GPA vs. College

[darkjedi]

I go to a pretty much completely unheard of state university, and still have Harvard, Dartmouth, Berkley, MIT doctorate science professors so yeah.. not exactly sure why your chem 2 at JH should be weighted any differently from my harvard doctorate triple PhD professor, just because your school has name recognition. The laws of colligative properties, kinetics, energetics, equillibrium, and thermodynamics dont change at JH nor do the concepts get trickier.

I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but curves are supposed to depend on the student body, not the quality of the professor. Also pedigree doesn't make a good professor, same as a physician.

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[Catman21]

what curves?

I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but curves are supposed to depend on the student body, not the quality of the professor. Also pedigree doesn't make a good professor, same as a physician.

 

[487806]

38 is 99th percentile, so I would be satisfied with Harvard's average being only 3 points higher, not 7.

Of course not, but then again I think grades are utterly useless metrics anyway. There's no way to compare what a 3.5 at my school means to a 3.5 at Harvard. Heck, there's no way to compare what a 3.5 from one person at my school means to another person's 3.5 at my school. Coursework and evaluation are so unstandardized that I personally think grades are near meaningless and should be ignored in admissions. Honestly, I don't know what it's like at Harvard because I don't go there. Are classes typically curved such that students are competing against each other for grades? Is that rare? Who knows? On a side note I certainly don't think evaluation in that manner is fair. What I'm taking issue with is not whether it's true or false or good or bad that Harvard has grade inflation, it's the argument (to whatever end) that Harvard and other Ivy students are all the top 1% of college students.

I certainly hope there are people more intelligent than me filling the top schools! Maybe I have an idealized perception of these schools.

Let's take a step back for a moment. I agree that grades are unstandardized, but it's rather extreme to claim that they are useless in general and should be ignored. GPA, as Burla mentioned, reflects work effort, and yes, some classes can be ridiculously difficult and lead to low GPAs. Adcoms can't (and shouldn't) analyze grades, but the GPA should be used to separate applicants as it always has. There is nothing wrong with the current system, and saying that grades should be ignored because they're unstandardized is a bit off. Agreed, they shouldn't be the only factor to be considered, but an important factor nonetheless. No one's forcing you to take a difficult major (so all that nonsense engineering/physics major excuse doesn't cut it).

The MCAT without a doubt is supreme over GPA. High MCAT + high GPA = strong applicant. High MCAT + low GPA = strong applicant who got lazy/screwed up whatever. Low MCAT = GPA is a fluke. But that doesn't mean the GPA should be disregarded entirely, since the high GPA/high MCAT combo is the best possible outcome.

Personally, people taking upper-level classes and scoring A's deserve the cake, regardless of how difficult/easy it is compared to a standard intro class. This at least gives the GPA some credence though not much.

 

[487806]

I'm not sure if you're being serious or not, but curves are supposed to depend on the student body, not the quality of the professor. Also pedigree doesn't make a good professor, same as a physician.

Yes this is a fact, though it can be a shame because students somehow do badly despite the professor being awesome. This is just a corollary of colleges with high acceptance rates, but that's besides the point.

 

[gettheleadout]

Let's take a step back for a moment. I agree that grades are unstandardized, but it's rather extreme to claim that they are useless in general and should be ignored. GPA, as Burla mentioned, reflects work effort, and yes, some classes can be ridiculously difficult and lead to low GPAs. Adcoms can't (and shouldn't) analyze grades, but the GPA should be used to separate applicants as it always has. There is nothing wrong with the current system, and saying that grades should be ignored because they're unstandardized is a bit off. Agreed, they shouldn't be the only factor to be considered, but an important factor nonetheless. No one's forcing you to take a difficult major (so all that nonsense engineering/physics major excuse doesn't cut it).

The MCAT without a doubt is supreme over GPA. High MCAT + high GPA = strong applicant. High MCAT + low GPA = strong applicant who got lazy/screwed up whatever. Low MCAT = GPA is a fluke. But that doesn't mean the GPA should be disregarded entirely, since the high GPA/high MCAT combo is the best possible outcome.

Personally, people taking upper-level classes and scoring A's deserve the cake, regardless of how difficult/easy it is compared to a standard intro class. This at least gives the GPA some credence though not much.

Why should GPA be used at all when there is literally no context at all to the number? Even just looking at prereq GPA tells you nothing. It tells you the letter grades received but says nothing of "degree of mastery" of material because no one ever knows how such mastery was evaluated, or even what material was covered. It's useless. Can you give me one reason that I should believe that an "A" on someone's transcript should be taken to reflect mastery?

