<p>I just want to refute a popular and common misconception that Cornell is brutal in terms of grading: [Grade</a> Inflation Cornell Insider](<a href=“http://cornellinsider.com/2010/06/22/grade-inflation/#comments]Grade”>http://cornellinsider.com/2010/06/22/grade-inflation/#comments)
Check out the first comment below.</p>
<p>Grades really depend on major. Overall GPA can be “manipulated” as well if you do have a hard major. Quite a few people with hard majors will make sure any non-major course they take to satisfy their other requirements are easy classes. That said, not all majors are created equal. Physics is harder than Communications and that will be reflected in the median grades.</p>
<p>I can only speak to friend’s experiences, but Cornell is a difficult school. Many of my friends from high school who went to “lower tier” colleges claimed that college was easier. These were people now getting straight A’s who I quite honestly stomped on in the GPA department in high school. And not all those people had easy majors either, yet still thought high school was harder. The best anecdotal evidence I have is that every person I know who transferred to Cornell says Cornell was significantly harder, and these were people who stayed in the same major and came from good schools (NYU and BC jump to mind from my closest friends who transferred).</p>