter what school you go to. There will still be people above those grades because someone has to do well. But it will certainly hurt the number of people who get these tops of jobs. Same things with law schools, other graduate programs, etc. Then people lose their incentive to go to Harvard. Harvard stops placing as many people into consulting, banking, top law schools, top graduate programs, etc. Engineering is a different story because it's that way across the field, not at one school or the other. What happens is the median kid (say 3.0 in your scenario) at Harvard ends up being worse off in the job market than the top 25% kid at Notre Dame. Sorry, there is only so much you can ask of undergrads. In your scenario you want the median kid at Wisconsin to have the same law school possibilities as the median kid at Harvard, even though you'd suspect that the median kid at Harvard has had a lot more academic success in his lifetime.

That's a whole lot of guesswork with some pretty dubious claims. I find it highly unlikely that Harvard graduates would stop getting hired if Harvard started grading its classes harder. Businesses are more than capable of taking the median GPA of a particular institution when interviewing candidates. I hate to keep bringing up Reed, but all transcripts from Reed are accompanied with a card explaining the tough grading system. Businesses that don't adapt simply will miss out on the best talent.

GPA cutoffs are overblown as well. I've landed both internship and a full time position at places with GPA "cutoffs" much higher than 3.5. You simply have to work around them and prove your the most capable candidate.

[Patriot1208]

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

"A" level work should never be 50% of the class if the class is appropriately geared to the student body. Yes, we could all do "A" level work in finger painting, but why go to college to take classes like that? College courses should be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. As for the claim that strict grading hurts hiring, it simply doesn't. The average GPA of Reed College is somewhere around 3.0 and their student body does very well: http://web.reed.edu/ir/awards.html. Same goes for top Engineering programs where the average GPA is usually around a 3.0 as well.

Except, it does hurt people in jobs. Mckinsey has a fairly strict 3.5 cutoff, no matter what school you go to. There will still be people above those grades because someone has to do well. But it will certainly hurt the number of people who get these tops of jobs. Same things with law schools, other graduate programs, etc. Then people lose their incentive to go to Harvard. Harvard stops placing as many people into consulting, banking, top law schools, top graduate programs, etc. Engineering is a different story because it's that way across the field, not at one school or the other. What happens is the median kid (say 3.0 in your scenario) at Harvard ends up being worse off in the job market than the top 25% kid at Notre Dame. Sorry, there is only so much you can ask of undergrads. In your scenario you want the median kid at Wisconsin to have the same law school possibilities as the median kid at Harvard, even though you'd suspect that the median kid at Harvard has had a lot more academic success in his lifetime.

That's a whole lot of guesswork with some pretty dubious claims. I find it highly unlikely that Harvard graduates would stop getting hired if Harvard started grading its classes harder. Businesses are more than capable of taking the median GPA of a particular institution when interviewing candidates. I hate to keep bringing up Reed, but all transcripts from Reed are accompanied with a card explaining the tough grading system. Businesses that don't adapt simply will miss out on the best talent.

GPA cutoffs are overblown as well. I've landed both internship and a full time position at places with GPA "cutoffs" much higher than 3.5. You simply have to work around them and prove your the most capable candidate.

There are always exceptions to the GPA cutoffs because that's the nature of business. But it still matters for many candidates. It's a lot of speculation, sure, but if follows a logical trail. And it's not speculation when it comes to grad schools because we know raw numbers matter. Back in the day lineage and the good ole' boys club mattered even more than they do now. People could get accepted to top law schools simply because they went to Harvard. And it seems very plausible that we could shift back towards this with your global median proposal.

And I understand Reed is a good school, but it's my understanding that Reed used to be more highly esteemed than it is now. You never really hear of read in the same sense these days when it comes to recruiting for the top positions.

[Ikki]

My understanding is that the mean GPA is comprised of only students from that university who are applying to law school. This is important because universities are often divided into "colleges" or "schools" which calculate their own mean or median GPAs. Typically, engineering schools' GPA is lower than the university GPA rendering comparison to those applying to law school almost meaningless.

I called LSAC twice today & asked whether the mean or median school GPA included only those applying to law school or all university students. Somewhat surprisingly, I received two different answers from two different LSAC reps.

So, we still don't know? I hope it's the mean of the entire university, 3.27 is pretty shitty...

Above average actually...