 

[487806]

Why should GPA be used at all when there is literally no context at all to the number? Even just looking at prereq GPA tells you nothing. It tells you the letter grades received but says nothing of "degree of mastery" of material because no one ever knows how such mastery was evaluated, or even what material was covered. It's useless. Can you give me one reason that I should believe that an "A" on someone's transcript should be taken to reflect mastery?

I didn't say or imply that an A reflects mastery. A simply reflects hard work, perseverance and luck (most definitely the first two). The third factor usually explains why it's not always easy to get a 4.0.

Think about it this way. If grades are useless and should be ignored all together, should someone with a GPA of 3.0 or below be still considered for medical school admissions (even with >36 MCAT)?

 

[gettheleadout]

I didn't say or imply that an A reflects mastery. A simply reflects hard work, perseverance and luck (most definitely the first two). The third factor usually explains why it's not always easy to get a 4.0.

Why should I believe that? I've gotten A's without either (and without luck too).

Think about it this way. If grades are useless and should be ignored all together, should someone with a GPA of 3.0 or below be still considered for medical school admissions (even with >36 MCAT)?

I think it might be better if grades were ignored entirely, schools simply looked to see that you took the prereq's, evaluated that on a pass/fail basis, and then looked at the MCAT. So yes, if someone had a ≤3.0 GPA but passed the prereq's and scored a 36 on the MCAT, they should absolutely be considered for med school admission.

 

[487806]

Why should I believe that? I've gotten A's without either (and without luck too).

I think it might be better if grades were ignored entirely, schools simply looked to see that you took the prereq's, evaluated that on a pass/fail basis, and then looked at the MCAT. So yes, if someone had a ≤3.0 GPA but passed the prereq's and scored a 36 on the MCAT, they should absolutely be considered for med school admission.

Yeah same here But that isn't true for majority of upper-level courses (it can be subjective but I don't understand why it would be).

Pass/fail basis? That only makes the problem worse. Yes I agree a lot of colleges are plagued by grade inflation, so it makes getting an A seem useless. Getting rid of the curve will restore the value of grades (believe me, people who bombed exams shouldn't be getting B's or A's overall). But pass/fail system is a terrible idea that doesn't encourage mastery at all. It only encourages laziness and the desire to dispose the classes. If we change to pass/fail, why bother to go to college in the first place? Why do medical schools require a bachelor's degree if we're just going to self-teach the material like we do for the MCAT?

Yes, the MCAT is supreme and has the highest priority. No, a person with below a GPA of 3.0 shouldn't be considered for an admission regardless of the MCAT, because there's no excuse for having such low of a GPA in the first place. The point of GPA and grades is it gives undergrad some sort of value in training students for the professional world. Yes, today, it is a load of BS. Undergrad is useless because it's just self-studying and perseverance all together.

But regardless of grade inflation (and paradoxically grade deflation, which makes no sense), it is better to have the existing A/B/C/D/F system since it does give some sort of academic verification on a student's record as long as it is validated by the MCAT.

 

[Zelda840]

In my mind, the GPA tells just how willing to jump through hoops you are. A high GPA may not be insanely difficult to achieve at some schools, but it shows you're committed to the process. Very few people are going to get a 3.8 - 4.0 from pure luck, no matter what school they went to. No one is perfect at everything and by the time you've completed all the prereqs for medical school plus enough other classes to earn a bachelors, you've most likely encountered SOMETHING that didn't come easily to you and that you had to work for.

 

[gettheleadout]

Yeah same here But that isn't true for majority of upper-level courses (it can be subjective but I don't understand why it would be).

Pass/fail basis? That only makes the problem worse. Yes I agree a lot of colleges are plagued by grade inflation, so it makes getting an A seem useless. Getting rid of the curve will restore the value of grades (believe me, people who bombed exams shouldn't be getting B's or A's overall). But pass/fail system is a terrible idea that doesn't encourage mastery at all. It only encourages laziness and the desire to dispose the classes.

Note that I'm only arguing that medical schools should evaluate applicants' academic records on a P/F basis; undergrads can still use grades and require certain levels of performance to maintain good standing, keep scholarships, make honor lists, etc.

If we change to pass/fail, why bother to go to college in the first place?

Because broad education makes for more informed citizens?

Why do medical schools require a bachelor's degree if we're just going to self-teach the material like we do for the MCAT?

