Are Harvard students GPA-driven?

etondad
Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:25:26 +0000

It also depends upon whether one is a science or a humanities concentrator–disproportionate John Harvard/Harvard College winners in the humanities. Also if one wishes to game the system to get a higher GPA then opting out of, say, Physics 16 to take Physics 15 or Math 23 or 25 instead of 55 (same is the case in most sciences) will give a higher GPA–but at the cost of not pushing one’s self to the maximum.
Also some courses have “forced curves”–where the percentage of As/Bs/Cs are set regardless of the how much a student may have learned.

If you want medical school or some law schools then you will make those decisions to take courses where GPAs can be maximized and stay away from forced curve courses. Other career paths --including academia isn’t as purely quant driven. I would posit that an A- from Physics 16 is much more valuable to a potential Physics PhD than an A in Physics 15. The writer above is right that most students find that being a CrimEd, 'Poonster, member of HRO/Bach Soc, or Advocate matters more to later career options than a GPA number. (Remember that TS Eliot got a B+ in Expos Writing…)