Do admissions officers know about Cal's grade deflation?

shadowzoid
Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:59:25 +0000

Ok, this is not a thread on whether Berkeley has grade inflation or not. This is about how the grade deflation that Berkeley DOES HAVE will affect future prospects. Let me clarify things for you:

Ok, maybe Berkeley doesn’t have grade deflation, but it definitely doesn’t have the grade inflation consistent with American schools. In America, schools generally help students out. In other parts of the world, colleges curve grades to fit a predefined limit. For example, at McGill, classes have to have mostly Cs (Since a C is an AVERAGE grade). This means that the grade curve has to end up with that trend. Ultimately, if everyone in a class got 100, but 1 person got 99, that one person will fail. I doubt Berkeley is that extreme since it is still an American college, but generally American colleges don’t do that. At Ivies for example, college will allow students to all get As if they all earn that grade. The downward curve is LESS of a problem here. The problem with Berkeley is that they do more of the downward curves than other American equals. This means they have LESS grade inflation than other colleges.

Furthermore, comparing Berkeley to community colleges and saying they have grade inflation is just wrong. Students at community colleges are GENERALLY less smart then Berkeley kids and so would naturally get lower grades. In my school, the AP classes usually have at least 1/3rd of the people have As. In a standard class, there is only like 1 or 2 kids with As. That doesn’t mean the AP classes are easier, it just reflects the student body.