That's a good question lol, I certainly won't have gained anything by the time I graduate that I wouldn't have had upon completing my junior year. It shouldn't matter if you get a bachelor's or not.

Yes, the MCAT is supreme and has the highest priority. No, a person with below a GPA of 3.0 shouldn't be considered for an admission regardless of the MCAT, because there's no excuse for having such low of a GPA in the first place.

It's entirely possible for a student to take courses with professors that grade subjectively, harshly, limit the number of students who get A's (even to zero), etc. and because there's no way to know how common this is or when it occurs, even within schools where it's not typical, we can't make judgments like that.

The point of GPA and grades is it gives undergrad some sort of value in training students for the professional world. Yes, today, it is a load of BS. Undergrad is useless because it's just self-studying and perseverance all together.

Right, so why are we trying to use it as a form of evaluation?

But regardless of grade inflation (and paradoxically grade deflation, which makes no sense), it is better to have the existing A/B/C/D/F system since it does give some sort of academic verification on a student's record as long as it is validated by the MCAT.

I still disagree insofar as I don't think it provides any sort of thing in the context of professional school admissions.

 

[487806]

In my mind, the GPA tells just how willing to jump through hoops you are. A high GPA may not be insanely difficult to achieve at some schools, but it shows you're committed to the process. Very few people are going to get a 3.8 - 4.0 from pure luck, no matter what school they went to. No one is perfect at everything and by the time you've completed all the prereqs for medical school plus enough other classes to earn a bachelors, you've most likely encountered SOMETHING that didn't come easily to you and that you had to work for.

I think the real problem isn't GPA or grades. It involves the following attributes.

1) Way too many colleges (great deal of subjectivity)
2) Grade inflation/deflation and +/- system (get rid of the curve and strictly grade on the basis of A=90-100, B=80-89 etc.)
3) The lack of diversity in majors (not all majors in any college are well-rounded, see #1 for reason why).
4) High acceptance rate in majority of colleges (>60%).

 

[487806]

Note that I'm only arguing that medical schools should evaluate applicants' academic records on a P/F basis; undergrads can still use grades and require certain levels of performance to maintain good standing, keep scholarships, make honor lists, etc.

Doesn't that require AMCAS to use the P/F system? I always believe college GPAs are garbage so I strictly follow the AMCAS guidelines. If AMCAS uses P/F, that's even worse because you're grouping all A/B/C into one value (like 1.0) and F as another (0). This binary system is awful because that would lead to even more applicants (10x fold) having nearly identical GPAs that makes such evaluation meaningless.

Because broad education makes for more informed citizens?

Yeah that's strictly true for an Ivy/state school/LAC (my college is some engineering crap school that doesn't believe in this).

That's a good question lol, I certainly won't have gained anything by the time I graduate that I wouldn't have had upon completing my junior year. It shouldn't matter if you get a bachelor's or not.

Agreed.

It's entirely possible for a student to take courses with professors that grade subjectively, harshly, limit the number of students who get A's (even to zero), etc. and because there's no way to know how common this is or when it occurs, even within schools where it's not typical, we can't make judgments like that.

For few classes, yes that's true. Not for majority of the classes, and if that's the case, the student should really consider changing the major.

Right, so why are we trying to use it as a form of evaluation?

A/B/C differentiates students (despite subjectively) based on relative performance within the school. Yes, it's meaningless because we have so many useless colleges and grade inflation/deflation that the value is lost. "College is a right" is today's norm.

I still disagree insofar as I don't think it provides any sort of thing in the context of professional school admissions.

Not by itself. But used in the context of academic schedule and MCAT, it has significance.

 

[Long Way to Go]

I think the real problem isn't GPA or grades. It involves the following attributes.

1) Way too many colleges (great deal of subjectivity)
2) Grade inflation/deflation and +/- system (get rid of the curve and strictly grade on the basis of A=90-100, B=80-89 etc.)
3) The lack of diversity in majors (not all majors in any college are well-rounded, see #1 for reason why).
4) High acceptance rate in majority of colleges (>60%).

5) Differences in difficulties of different professors and the exams they assign.
5.1) Endogeneity. Professors write harder exams at "better" schools because they know the students there can handle it.

It collapses into an argument for taking the MCAT more seriously. But then you run into the issue of the MCAT being a long single day multiple choice test, which not everyone does well with for reasons entirely unrelated to someone's aptitude.

