<p>I think the primary goal is just getting through the freshman year courses. Also, When you look at Purdue, also consider the fact that they are probably actively fighting a rise in grades. Meaning that, even if they had a similar student body to Tech’s, they wouldn’t let their grades rise over time to reflect it (places like Harvey Mudd, Reed, and Johns Hopkins do similar things). They would apply the same stringent curves or just make the courses harder, essentially “pulling a Princeton”. Tech is like other places and lets its grades rise or fall with the student body quality and will justify the grade inflation by looking at those numbers. The reality is, there is the possibility that some classes/instructors are flat out grading easier because of the changes in student body quality (they are basically taking into affect the expectations of high achieving students as instructors do at every selective school). For example, it’s clear that calculus and physics are “strongholds” (many instructors still grade on very traditional, C-centered bell curves and also have very difficult exams and material) whereas some classes such as general chemistry and organic seems to curve to around a very solid “B” (or a very high B- like 2.9ish) even if the exam averages are in the D-C range. For the latter two, the grading pattern is more similar to that of many selective private institutions whereas physics and math reflect the grading patterns of the Tech many alumni may remember being more or so across the board and are in indeed typical at many top public AND private engineering programs (except Stanford which as very high inflation). I think it just depends on the courses you choose the freshmen year. I you choose to challenge yourself and choose one or two of the professors (or if you don’t have much of a choice) that are great, but have a traditional curve, find some course that will balance out possibly getting a B or C in it. I agree with the “stack the deck” approach if you would like to get good training by a couple of rigorous grading instructors each term.</p>
<p>However, the catch is: Aside from the bump in “inflation” you get at more selective schools you still must remember that the competition is stiffer, especially in rigorous courses that need to have curves. For example, if the student body is already selective, you can imagine, that if there is a choice among instructors, many of the more confident students (among the already good student body) will feel more comfortable choosing a more rigorous section. So, sometimes you should size yourself up and determine if you are on, above, or below average preparation/experience for that particular section. You can for example, find some of the weeder’s course websites online and look at some of the assignments or exams and determine if you think you’ll be able to handle it (especially if you were decent in the area before coming). This definitely goes for classes like math 1502 and physics 2212(or 11) where people like Jarrio (Geronimo for math, heard not so good things…maybe only known for being very difficult) are apparently really good, but still quite tough. I remember my friends telling me the stories (they are very similar to the stories students tell while taking the top general, organic chemistry or biology instructors at my school. Very difficult courses, but rewarding…).</p>