Cutthroat, laidback school list

SWHarborfan
Thu, 27 Jan 2011 02:41:53 +0000

<<<umm… many USC biology and chemistry courses (such as intro bio, mobio, biochem, gchem, ochem) are curved at:
15% A
25% B
40% C
15% D
5% F
giving you an average GPA of about 2.3 in each of those courses.

i really doubt that UCLA or Cal’s curves are much harsher than that.>>

Then doubt away, because in my day, the top 2-3% in my Physics major classes got the "A"s. I remember tears and incredulousness when some of my Physics peers were in the top 10% of our respective class and got a nice fat “B” on their posted (in those days), by student ID number, final grades. Classes like P-Chem, with the “top” student, garnering 79% of the potential points, was an “A” ('twas moi).

I know of whence I speak because I have direct and current access to a lot of CAL students, in and out of the physical sciences, who say that grading remains rigorous.

And for what it’s worth, anecdotally, a friend’s son, who got into USC for engineering but not UCLA, took two of his engineering major pre-reqs at UCLA (through concurrent enrollment through UCLA extension). While he liked UCLA better, overall–socially, the campus–he reported that both the competition in his classes and grading rubric were “shockingly” harder at UCLA than 'SC.