So clearly the solution the MCAT needs to be a month long exam with multiple choice, short response, essays, and whatever other formats you want.

 

[jeghaber]

5) Differences in difficulties of different professors and the exams they assign.
5.1) Endogeneity. Professors write harder exams at "better" schools because they know the students there can handle it.

It collapses into an argument for taking the MCAT more seriously. But then you run into the issue of the MCAT being a long single day multiple choice test, which not everyone does well with for reasons entirely unrelated to someone's aptitude.

So clearly the solution the MCAT needs to be a month long exam with multiple choice, short response, essays, and whatever other formats you want.

That sounds like an absolutely terrible experience.

 

[487806]

5) Differences in difficulties of different professors and the exams they assign.
5.1) Endogeneity. Professors write harder exams at "better" schools because they know the students there can handle it.

It collapses into an argument for taking the MCAT more seriously. But then you run into the issue of the MCAT being a long single day multiple choice test, which not everyone does well with for reasons entirely unrelated to someone's aptitude.

So clearly the solution the MCAT needs to be a month long exam with multiple choice, short response, essays, and whatever other formats you want.

I disagree. Working under pressure for long hours is expected in the healthcare profession, so the MCAT is good the way it is (although I agree it's getting unnecessarily worse 2015 and beyond). A month-long MCAT is a waste of time for the graders.

And professor variation is a problem, but within the university, which can be standardized by the GPA (without curves and +/-)

 

[Long Way to Go]

I disagree. Working under pressure for long hours is expected in the healthcare profession, so the MCAT is good the way it is (although I agree it's getting unnecessarily worse 2015 and beyond). A month-long MCAT is a waste of time for the graders.

And professor variation is a problem, but within the university, which can be standardized by the GPA (without curves and +/-)

Testing is good. High stakes testing is good too. But it's pretty well understood that how good you are at MCAT organic chemistry (as opposed to testing organic chemistry in general) has weak enough correlation to how well you are going to do on Step 1 which has weak enough correlation to how good a physician you will be.

At my school, there was one professor who taught endocrinology, and this professor had been teaching the course for fifteen years. The class was averaged to a C+ at the end of every semester. Meanwhile, the physiology course offered was also taught by the same professor every semester and have been for about the same length of time. That class was averaged to a B.

Now, it's easy to say that the solution to this is just to force professors to adopt a single curve. But neither endocrinology or physiology are required for any major (they are, of course, electives for the biology major). Students sign up for the courses based on their interests, yes, but everyone also knows which class you have a better chance of getting a good grade in. And what if endocrinology simply has harder material or requires more critical thinking? Is it still important to curve the grades to the same value?

The system as it is sucks a lot. I'm just not seeing how your suggestion is any better. Even if you adopt them, you will still have issues of variation in professors, courses, and the student body's aptitude, and then endogeneity effects

 

[487806]

Testing is good. High stakes testing is good too. But it's pretty well understood that how good you are at MCAT organic chemistry (as opposed to testing organic chemistry in general) has weak enough correlation to how well you are going to do on Step 1 which has weak enough correlation to how good a physician you will be.

Let's not get too ahead of ourselves. Yes, the MCAT is only useful to get into medical school, but once matriculating, it means nothing. The purpose of the MCAT is to objectively assess students' capabilities by testing their prereq knowledge (on top of critical thinking), so it is just a standardized verification of their aptitude.

At my school, there was one professor who taught endocrinology, and this professor had been teaching the course for fifteen years. The class was averaged to a C+ at the end of every semester. Meanwhile, the physiology course offered was also taught by the same professor every semester and have been for about the same length of time. That class was averaged to a B.

Now, it's easy to say that the solution to this is just to force professors to adopt a single curve. But neither endocrinology or physiology are required for any major (they are, of course, electives for the biology major). Students sign up for the courses based on their interests, yes, but everyone also knows which class you have a better chance of getting a good grade in. And what if endocrinology simply has harder material or requires more critical thinking? Is it still important to curve the grades to the same value?

The system as it is sucks a lot. I'm just not seeing how your suggestion is any better. Even if you adopt them, you will still have issues of variation in professors, courses, and the student body's aptitude, and then endogeneity effects

There shouldn't be any curve in the first place. You earn what you worked hard for. So if endocrinology is more difficult than physiology, the grades will objectively show that. The reason why we have the curve in the first place is because of the overall students' performance which corresponds to high acceptance rates and way too many colleges. If we get rid of these useless colleges and set up a maximum limit of, say, 200 and the acceptance rates are 50% or below, then this wouldn't be a problem. Would it be unfair to the majority? Probably. But college education isn't a right; it's a privilege. No one is being forced to go to college, but this entitlement mentality in the modern world makes it seem that way. This restores the value of the bachelor's degree and GPA as an objective assessment.