It won't necessarily be above average if the LSAC reported figures only pertain to law school applicants.

[CanadianWolf]

Key To The Master Law School Report-------Revised 6/25/2010

Transcript Analysis

GPA College Mean: The average GPA for law school candidates who graduated at any time period from the institution and who registered for the Credential Assembly Service during the most recent three years you attended the school. There must be a minimum of 50 candidates in the LSAC database to produce this calculation.

[CanadianWolf]

The college GPA mean reported by LSDAS, therefore, refers only to law school applicants from that school during a relevant 3 year period. It is not a college or university-wide GPA.

[Ikki]

The college GPA mean reported by LSDAS, therefore, refers only to law school applicants from that school during a relevant 3 year period. It is not a college or university-wide GPA.

Looking at UCSD's Student Research and Information (LinkRemoved) page, the mean GPA for the entire university was around a 3.00 from Fall 2000 to Fall 2010. That's rough :/

[NYC Law]

If it wasn't for inflation the average gpa should be 2.0 everywhere. Doesn't a C equate to 'average' performance?

[CanadianWolf]

That university--wide GPA, however, is not reported by LSDAS to law schools.

[ThomasMN]

So what you are saying is that all schools should be graded on a bell curve that standardizes every college? Why should the median kid at Penn be forced into a B if 50% of the class is doing A level work? There is only so much you can demand of kids. And if a high number of the class writes amazing research papers on voting discrepancies in the last Russian election, then they should be rewarded for that. And seriously, what you are proposing only hurts hiring, and that is the whole reason people attend top schools anyways.

"A" level work should never be 50% of the class if the class is appropriately geared to the student body. Yes, we could all do "A" level work in finger painting, but why go to college to take classes like that? College courses should be extremely difficult and extremely rewarding. As for the claim that strict grading hurts hiring, it simply doesn't. The average GPA of Reed College is somewhere around 3.0 and their student body does very well: http://web.reed.edu/ir/awards.html. Same goes for top Engineering programs where the average GPA is usually around a 3.0 as well.

Except, it does hurt people in jobs. Mckinsey has a fairly strict 3.5 cutoff, no matter what school you go to. There will still be people above those grades because someone has to do well. But it will certainly hurt the number of people who get these tops of jobs. Same things with law schools, other graduate programs, etc. Then people lose their incentive to go to Harvard. Harvard stops placing as many people into consulting, banking, top law schools, top graduate programs, etc. Engineering is a different story because it's that way across the field, not at one school or the other. What happens is the median kid (say 3.0 in your scenario) at Harvard ends up being worse off in the job market than the top 25% kid at Notre Dame. Sorry, there is only so much you can ask of undergrads. In your scenario you want the median kid at Wisconsin to have the same law school possibilities as the median kid at Harvard, even though you'd suspect that the median kid at Harvard has had a lot more academic success in his lifetime.

That's a whole lot of guesswork with some pretty dubious claims. I find it highly unlikely that Harvard graduates would stop getting hired if Harvard started grading its classes harder. Businesses are more than capable of taking the median GPA of a particular institution when interviewing candidates. I hate to keep bringing up Reed, but all transcripts from Reed are accompanied with a card explaining the tough grading system. Businesses that don't adapt simply will miss out on the best talent.

GPA cutoffs are overblown as well. I've landed both internship and a full time position at places with GPA "cutoffs" much higher than 3.5. You simply have to work around them and prove your the most capable candidate.

I'm just going to assume that you are a Reed graduate as you are extremely biased. First off, Reed != Harvard. I would even put out there that Reed != LACs like Carleton and Macalester, to just throw out two good LACs that I know from Minnesota. That is my "counter-trolling."

Your bias aside, how does giving someone a 3.0 help things out? I get the whole puff your chest out my grades are worth more than your grades thing, but does it really help anyone learn. I mean we could curve every college course to where only one person out of a class of 20 gets an A, but what does that achieve? All you're doing is changing the number that is GPA. The real goal of college is to educate students and their grades are supposed to be a sign of exactly how much of that education they soaked up. Its not supposed to be a, look my 4.0 is bigger and thicker than your 3.8.

If schools like Harvard "punished" their students by just smashing their student body and playing a game of academic highlander what would be the incentive for students? Really good ( but not the "best" ) Harvard students would go to Reed and proceed to take all those kids lunch money and then where would you be?