if this isnt massive grade inflation ... (also question for dartmouth ppl)

[Peterock]

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and i think it's all very amusing how you, as a student from what may be a prestigious "non-ivy league" school (as you so differentiated), have a combination of the snobbery you so hypocritically accuse us of having AND some sort of inferiority complex that makes you bash and downplay the caliber of ivy league institutions.

and as a sidenote, i chose not to go to a top liberal arts college (using your US News rankins) because of financial aid packages, and i'm glad i chose to attend a school where some may have a hypocritical snobbery/inferiority complex about those who attend ivies. we, at least, have the tact and courtesy not to start a thread discrediting the value of grades earned at non-ivy institutions, whatever our views may be on that topic.

btw, the B+ median for Pchem was unique, I believe, to the year I took the course because four very brilliant and intensely studious students with 3.85+ gpa's (which apparently holds no weight with you) and 36, 37, 38, and 42 MCAT scores were in the course and consistently scored above an 90 on the exams. take away their scores and the median would, without a doubt, drop below the B+ mark. anyway, if you want to derive the schrodenger equation in class, and then derive other equations you never even learned about on the 4 hour exams i had in 61, then you're welcome to try out the "grade inflation" at dartmouth.

Using average MCATs doesn't seem to satisfy the irrational logic of some public schoolers who really just use this forum to insult. The jealousy is obvious. I've yet to see one public school student prove that their ugrads have a MCAT average of >30. People from Princeton, MIT, etc have posted statistics from their school showing how absurdly high their average ugrad scores on the MCAT. This would not be a chart of matriculants but of all the students there.

Even using anecdotal evidence - there are always ivy leaguer (or students from other top schools) who go to a public school and remark on the classes are vastly easier. Yet, the reverse example of this doesn't seem to exist: a public schooler who transferred to an ivy league school and claims they are the same or that the ivy is easier. WHY?

Also, as a MCAT instructor, it is well known at my company that students at certain schools are vastly different in achievement levels. There are students who will do well anywhere... there just happen to be a lot more of them at top schools. I get to look at the scores to prove it to myself whenever I wish.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

and i think it's all very amusing how you, as a student from what may be a prestigious "non-ivy league" school (as you so differentiated), have a combination of the snobbery you so hypocritically accuse us of having AND some sort of inferiority complex that makes you bash and downplay the caliber of ivy league institutions.

and as a sidenote, i chose not to go to a top liberal arts college (using your US News rankins) because of financial aid packages, and i'm glad i chose to attend a school where some may have a hypocritical snobbery/inferiority complex about those who attend ivies. we, at least, have the tact and courtesy not to start a thread discrediting the value of grades earned at non-ivy institutions, whatever our views may be on that topic.

btw, the B+ median for Pchem was unique, I believe, to the year I took the course because four very brilliant and intensely studious students with 3.85+ gpa's (which apparently holds no weight with you) and 36, 37, 38, and 42 MCAT scores were in the course and consistently scored above an 90 on the exams. take away their scores and the median would, without a doubt, drop below the B+ mark. anyway, if you want to derive the schrodenger equation in class, and then derive other equations you never even learned about on the 4 hour exams i had in 61, then you're welcome to try out the "grade inflation" at dartmouth.

Well, as an aside, the Schrodinger equation cannot be derived, it can only be postulated 😉 Sort of like trying to use L'Hospital's rule to show that the limit of sin(x)/x as x tends to 0 is 1.

 

[SarahGM]

This is just so true. Basically these people throw mud all over your accomplishments and your school. Then when you defend it they call you snobs. The hypocrisy is disgusting.

Peterock! Remember when we met once upon a time?!

Congrats on UNC!

 

[criminallyinane]

My impression has been that the higher quality of students at Ivy's/Little Ivy's/similar caliber schools is pretty irrefutable. On the whole, those students are more intelligent, motivated, and generally accomplished than their state school counterparts. Because of this, professors spend more time exploring more in-depth issues as opposed to explaining for 50 million times what the Michael addition is. In my organic chemistry class we had to write term papers both semesters in addition to midterms and final exams. The term papers were on a pharmacologically relevant organic compound and we had to research the synthesis, mechanism of effect, utility of enantiomers, degradation in the body, possible causes of toxicity, etc, etc, etc and write it all up in a huge, 40-page paper. BOTH SEMESTERS.

How many people at state schools were doing that, I wonder? I am not saying that I got a better education at my Ivy, but I earned the right to those grades. I did very well on difficult exams and juggled much more work than my friends at state schools, because more was expected of me, I believe.