 

[Long Way to Go]

There shouldn't be any curve in the first place. You earn what you worked hard for. So if endocrinology is more difficult than physiology, the grades will objectively show that. The reason why we have the curve in the first place is because of the overall students' performance which corresponds to high acceptance rates and way too many colleges.

But you're assuming that there is an objective way to measure the difference in difficulty between two courses. But how do you do that?

I know can pretty easily write two exams for introductory calculus and introductory statistics that an outside observer would say "yeah that seems like a fair exams." Let's say the averages are 78% and 75% respectively (not a hypothetical case, I have in fact done this with a friend of mine who is getting his Master's in Math Education). Are you saying then that introductory calculus is easier than introductory statistics? But I and any skilled test writer could easily write another set of exams that would make the calculus test just a little bit easier (and to have the grades reflect that) but it would be trivial to do it in such a way that a reasonable outside observer would not be able to detect any difference in difficulty between the two.

How do you account for that sort of variation? It is also only one minor example, there are dozens of other ways that variation still comes into play.

 

[notbobtrustme]

I don't believe I've ever said that. Princeton, U Chicago & Reed should be on that list. There are others I'm not going to think of right now.

could have sworn you did, but I do lots of cocaine, so my memory ain't what it used to be

 

[compstomper]

I think everyone can agree that all else being equal, in the case of a 4.0 from a state/city college vs a 4.0 from a top private college, the reputation of the school serves as a tie breaker.

To me, it seems like it's too much for adcoms to delve into whether or not a 3.3 from a top 20 college would be the same as a 3.7 from a state college. If one were to split hairs on that fine a level, then you'll bring in a host of all other issues. Is a 3.3 bio major more competitive than a 3.8 history major? What about a 3.8 history major from a top 20 vs a 3.3 bio major from a state school? On and on it goes, and I doubt most adcoms are willing to go down that rabbit hole given the limited time adcoms have. And so it stands to reason that in the end, the name of the school will not make or break your application.

 

[oceanmist]

It's probably good to consider what other factors influence grade inflation in discussing how it relates to medical school admissions. Maybe in general it plays a much more significant role in courses whose evaluation entails more subjective evaluations, which is why it's more likely to occur in for example a humanities course then say an engineering one. Many pre meds will be taking more courses which have more objective metrics in determining Gaussian distributions and thus final grades. Therefore to say pre medical applicants coming from schools that may have reputations for grade inflation (possibly stemming from practices in various disciplines) also significantly benefit from such advantages in their courses is probably a huge misrepresentation of the reality.

I went to an Ivy and the majority of our courses were averaged to a C+. They simply fit all the average exam scores to a bell curve and drew cutoffs on their distributions that then corresponded to a ranked list whereby approximately the top 10%-15% of the class would get an A. These courses were filled with anywhere from 100-300 students, and these students were generally all gifted, competitive and hard working. For the minority of non science courses I took, it wasn't that there were students who really deserved to get Cs and Bs on their essays that were given As, it's that the quality of work produced by too many students was so high that splitting hairs between essays often became a nearly impossible if not trivial point for many professors.

Inflation results in diminished value. If Ivies had grade inflation that'd mean less work, knowledge, proficiency and analytical ability would be required to get a top grade there than doing so in a similar course at another university. I have tutored many students who go to reputable universities nearby and to be honest not once have I thought, after seeing their exams, my exams were cake compared to this! More often than not, it was the opposite sentiment.

 

[BurberryDoc]

I have not read this thread in full, but I have noticed a few comments in here I would like to offer my opinion/retort on.

If you are achieving a 4.0 at a state school, it is likely perceived as "this student has reached the maximum performance one can at their institution" - what more can you really ask from a student? The 4.0 at the state school will beat out the 3.4 at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, these types of schools. That being said, however, this is an extreme gap that is being used as an example. My suspicion is that a student with a 3.6 in a difficult major, say, Chemical Engineering at school like M.I.T., will probably out-do the state-school-student majoring in Applied Physics at a 3.75 GPA.

