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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Well, the grading at Brown is clearly quite liberal. [/quote]

I know some of you won't believe me, but it actually isn't. The difference is that you can choose which courses you want to get a grade in and grades below C or satisfactory aren't recorded--and you don't get credit for them. So, most people have high gpas.

But getting an A in any given course isn't any easier than elsewhere. Organic chem weeds out as many premeds as it does at other colleges, for example. However, Brown premeds take courses, including tough courses, in other areas. They just don't take them for grades. Meanwhile, at other colleges many premeds take only the easiest courses they can outside their major because they don't want to tank their gpas for med school.It is not unknown for native speakers in a language to sign up for introductory foreign language courses.

Humanities students at other colleges fulfill their distribution requirements with "physics for poets," "Rocks for Jocks," and Engineering 1o1 (colloquially known as "How to Plug In a Computer and use the calculator function."

In the old days, premeds at other top schools even skipped taking organic chem at their home institution and flocked to summer course at places like the University of Houston where they were virtually guaranteed an easy A--in part because they took ONLY that one course during the summer. A few years back, the med school admissions council--forget the exact name--changed the rules so you can[t do that.

Some schools advertise that you can take a limited number of courses--say 2 or 4--pass/fail. The small print says "with permission of the instructor." At some schools, professors teaching popular courses or advanced courses NEVER give permission. At some schools, these pass/fail grades are factored into your gpa or counted against you for getting awards like Phi Beta Kappa. So, most students opt for taking the easy gut course for a grade rather than a better course they would rather take pass/fail.

A PP cited the case of her son who took a course outside his comfort zone S/NC and discovering that this was a field that he was interested in and excelled in. At another school, he never would have done that. [/quote]

Brown literally encourages students to take Organic Chemistry pass fail because they don't want it to be a weed out course. [/quote]

What are you even talking about?! I have a Brown premed. You literally can’t take it P/F for med school? Brown doesn’t “encourage” anything.[/quote]

Agree, total BS and does not have a kid at Brown or any other top school. Our nephew is at Brown and I have two at two other ivies. They are hard: the students spend hours and hours in the library/studying each week. All three have above 3.85 but work their butts off to stay that high. [/quote]

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