 

[Chrissy]

I too, would prefer not to "get involved" here but just a little food for thought. My uncle is a biology professor at Brown U. and I would just like to summarize his opinion with all of you...and i realize this too is anectodal, but come on there is seriously a lot of bitterness on this thread and i am just dispensing some insight hope u dont mind....anyway he was saying that the student population as far as credentials (most obvious high school gpa/sat scores/ap classes) are indisputably higher at Ivy league and ivy league caliber schools. this is statistical fact, not opinion... of course there are many exceptions where highly intelligent students attend state schools and even community colleges for many reasons, but on the whole the Ivy League caliber students are on the extremely high end of college applicants...that being said, many professors teach and test in a way that NEEDS to challenge the brightest students in a class of very bright students at these top schools....so the bottom line is when you have a g bio class where the average sat score in the class is 1450-1600 the material and exams will most definitely be harder relative to schools where the average sat score is 1000-1300 say....the grades will always be the same (curve around c+/b- or what have you it doesn't matter) but that is a completely separate issue from whether or not they're harder. Yes, they are harder at Ivies. Yes, on average the students are brighter at Ivies. I mentioned before, I self-righteously think i am in a position to make this judgment having attending both a second tier private school then an IVy....it is harder. a lot harder. the kids are a lot smarter. before you make a judgment take even a summer course at your nearest ivy and see how you do. please.

 

[Chrissy]

Criminallyinane: I couldn't have said it better. When i transferred to Penn the biology department literally smurked at my biology syllabus AND exams (when reviewing them for credit)....i didn't receive science credit for the 18 science credits i took that year....

in my experience sciences at penn tested in a way where if you memorized and "knew" the bio or chem book you would at best get a c....the exams asked one or 2 straight forward questions at most...everything else were types of problems you've never seen with tricks and twists....only the kids who could figure out the concepts on the spot from applying all they knew previously did reasonably well.

 

[drat]

Is everyone really getting btwn 3.5 and 4.0 though?
That's pretty high.

Hell, i wish Rice would have hooked a brotha up with some nice grades

Not really -- to graduate in the top 1/3 of the class, you needed a 3.48 GPA the year I graduated.

 

[drat]

how about one of your dartmouth ppl help me figure out what physical chemistry is like at dartmouth cuz i might be heading over in a year to take it and to study away

P Chem was the most difficult chemistry class I took at Dartmouth. Two professors taught the course (new instructor after midterm). The first professor sucked -- class average on the first exam hovered around 50%. She couldn't explain the thinking into solving problems...she relied solely on the answer key. The next instructor was fabulous...Ditchfield. I'm not sure if the class improved in their averages or anything, but Ditchfield had study sessions/office hours/knew the material, etc...Consequently I did really well in his part of the class, which saved my final grade. 🙂

So, in a nutshell, the class will be extremely difficult if your instructor sucks. PM me if you know who is teaching. . .

 

[Peterock]

Peterock! Remember when we met once upon a time?!

Congrats on UNC!

I do remember. Kind of hard to forget a girl with beautiful curly blond hair.

I actually thought it was kind of cool of you to take the time to defend your undergrad from all the haters.

Anyway, how is Columbia?

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

P Chem was the most difficult chemistry class I took at Dartmouth. Two professors taught the course (new instructor after midterm). The first professor sucked -- class average on the first exam hovered around 50%. She couldn't explain the thinking into solving problems...she relied solely on the answer key. The next instructor was fabulous...Ditchfield. I'm not sure if the class improved in their averages or anything, but Ditchfield had study sessions/office hours/knew the material, etc...Consequently I did really well in his part of the class, which saved my final grade. 🙂

So, in a nutshell, the class will be extremely difficult if your instructor sucks. PM me if you know who is teaching. . .

Yes, I agree, I won't drop names as to who the first prof is. But having sat in on Ditchfields 73 class, I can say that he is a superb and dedicated teacher. His notes are so neat and clear, they could seriously be published as a textbook. He (and Winn) have a comprehensive knowledge of pChem - thermo, kinetics, and quantum - which makes them excellent teachers, because they see all the connections. He also personally graded all of our problem sets (not to mention tests) and oversaw the grading of labs.

Also, when you took it, it was probably 66, right? Which was kind of insane, since it slammed together all of pchem into one course! That's why they replaced it with 61 and 62 and 71, 72, and 81 with 71, 72, and 73, which is a more integrated sequence.

 

[drat]

Yes, I agree, I won't drop names as to who the first prof is. But having sat in on Ditchfields 73 class, I can say that he is a superb and dedicated teacher. His notes are so neat and clear, they could seriously be published as a textbook. He (and Winn) have a comprehensive knowledge of pChem - thermo, kinetics, and quantum - which makes them excellent teachers, because they see all the connections. He also personally graded all of our problem sets (not to mention tests) and oversaw the grading of labs.