The truth of the matter, however, is that this process boils down to much, MUCH more than GPA, the college you attended, MCAT, etc. I graduated from an Ivy, and my GPA was a hair shy of a 3.3 - does that GPA impress anyone at all? NO. I earned a 30 MCAT, which is on the lower end of "acceptable," but that is more often the case for a student with a counter-balancing high GPA.

Somehow, my 3.3 at a top university didn't keep me out of medical school, as I will be attending this fall. I am an extreme case, and perhaps a statistical outlier in this process as I was a non-traditional applicant. However, it should be noted that when the margins in GPA are much less (3.8 vs 3.6, an 0.2 difference) the school you attend can give you an edge. Conversely, I did a traditional M.S. program at a god awful university, with a very poorly ranked medical school. I earned a 3.85, and so this is an example of the high-GPA/low-rank college scenario.

What is my point? If you are a top student at a lesser known/reputable institution, you don't have much to worry about. Your counterparts at top institutions have some leeway in the GPA they typically need to achieve to be equally as competitive as you. Bottom Line.

I go to a pretty much completely unheard of state university, and still have Harvard, Dartmouth, Berkley, MIT doctorate science professors so yeah.. not exactly sure why your chem 2 at JH should be weighted any differently from my harvard doctorate triple PhD professor, just because your school has name recognition. The laws of colligative properties, kinetics, energetics, equillibrium, and thermodynamics dont change at JH nor do the concepts get trickier.

This is because it is fiercely competitive in academia, and there is a saturation in the job-market for tenure track professorships. Not everyone who gets a PhD at Harvard will become a tenure-track faculty at a top 25 university. The quality of your professors education is not an index of the quality of your education - I have been told I have the "privilege" of being in the classroom headed by professors who have earned doctorates from ETH Zurich, Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford, UVa, Columbia, and so on and so forth - but some of these professors as brilliant as they may be, are not the greatest communicators of their expertise to a general audience. Thus, the quality of their education and the education they are able to deliver, differ substantially.

 

[sourdoughllama]

If you are achieving a 4.0 at a state school, it is likely perceived as "this student has reached the maximum performance one can at their institution" - what more can you really ask from a student? The 4.0 at the state school will beat out the 3.4 at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, these types of schools. That being said, however, this is an extreme gap that is being used as an example. My suspicion is that a student with a 3.6 in a difficult major, say, Chemical Engineering at school like M.I.T., will probably out-do the state-school-student majoring in Applied Physics at a 3.75 GPA.

The truth of the matter, however, is that this process boils down to much, MUCH more than GPA, the college you attended, MCAT, etc. I graduated from an Ivy, and my GPA was a hair shy of a 3.3 - does that GPA impress anyone at all? NO. I earned a 30 MCAT, which is on the lower end of "acceptable," but that is more often the case for a student with a counter-balancing high GPA.

Somehow, my 3.3 at a top university didn't keep me out of medical school, as I will be attending this fall. I am an extreme case, and perhaps a statistical outlier in this process as I was a non-traditional applicant. However, it should be noted that when the margins in GPA are much less (3.8 vs 3.6, an 0.2 difference) the school you attend can give you an edge. Conversely, I did a traditional M.S. program at a god awful university, with a very poorly ranked medical school. I earned a 3.85, and so this is an example of the high-GPA/low-rank college scenario.

What is my point? If you are a top student at a lesser known/reputable institution, you don't have much to worry about. Your counterparts at top institutions have some leeway in the GPA they typically need to achieve to be equally as competitive as you. Bottom Line.

Agreed with the whole post. I am fairly certain most people agree that the same HYP GPA is harder to get than state U; the degree that it is inflated/deflated/justified is what is debatable, but I agree with your assertion that a 3.6 HYP is roughly comparable to 3.8 at lesser schools (that are at least recognized as acceptable)

This is because it is fiercely competitive in academia, and there is a saturation in the job-market for tenure track professorships. Not everyone who gets a PhD at Harvard will become a tenure-track faculty at a top 25 university. The quality of your professors education is not an index of the quality of your education - I have been told I have the "privilege" of being in the classroom headed by professors who have earned doctorates from ETH Zurich, Hopkins, Harvard, Stanford, UVa, Columbia, and so on and so forth - but some of these professors as brilliant as they may be, are not the greatest communicators of their expertise to a general audience. Thus, the quality of their education and the education they are able to deliver, differ substantially.

This. I don't know why some professors are even forced to teach when they clearly have no talent or patience for teaching. I'd even argue the lower ranked schools have better quality of teaching vs. top research schools where they like check marking impressive faculty