<p>Here’s the scoop home skillets. The average GPA at Stanford varies depending on your field as you can imagine. I am doing CS and the average is around the 3.2 mark. You pretty much can’t feel the grade inflation because you are drained in sweat doing work. You know about the pedaling duck syndrome, don’t you? I hope you do, or you will be up for a rude awakening once you get here.</p>
<p>Now, here comes the awesome punch line: from advisers and friends here at Stanford all I hear is that 3.5 is pretty much enough if you are coming from Stanford to land into a great graduate program. Of course this is some sort of an overstatement and things are very circumstantial, but it should give you an idea: people get in big time. And please, don’t come back with law and med school numbers to antagonize me or try to prove me wrong. </p>
<p>Now, pay attention because this is important, and I will say it only once. Grad schools don’t adjust your undergraduate GPA based on your institution’s GRADE INFLATION. They adjust it based on the QUALITY of your undergraduate institution. An adcom from Berkeley CS posted that a 3.4 from Stanford or CMU is really the same as a 3.8. “Controversial,” you say? I don’t care. 
I have also seen tables with the factor that your GPA gets multiplied by depending on your school. Stanford kids did get a boost in that particular instance as well, while UW-Madison kids for example did not.</p>
<p>I really HTH.</p>