Also, when you took it, it was probably 66, right? Which was kind of insane, since it slammed together all of pchem into one course! That's why they replaced it with 61 and 62 and 71, 72, and 81 with 71, 72, and 73, which is a more integrated sequence.

Yes, I have the utmost respect for Ditchfield. Great guy and even better teacher. On top of being extremely knowledgeable, he is really 'student-friendly,' meaning that he often came in after-hours for study sessions -- hours that are more friendly for students than professors (i.e. 8 p.m.) -- and made up extra problem sets so we could practice more before the exams. In addition, he emailed me after the term had ended and asked if I could stop by his office and then proceeded to tell me that if I ever want a letter of recommendation to grad school, he'd be more than happy to write one for me. Talk about role reversal... haha. I didn't have to solicit a professor for a letter of recommendation! Just a great guy who is in your corner.

But yeah, the professor can make or break a class, especially in a subject you know nothing about (aka p-chem!)

For the life of me, I cannot remember the P chem class number. (I graduated '02) It was probably 66 -- it was just one class. First half was thermo and the second half was kinetics. I'm happy to see they switched it up a bit because, crap man, that was A LOT of info for just 10 weeks.

 

[biggreen05]

Clearly... If I were them, I'd be less worried about alleged grade inflation and more upset about missing out on things like that... 🙂

Congrats on graduating! Btw, is this who I think it is? If so, a mutual friend's boyfriend that's an '08 at Yale Med tells me how much he looooves it... sounds like you're going to enjoy it there!

i'm not sure i know anyone at columbia except an '04 vaguely. hope you're enjoying the place. i'm from cali, so nyc was exciting but a little intense for me. glad to hear yale's a chill place; i'm counting on their 'system' to allow me not to change my sleeping schedule...kinda got used to a 11, 2a, 2 schedule last year.

oh and just to make this post relevant to the thread: grade inflation doesn't matter, hell grades don't matter, more important to have a sweet time whether it's -40 in january or hot and humid in june, rabble rabble rabble.

 

[medstyle]

Ivy league here...indian, 3.3-3.2 gpa, lots of C's, 31...taken once, sophomore year...like 3 years ago. No good activities, great recommendations, a few years of research with absolutely no accomplishment. Admitted that volunteering was a waste of time in interviews and college was for growing, not grade chasing. I had over 10 interviews (never counted, didn't care).

Going to U chicago. Interviewed at pretty decent places.

Ivy league helps. Just like driving a ferrari or anything else...somethign that is rare helps. You can get a civic to drive as fast as a ferrari...but what would you rather have?

Anyway, i dont hvae time for this anal premed BS...so, dont kid yourself. When i meet kids, i can tell right away who went to a good school, and who is state school material. You can tell, from style of dress, to priorities, to attitudes about stuff.

Go ivy if you can...if you can't, dont sweat it...most people can't go either. But there is virtue in it, just as there is virtue in any accomplishment.

 

[45408]

Ivy league helps. Just like driving a ferrari or anything else...somethign that is rare helps. You can get a civic to drive as fast as a ferrari...but what would you rather have?

Anyway, i dont hvae time for this anal premed BS...so, dont kid yourself. When i meet kids, i can tell right away who went to a good school, and who is state school material. You can tell, from style of dress, to priorities, to attitudes about stuff.

Having a Ferrari doesn't help if the driver can't drive stick 😉

seriously, how can you tell what school someone went to based on their attire?

 

[CUarzt]

ive been lurking on this thread for a little while

this argument is overplayed and overstated, but fun to watch

i had to pipe up when medstyle let his elitism jump from his mind to his mouth:
although of little to no worth to you, medstyle, i admire your honesty with the adcoms vis a vis volunteering

what i find upsetting is the blatent elitist mentality you display on a public forum like this (your comments about discerning ivies from non-ivies based upon "style of dress" triggered me)

let me suggest that there is virtue in keeping your mouth shut when it comes to these issues; and yes, when your ivy accomplishments (however you see them) are in question (as in this argument), it is an accomplishment to remain quiet

my $.02

 

[TheMightyAngus]

Reading all this about competition and why the ivy's are better makes me wanna barf. Just hearing you complain about your courseload, 40 page term papers, and the other tough **** they make you go through cause you're ivy-material, a cut above the rest. Grow up! You chose to go there. Suck it up Hoover!!

Yeah I went to a school that looks pretty on a diploma, but my experience in the pre-med curriculum was god awful. I've never seen such grade grubbing a$$holes in my life. So bad that I switched majors to be with students who didn't give a damn about grades and tests but were extremely bright, did extremely well, and went on to do some great things.

