<p>terenc,</p>
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<p>Stanford has not released average GPA since 1992. If you read it, the description admits that Stanford’s figure is a guess based largely on comparison to its peers. This also says nothing about the School of Engineering or even the CS department. Everyone knows that some subjects tend to give out worse grades than others. While no official statistics have been released, it’s generally accepted that SOE and CS are well below Stanford’s average, whatever that may be.</p>
<p>Even if Stanford’s were provably higher, you can’t draw the conclusion that it’s due to “more lax grading.” Notice that the more selective a school is, the higher the average GPA is. Smaller classes are known to be better learning environments for students, and hence the grades from them tend to be higher. So between the smaller classes and the smarter/harder-working (on average) students, it’s not surprising that Stanford’s would be higher. In fact, it’s possible that Stanford profs hold students to a higher standard - and the grades given out are just a reflection of student response to it (i.e. they work harder to meet that higher standard).</p>
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<p>If you think about it, this doesn’t support your point. Let’s say Stanford’s average GPA were a 3.5. It’s possible that part of that is because Stanford works on a 4.3 scale rather than a 4.0. If Stanford switched to the 4.0 scale, that 3.5 could be marginally lower. (Of course, it could stay the same or go up, depending on how many +s or -s there are.)</p>
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<p>It’s hilarious that you’re even citing this. 1) That’s from the Stanford Review, a notoriously low-quality publication on campus. 2) The author said “a quick glance” - he wasn’t doing any real data collection. Most importantly, 3) it comes from Courserank. That’s a site where students can review courses, but not many do it. Most submit the official course evaluations. It’s a well-known fact among the student body that Courserank is not indicative at all of course difficulty (the most common complaint being that students on there say a class is easier than it really is). This is unsurprising, since Courserank is a self-selecting survey that few pay attention to.</p>
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<p>My anecdotal evidence supports my points well: I went to Stanford, in CS. And I can tell you have no idea what you’re talking about.</p>