GPA inflation
can someone explain to me what this means?
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Too many people get A's relative to the normal distribution of A/B/C/D/F. For example, school X has their classes structured such that 45% of their students get A's. On the other hand, at school Y, only 20% of the students in a class get an A in that class. Therefore, we say that the students at school X have "GPA inflation."
thank you for the explaination.
Harvard = 3.4 mean gpa Stern = 2.7 mean gpa
Harvard -> great average SAT score. NYU -> not so much.
"Harvard = 3.4 mean gpa"
that harvard mean contains graduate student class GPAs which is much higher than undergrade due to grading differences and the fact that grad students take much fewer classes
^^^You, my friend, are an idiot
also don't you think that harvard student probably deserve a 3.4 because I'm sure any one of them will get straight As if they've gone to Stern since the competition is so different.
If you take a higher math class at harvard you are competing against those kids who are highschool math wizards from the states and even those international math olympiads from europe and elsewhere.
Harvard's 3.4 makes sense when you consider that it's a school of former valedictorians and academic all-stars.
Not when you compare it to schools such as Wharton, Princeton, and MIT which all have similar caliber student bodies to Harvard yet have mean gpa's around a 3.0.
Harvard kids are not that smart, neither are Princeton/Yale/MIT etc. Harvard and MIT, both schools are tied for highest LSAT score among undergrads, have a median of 165 and for Harvard the median GPA is 3.5. So your 3.5 kid at Harvard is as smart as a 165 LSAT. That won't even get you into a top 15 law school, it might get you into GEORGE WASHINGTON lol. Yale/Princeton have even lower scores.
Stern's median is 2.7? DAMN. Anyone know Whartons?
18-20% A RANGE bell curve= 2.7 AVERAGE ON EXAMS...... HOW CAN YOU COMPARE STERN AND WHARTON CURVE TO THE HIGHLY INFLATED GRADES AT HARVARD, STANFORD AND PRINCETON.
So if you know harvard kids are smart because they were valedictorians in HS, why grade them at all? Put them on Pass/Fail, since they are all equally smart, right?
Grades are supposed to distinguish good students from not-as-good students relative to their CLASSMATES. Someone at Harvard is the dumbest kid at the school. Someone at your local community college is the smartest kid at the school. Are they anywhere near equally intelligent, of course not.
But when you lump students from one school all together with A's, it defeats the purpose of grading.
probably the best point made in this post.
in all honesty...people who say they're schools don't have inflated grades are right, but that's mostly due to the fact that, on average, they have more "slightly less intelligent" persons than the ivy league schools have.
that's why harvard and stanford mba don't give out gpa's.
employers know what the avg GPA at Harvard is, and they compensate for that. If grades are meant to distinguish people from classmates, and banks have a good idea of what the mean/variance of grades are at a given school, then they know where applicants from that school stand w/ respect to their classmates. Banks get 100s of apps from Harvard kids, so they have an idea of what the distribution looks like.
Plus, most Harvard kids would get damn good grades most other places...
I don't really think you can make that argument unless you can prove that non-Harvard students can't hang.
On that note, what is the dropout rate/environment at Harvard?
I have noticed in my experience that Harvard and Princeton kids tend to pick up accounting and finance (not rocket science by any means) and are up-to-speed at much quicker rate than kids from other schools (including Yale and other ivy leagues). Students from schools that have business programs usually are able to do the job better as well. I'm not saying they're smarter than an Ivy league kid, but "better" at the job. This is the same feeling from friends at other banks including boutiques such as Lazard and Greenhill.
Wharton curve is actually really strict - no more than 60% can be As and Bs. Professors usually end up giving around 25% A and 35% B. So that leaves 40% C and below - which is a LOT of people getting Cs! Virtually all professors follow this curve as the grades they give are overseen by the department head - so the trick is to take the department head's class. I took a class with the head of the Stat department and he gave out around 40% As and almost no Cs.
However, it's pretty difficult to get below a C- here. Most professors only give Ds and Fs to students who really "earn" them.
That said, we can take classes in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the curve there is usually more favorable, although as of late a bunch of the departments have been cracking down on this. Apparently, the rule in the College of Arts and Sciences is that no more than 25% of people can get A- or above, and the two College of Arts and Sciences classes that I am taking now both state on the syllabi that they enforce this.
25% A's is really not a big deal.
Another reason why it's not that difficult to get decent grades at ivys...because 25% of the class has 1250 SATs. There are plenty of factors that help someone get into a top college like Harvard, Penn, etc. besides sheer intelligence & high school performance...legacy status, child of big donor, from a distant state, underrepresented minority, athlete etc. etc. Adding all those groups together equals at least 25% of the class at most ivys. So, when you attend an ivy and you're not in any of those groups or you are in 1 of those groups but have a 1400+ SAT and top HS GPA anyway, you're already way ahead of the game. You don't have to worry about being in the bottom 25% ever since most of those kids who're admitted but aren't smart enough / hard enough workers end up in the bottom of the class consistently.
I call this the upside of preferentially admitting certain types of people.
Fuck my non-target school has a 1360 SAT avg and 3.0 curve. Publicschoolpwned
According to the classical dichotomy, inflation is a nominal variable and thus has no effect on real variables in the long run. Therefore, GPA inflation should not be of concern to anyone here.
There is research on this exact subject that proves otherwise. People know that they don't have to study as hard to get a high grade, so they don't. The nominal does effect the real.
Given 6 students with the same resume except for differences in their gpa and school they attend:
Student 1: Yale 3.6 gpa Student 2: Stanford 3.5 gpa Student 3: Harvard 3.4 gpa Student 4: Wharton 3.1 gpa Student 5: Princeton 3.0 gpa Student 6: MIT 2.9 gpa
All these students have around the average gpa at their respective schools which are all made up of similar student body's. However, I highly doubt that when HR screens resumes they would view these students on a level playing field.
That's irrelevant. When you're at a target, you're competing against people from your school, not others, since the bank goes to your school and interviews on campus. So it's not like the Yale guy has an edge over the MIT guy because Yale is more grade inflated - the result is that people at Yale will have to earn higher than whatever Yale's average GPA is to get interviewed, and the same goes for MIT. Plus, HR doesn't screen resumes usually - analyst alums of your school do. So they know what a good and a bad GPA is.
everyone is quoting these average GPAs all over this thread. can anyone provide real backup for these numbers? otherwise all these donkeys are just going to cry about how much harder their school is than the other schools.
i found it hard to believe that the average Princeton GPA was 3.0. looking here, http://www.princeton.edu/odoc/faculty/grading/FAQ/#comp00004c791b9f000001c873077c and here http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html?_r=1&hpw (less definitive), I see that it isn't that low.
also, does anyone have median figures? i would imagine athletes, apathetic legacy/rich kids, etc. might skew the distribution.
Guess you are better off at HYS then.
Beyond first rounds it's a different ballgame. If these students all show up for superdays they will not be level going in. And don't try to argue that grades become a complete wash once you get an interview.
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