I remember my year abroad in England. Students there actually help each other and are interested in the value of a course because there's only one test a term and everyone knows what to cover. No grade-grubbing comparing, etc. Things are simple you earn a first, second, third degree. That's it. No A-/B+ whining, or, I deserve such and such bull**** from students. Why are things so different here?

God help me go to Stanford Med. Pass/Fail all four years, no alpha omicron alpha society, absolutely nothing differentiating you from your peers aside from your board scores. Students actually doing something other than studying. Sounds like absolute heaven to me.

 

[Peterock]

Ivy league here...indian, 3.3-3.2 gpa, lots of C's, 31...taken once, sophomore year...like 3 years ago. No good activities, great recommendations, a few years of research with absolutely no accomplishment. Admitted that volunteering was a waste of time in interviews and college was for growing, not grade chasing. I had over 10 interviews (never counted, didn't care).

Going to U chicago. Interviewed at pretty decent places.

Ivy league helps. Just like driving a ferrari or anything else...somethign that is rare helps. You can get a civic to drive as fast as a ferrari...but what would you rather have?

Anyway, i dont hvae time for this anal premed BS...so, dont kid yourself. When i meet kids, i can tell right away who went to a good school, and who is state school material. You can tell, from style of dress, to priorities, to attitudes about stuff.

Go ivy if you can...if you can't, dont sweat it...most people can't go either. But there is virtue in it, just as there is virtue in any accomplishment.

👎

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

OK, medstyle's post was just insanely stupid. How can you tell where someone went by their attire? Unless you are talking about the class discrepancies, which were very painful for me and the lower class students. People were wearing the most expensive watches, driving mercedes, eating out all the time, etc. and they had everything paid by mommy and daddy.

Really medstyle, all you are doing is perpetuating the stereotypes of Ivy people as snobs, which isn't fair to those of us who aren't.

 

[patzan]

Also, Houston isn't in the "South" persay (so Rice is the Harvard of Texas... good school though).

PER SE

 

[shatter]

Hey Rme04, your statement is completely off base. Yes, there's grade inflation at Harvard, but many science classes are curved around a B or B-. I personally know of a number of students who transferred from other ivy schools and complained about the difficulty of the science classes. Yes, there are a few classes where nearly everyone gets an A, but these are generally small seminars and they're the exception, not the rule.

I took a computer science class at Harvard. Nearly everyone got an A. That doesn't happen anywhere else.

 

[shatter]

This is very legitimate: if they want to have the name, then they have to have the standards. The problem with this is future employment. If Dartmouth gives out Cs for work that would earn a B+ or even higher at a weaker school, how do you think their pre-meds will fare? Unfortunately, initial employment and ESPECIALLY admission to graduate/professional schools can be very GPA driven. Dartmouth and other excellent schools would thereby be hurting their students. And future employment connects with reputation in the public eye, in the eye of other institutions, alumni donations, etc.

Personally, and I wanted to comment on this before, I think this is why Cornell students in my experience fared somewhat less successfully as pre-meds than the people at Dartmouth and the more inflating Ivys. Perhaps the grades are more deserved at Cornell, but the GPAs suffer. This is just my layman's view, so those who know better, please correct me.

Around 80% with GPA greater than 3.0 get into Allopathic school at Cornell. How about dem apples?

 

[shatter]

you've got to be kidding -- dartmouth has the lowest grade inflation of all the ivy's, first of all.

also, as another dartmouth alum pointed out on this thread, science classes at dartmouth are TOUGH. i feel confident in saying that science at dartmouth is way harder than science at any other ivy league school, not only because of the low (B-) medians, but also the incredibly heavy workload and the required labs that go with the course, which take up almost as much time as an entire course. (amost 80% of the incoming class starts of as premed, but only around 10% end up applying after going through dartmouth science courses.) i'm a recent dartmouth grad and a chemistry major, and i can assure you that i busted butt for four years at dartmouth to do well in my classes, as i know all of my fellow science major friends did.

consider also the caliber of the school, and the motivation and intellectual abilities of the students who go to dartmouth - particularly the science majors. my physical chemistry class (the hardest class in the major) had a B+ median, but that's because in the class of about 20 students, every single one of us studied our butts off in the library and worked ridiculously hard in the class. i have kids in my classes who got 37, 38, and 42 on their mcats, and they are SMART people.

i'd think twice about making such thoughtless statements as the one you made.

Everybody thinks that his or her science program is the "toughest". If you go to a top twenty USNews school, your science is going to be tough.

