ringer05

The choir is excellent--both musically and socially. If you're going to Spring Open Campus, see if the director is in her office! I don't know if the choir will be doing anything official this weekend, but we gave short performances in previous years (as did the a cappella groups and [maybe?] the orchestra). Ask around--you're bound to find someone who knows someone in one of the groups, and members tend to enjoy talking about their activities

Purplegirl 2010

"How difficult is the workload? How much extracurricular stuff can you fit in around the edges?"

Wellesley is not a piece of cake. From what I can tell the workload is one of the most intense in the country for liberal arts colleges. But as with anything else, you can really determine how many classes you want to take and how difficult your classes will be (i.e. a pre-med student probably works more hours than some other students on campus). I don't know many people here who aren't invovled in several extracurricular activities! Most of us were really active in high school and not many people just drop the fun activities once they get here and start studying 24-7 in their rooms. I'm heavily involved in two (dorm government and newspaper) and I'm able to manage schoolwork with these activities quite nicely. That being said, I wouldn't recommend joining too many orgs just because you do want to spend a little time eating, sleeping and studying

aquafoam

Honestly I didn't join the Wellesley-Brandeis orchestra because the level is about the same as my high school. I joined MITSO (MIT symphony orchestra) and the level/caliber of the people are AMAZING. You have grad students, people who were in Julliard pre-college ......

millionlittlepieces

A 4.00 is not literally an A+, just fyi. An A is worth 4.00, A- is worth 3.67, B+ is worth 3.33, etc. And the grade deflation sets the average grade at a B+ (3.33) for courses at the 100 and 200 level with at least 10 students in the class.

LonelyFishbowl

Can anyone give me the rundown on how a cappella auditions are like?

And I couldn't help but notice aquafoam's post-- Are other schools' extracurriculars in the Boston area pretty open for Wellesley students?

Chewie

Right, but for many classes (actually, all the classes I've had so far), professors care little about grade deflation and will give you whatever grade they think you deserve. Meaning, if you did A- work, you'll get an A-.

BunsenBurner

B+ average is grade DEFLATION???

LaMariposaAzul

Is anyone here on the Wellesley Sailing club? How difficult is it for someone with little racing experience to join? (I've been a sailor since I was three, but I've barely ever raced in a regatta or anything like that. Could I still be involved with sailing?)

millionlittlepieces

Trust me, when you realize how much work you'll have to put into a course just to end up with a B+, you'll understand the drawbacks of grade deflation. Or when you get a paper back that has an A- on it thats been crossed out and replaced with a B+.

Also, admission rates for recent Wellesley graduates into GPA obsessed fields such as law and med school have lowered since the grade deflation was instated.

ringer05

This has been bugging me since the first question appeared in the thread. Wellesley's grading policy is not about grade deflation. The phrase implies that students receive grades that undervalue their work. The policy is anti-inflation, meaning that grades don't overvalue the students' achievements. This same topic came up last year (or was it the year before?) and Wendy astutely noted that grades don't mean much when a B is considered borderline and you essentially have six degrees of failing. Grade inflation also devalues excellent work. How do you distinguish truly exceptional work from above-average work if they both receive A's?

Bottom line: you earn your grade. A professor will not give you a lower grade than you deserve. The standards for your work might (and hopefully will) be higher than you've encountered so far, and your grades might (and probably will) go down from high school, but this is not grade deflation.

aquafoam

And I couldn't help but notice aquafoam's post-- Are other schools' extracurriculars in the Boston area pretty open for Wellesley students?

=> LonelyFishBowl: Actually the reason why Wellesley's orchestra is Wellesley/Brandeis is because Wellesley doesn't have enough people to form a real orchestra :P Even then, the Wellesley/Brandeis orchestra is SMALL compared to MIT (in MITSO we have 80+ people in full symphonies). We can participate in Olin, Babson, and MIT ECs because of our unique cross-registration thing.

LaMariposaAzul

How difficult is it to find the transportation to participate in all these awesome MIT/Olin/Babson/Brandeis EC's? Is there a bus or something?

rev09

LaMariposaAzul--
If you're interested in sailing, my friend is the captain of the sailing team at Wellesley, and I can try to put you in touch with her. She's one of the sweetest people I know and sooo enthusiastic about the sport/team.

WendyMouse

There is a bus between MIT and Wellesley, and a small shuttle between Wellesley and Olin/Babson, that has more limited hours. I think the Brandeis Orchestra has a bus (I may need to stand corrected), but there is no school sponsored way to get to Brandeis.

jacinth_ambrose

Ringer, I think your post about grade deflation is the best that I've seen so far.

Millionlittlepieces, you claim that admission rates for law and med schools have dropped since the institution of the policy. I'd be very surprised if it was true, especially if the drop was outside of the normal range of acceptance rates over the span of a few years. Do you have any evidence to support your claim, besides anecdotal?

I was a student when the grading policy was debated and then instituted. Believe me, there was a lot of concern, from both students and faculty, about what the new policy would mean. But if you looked at the data before the policy, Wellesley's average GPA was the highest (or second highest?) among our peer group, meaning other top LAC and the Ivies. This information was made available during Senate when the policy was first proposed. Would you really want Wellesley to be known as the school that gives out easy A's, thus devaluing everyone's work?

One of the academically oriented things I liked best about Wellesley was that grades were a non issue amongst classmates. Not to say that they weren't important to students, just that talking about grades and GPA's wasn't done. I never knew the grades of my friends, nor did I ask or want to know. This was so different from my high school, where everyone was really competitive and knew where everyone else stood relative to one another. And it wasn't a small school either - 400 students per grade. Wellesley was such a refreshing change. I liked how the focus wasn't so much on how you were doing in comparison to someone else in class, but how you were doing against your potential.