UG Schools' Mean GPAs Forum

[ThomasMN]

Also, the law school game with USNWR shows that many people do actually care what your GPA is. They may give a boost to HYP kids, but not enough to turn a 3.5 into a 3.9 etc.

[Helicio]

I remember hearing that Duke is 3.3 from a dean.

[Corwin]

I'm just going to assume that you are a Reed graduate as you are extremely biased.

No, I went to an Engineering school in the top 5.

Your bias aside, how does giving someone a 3.0 help things out?

Students tend to learn more when pushed. At least in my personal experience, my most valuable classes while I was doing my undergrad were the most difficult (both in terms of pacing or material). I don't have a horse in this race. I simply think challenging students is a more effective way to educate.

[09042014]

I'm just going to assume that you are a Reed graduate as you are extremely biased.

No, I went to an Engineering school in the top 5.

Your bias aside, how does giving someone a 3.0 help things out?

Students tend to learn more when pushed. At least in my personal experience, my most valuable classes while I was doing my undergrad were the most difficult (both in terms of pacing or material). I don't have a horse in this race. I simply think challenging students is a more effective way to educate.

You to go Illinois?

[Corwin]

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.

I'm not sure how you are making that logical leap. In fact, I think it's the opposite. Stricter grading makes it easier for those who work really hard to distinguish themselves. If graduates from top schools are all clustering around 3.5+, it's more difficult to differentiate by merit.

[Corwin]

I'm just going to assume that you are a Reed graduate as you are extremely biased.

No, I went to an Engineering school in the top 5.

Your bias aside, how does giving someone a 3.0 help things out?

Students tend to learn more when pushed. At least in my personal experience, my most valuable classes while I was doing my undergrad were the most difficult (both in terms of pacing or material). I don't have a horse in this race. I simply think challenging students is a more effective way to educate.

You to go Illinois?

Yes I graduated from UIUC with a BSc in CS. Fun times.

[09042014]

I was jealous of the siebel center. I did EE.

[Corwin]

I was jealous of the siebel center. I did EE.

Haha nice! Yeah I really liked Siebel center. Coffee shop next to your classrooms = win.

[ThomasMN]

There is stricter grading and then there is stricter grading. The problem in my experience is that everyone wants to make it a little harder. I spent time in the Army and no matter what level of infantry unit I was in someone wanted to make it even harder. It was never "enough." I notice the same thing in academics. There will always be a desire to make it harder and by just arbitrarily lowering or raising the average GPA does not actually make it harder or actually teach people more. Giving an A for B work is not the answer, but simply giving A work a B does not fix the problem either. In my experience there are people who get things and do the work, those that get it but slack off, and those that just don't get it.

GPA should not be the ultimate measure of a person's abilities. That measure should be in their portfolio of work and accomplishments. No one really cares what Einstein's or Bohr's grades were, but what they accomplished. People have just come to attribute grades to accomplishment when that is really not the case. Also, I don't think we have a real problem of everyone getting a 4.0 in college. School is about being educated, not so that you can academically compare transcript size - yes I think for a lot of people GPA just turns into a game of who has the bigger penis.