 

[shatter]

Well, as an aside, the Schrodinger equation cannot be derived, it can only be postulated 😉 Sort of like trying to use L'Hospital's rule to show that the limit of sin(x)/x as x tends to 0 is 1.

It can be derived. Combine deBroglie's equation for the wavelength of a particle and the wave equation, and you get Scrhodinger's equation.

 

[hnbui]

wow this post is so anti ivy league.

 

[topdogg82]

I think before people start attacking the Ivys, esp Harvard, think about what people got in there in the first place! These are the brightest and most promising kids in the country. Now compare that to a state school, where a huge premed class will likely have some smart kids but also A LOT of average kids (relatively). Obviously, one of two things has to happen:

1. harvard gives out the same ratio of grades as the state school, so the average kid at harvard gets the same grade as the average kid at the state school, although it is highly unlikely they worked just as hard/have the same capabilities. it takes a lot more to get into harvard than a state school, so while both schools will have geniuses, the average at harvard should be higher IMO.

consequence: grad school/employers look at gpas, and the harvard kid with the average looking gpa gets shafted for the state school kid who likely worked less but pulled off a higher gpa. thats why we have the mcat- its to see who's for real and who's just abusing easier competition at a state school to get a higher gpa. if you are truly qualified and just ended up at a state school instead of a top tier school, then this is your chance to shine and prove yourself against the kids from harvard. however, it also exposes those who hope to just ride their gpa from a 'lower' school into a big time grad school. I've taken classes at a state school and duke and there is definitely a significant disparity in difficulty. the state school tests (physics) were multiple choice (not tricky)- easy as $hit compared to the short answer format we have for physics here. kids were complaining about the class going too fast, but to me it was like the class was twice as easy as the easiest class i've taken here at duke.

so in conclusion, while the name/prestige of a school does give the applicant a benefit, it doesnt make up a .3-.4 gpa disparity b/w a kid there and one at an 'easier' school when it comes to apps. thats why places like harvard will give out more lenient grades than a state school- b/c ALL the kids there are pretty damn smart, so its not fair to penalize them for competing w/ the best while a lot of the kids at the state school will be average, so its easier for the really smart kids there b/c the competition is less.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

I think before people start attacking the Ivys, esp Harvard, think about what people got in there in the first place! These are the brightest and most promising kids in the country. Now compare that to a state school, where a huge premed class will likely have some smart kids but also A LOT of average kids (relatively). Obviously, one of two things has to happen:

1. harvard gives out the same ratio of grades as the state school, so the average kid at harvard gets the same grade as the average kid at the state school, although it is highly unlikely they worked just as hard/have the same capabilities. it takes a lot more to get into harvard than a state school, so while both schools will have geniuses, the average at harvard should be higher IMO.

consequence: grad school/employers look at gpas, and the harvard kid with the average looking gpa gets shafted for the state school kid who likely worked less but pulled off a higher gpa. thats why we have the mcat- its to see who's for real and who's just abusing easier competition at a state school to get a higher gpa. if you are truly qualified and just ended up at a state school instead of a top tier school, then this is your chance to shine and prove yourself against the kids from harvard. however, it also exposes those who hope to just ride their gpa from a 'lower' school into a big time grad school. I've taken classes at a state school and duke and there is definitely a significant disparity in difficulty. the state school tests (physics) were multiple choice (not tricky)- easy as $hit compared to the short answer format we have for physics here. kids were complaining about the class going too fast, but to me it was like the class was twice as easy as the easiest class i've taken here at duke.

so in conclusion, while the name/prestige of a school does give the applicant a benefit, it doesnt make up a .3-.4 gpa disparity b/w a kid there and one at an 'easier' school when it comes to apps. thats why places like harvard will give out more lenient grades than a state school- b/c ALL the kids there are pretty damn smart, so its not fair to penalize them for competing w/ the best while a lot of the kids at the state school will be average, so its easier for the really smart kids there b/c the competition is less.

I don't know what's up with this multiple choice stuff. We never had that in physics. It's absolutely unheard of. In my physics exams, I can remember that we were often given very novel problems, situations we had not seen before. They really made you think. And then there was an upper level physics class where the prof DESIGNED one of the three open-ended problems to trip you off. For example, the final answer for the magnetic field would be 0, or the charge distribution would reduce to some trivial structure, etc. And on the test, you would refuse to believe that, you would give some more complicated "plausible" answer and get it wrong.

But really, I've never seen multiple choice on physics. Occasionally, I saw it in intro biology classes (but also with open-ended problems), and maybe some true-false questions in bio/chem classes. But even in organic chemistry, we never had a single multiple choice question.