<p>Perhaps you should reread more carefully. </p>
<p>“Freshman letter grades may not appear on students’ official internal grade reports or external transcripts and are to be used in accordance with guidelines established by the Committee on the Undergraduate Program.”</p>
<p>Seems pretty clear. It does not say “First semester freshmen letter grades…”</p>
<p>As for the report, it contains extensive tables and charts showing grade distribution by semester for students in each year. It shows the identical distribution of grades in years 2-4, with much lower grades in year 1. There is a long discussion of the differences in behaviour between 1st year and 2-4 year students. Take another look.</p>
<p>By the way, Caltech also is pass fail first year, perhaps explaining some of their med school outcomes.</p>
<p>At Berkeley, “almost 50%” of undergraduate grades are A’s. “Grade inflation” is a red herring.</p>
<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html</a></p>
<p>Either med schools do not request full first year grades because they do not care, or because it is too much trouble, when they can adjust the numbers they get, without having to deal with something other than an official transcript.</p>