I’ll also add that the deadline to declare S/NC or A/B/C usually falls such that if the course has only 2 major graded assignments, it’s before either of them (e.g. a midterm and final). Even a class with 3 major assignments (e.g. 2 midterms and a final like many science classes) might not have a single graded thing before the deadline, but if it does, easily as much as 80% of your grade is still TBD.
Grading on a curve doesn’t make a class more rigorous - it just makes it more competitive. Just because someone is outside the top 60% of the class doesn’t mean they don’t have a strong grasp of a given set of material. Have you ever wondered why many med schools and grad schools don’t grade on curves?
I hate to potentially sidetrack this sure to be extremely educational dialogue but this was one of my issues with that SAT article I posted in the rankings thread. To correlate SAT scores to freshman GPAs ignores that fact that at many colleges the students are enriched and then forced into a curve (unless they meant just looking at the correlation within the school but then the range of point variations is so small, a few hundred points/2400 max?)
P.S. That’s Dr. @norcalguy to you!