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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m shocked at how many people on here seem to think that only the best and brightest can succeed at top schools. It may be true that kids need to be that to get into those schools, but most people who have been to one admit that it’s not that hard to get good grades there. [/quote]

I don't get this, either. Have college curricula changed much during the past decade?

I was in a PhD program at Harvard and TA-ing many classes. The idea that these classes are so unbelievably hard that 99.9 percentile kids are struggling to keep up sounds insane to me. It was really not that hard. The kids were smart (especially premeds) but not once in a lifetime geniuses. If you came to classes, read the textbook, did the practice problems, you got an A. A+ was another story, and that was difficult.

[/quote]

U.S. colleges, on average, have become less difficult and it can be argued that they do not push students as much as they did in the past.  The average GPA at Harvard in 1966 was 2.8.  By 1990 it was 3.3.  Today, it may be nearer to 3.8.  This grade inflation holds to differing levels across the board at colleges.   It is most acute at the most selective.   The same pattern can be seen at schools like UVA. At the same time, studies have shown that the number of study hours has declined.

https://gradeinflation.com/Harvard.html
https://gradeinflation.com/
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This is what I thought but now people are reporting from the trenches that their "99.9 percentile kid is struggling to keep up at their Ivy". Maybe kids are more brilliant now?[/quote]

My perfect gpa/test score, top HS rigor, no rank but tough nationally ranked school at a so-called [b]“easy A” Ivy and working their butt off.[/b] Maybe some majors, but I’m not seeing it.  [/quote]
Mine too. They are getting As but it is a lot of hours in the library and that seems to be standard there, even Friday night and a large portion of the weekend.[/quote]

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