<p>I have heard that about MIT, but I have no reason to believe that it happens at Caltech. Certainly, the (third term) freshman classes aren’t graded particularly harshly. Maybe a lot of the s’more ones are, and that does tend to be the most challenging year for a lot of majors. I still highly doubt that the median graduating GPA is 3.5 when the median GPA is 3.2.</p>