Harvard College grades have risen significantly in the past 20 years. Tge percentage of A-range grades given to college students in the 2020-21 academic year was 79 percent, compared to 60 percent a decade earlier. Mean grades on a four-point scale were 3.80 in the 2020-21 academic year, up from 3.41 in 2002-03.

And you people are fools if you don’t think grade inflation is happening at lower ranked schools. Try finding a Wahoo with a GPA lower than 3.8. You also need to remember the T10s/Ivies for the most part are small and they are filled with students in the top 1-5% of their HS classes and high test scores. They are academics —if they weren’t they go to a big football party school. Of course, grades will be high. It doesn’t mean it isn’t seriously rigorous.

80% of grades at Harvard are As and 90% graduate with honors. In fact, Harvard and Yale have greater grade inflation (or equal) than every school mentioned.

I also know that at my large state school many partied and tailgated their way out/dropped out or took 6 years to graduate.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Do you have familiarity with each of these schools or the other 21 to make such an assumption?

cmon folks, this is DCUM, not a scientific study!

I only inquired about "familiarity". Far cry from scientific study.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Do you have familiarity with each of these schools or the other 21 to make such an assumption?

cmon folks, this is DCUM, not a scientific study!

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Do you have familiarity with each of these schools or the other 21 to make such an assumption?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Neither Vanderbilt or Bowdoin are easy. Brown is well known for it's peculiar grading, but I do get the sense students there do study hard even though the As are easy. I don't know anything about W&L. It's not a top 25 school.

Among the top schools, Harvard would be the easiest to glide through as an undergrad.

my kid is an econ major at Vandy and has a 3.9 gpa (not a frosh). They were TO (1340 SATs), large public, and a non URM. I’m told the sciences are hard, but my DC finds the course load easier than hs

Anonymous wrote:This concerns grade inflation and is pretty old now (1997), but Boalt (UC Berkeley's law school) used to have a scale that weighed different undergraduate schools' GPAs: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-jul-16-me-13288-story.html

Unsurprisingly, T20 schools were generally given more weight. But it seems like, as a group, SLACs were given the most weight. For instance, the schools whose students' GPA were given the most weight were Swarthmore and Williams.

Anyhow, things might have changed, but I thought it was interesting.

This is interesting. Especially because the 3 kids I know well at Williams (2 are my niece/nephew, one is my daughter's good friend), all have close to 4.0s, and while they report working hard, they have plenty of time for extracurriculars and socializing (which they should, I only note this to show it's not a grind for those near perfect gpa's).

This concerns grade inflation and is pretty old now (1997), but Boalt (UC Berkeley's law school) used to have a scale that weighed different undergraduate schools' GPAs: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-jul-16-me-13288-story.html

Unsurprisingly, T20 schools were generally given more weight. But it seems like, as a group, SLACs were given the most weight. For instance, the schools whose students' GPA were given the most weight were Swarthmore and Williams.

Anyhow, things might have changed, but I thought it was interesting.

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Neither Vanderbilt or Bowdoin are easy. Brown is well known for it's peculiar grading, but I do get the sense students there do study hard even though the As are easy. I don't know anything about W&L. It's not a top 25 school.

Among the top schools, Harvard would be the easiest to glide through as an undergrad.

Anonymous wrote:W&L is very easy compared to ivies, work load wise. The GPA average is similar but the ivy kid has a lot more reading and writing and the math classes more rigorous. Close relatives at each, both not in stem majors, quite different experiences.

Disagree. DD is a sophomore business major and has a very heavy workload with a lot of writing. It’s hard to get an A. Each class is 20 kids or less and they only give out a few A’s.

Somebody had been starting this rigor thread every other day to put down a handful of schools.

Search the forum. There was a very long thread on it over the last two weeks and very smart responses how difficult grades in college do not indicate the quality of the education or the amount of work required. Some profs are notoriously difficult graders while being notoriously bad instructors. Additionally, it tells you nothing about the quality of the professor, the amount being covered in the course, the pace of the course, the level of intelligence in the class.

My kid is at one of the schools mentioned and they have huge amount of reading—and writing. Midterms were 2-4 hours long each and not a single one multiple choice. Many papers. Very small class sizes. Very, very smart peers with lively discussions. It was a lot of work. It was very engaging according to him and lots of outside supplementation and books/movie recs post-semester with from profs. Reading a lot over break. Stimulating.

I had a “hard” college with big lecture classes and all multiple choice exams. Bell curve with few As. I can’t say that helped me learn organic chemistry and better.

My kid’s hand was stained blue when he got home from his last midterm from one of the 4 hour written exams.

I’m also not sure about the motive of making it such a stressful environment that kids are suicidal. My spouse went to a T10 like that in the early 90s and wanted none of our kids to attend his alma mater. So is this the environment you are searching for your kid? A notorious stressful grind or the opposite? Or just bragging rights?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from numerous sources that the workload at Bowdoin is significant, although I'm not sure about grade inflation. FWIW, Princeton Review ranks it #22 among schools where students study the most: https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/?rankings=students-study-most

and Gettysburg is #7

Gettysburg is like a less selective Bucknell (#19 on the same list). Both schools have a ton of students gunning for high-paying finance jobs, which leads to a hustle-hard culture. Yes, they party on the weekends (also part of the Wall Street money culture) but they're back to the grind on Monday.

Anonymous wrote:I've heard from numerous sources that the workload at Bowdoin is significant, although I'm not sure about grade inflation. FWIW, Princeton Review ranks it #22 among schools where students study the most: https://www.princetonreview.com/college-rankings/?rankings=students-study-most

and Gettysburg is #7

Vandy has gotten ridiculously hard.

Anonymous wrote:in terms of grade inflation, hours of homework, competition amongst kids, etc

I’ll go first - Vandy, Brown, Bowdoin, W&L

Cute.
Ridiculous post.