How difficult is it to get a 4.0?

Colleges & Universities University of California - Berkeley
1

<p>How difficult is it to get a 4.0?</p>

2

<p>Depends on the major. Expect to work hard, and play less (or none). But sometimes, even working hard will not yield the expected results.</p>

3

<p>3.6 or so will get you to graduate with honors in l&s
i think 3.7 will get you high honors
no one in the class of 2009 EECS (at least the ones who came in as a freshman) will get a 4.0 because everyone got an A- or lower somewhere along the line
i haven’t seen anyone with a 4.0 yet except for freshmen who have been here for only a semester now. even so, c/o 2009 is the sophomore class and with just 2 semesters, the possibility of anyone getting a 4.0 in the EECS department is now zero.
so yeah, i would say that even with hard work and no play, 4.0 is somewhere near the horizon.</p>

4

<p>my 09 friends at cal told me if i get a 3.5 theyll like buy me an ipod and take me out to lunch/dinner whatever. hahaha so i guess its pretty darn hard</p>

5

<p>Hahaha. For your first year, take all obsure classes and win the ipod!</p>

6

<p>

I wouldn’t be surprised, but how do you know this?</p>

7

<p>Assuming we’re talking about for your 4 years, this depends heavily on the classes you take which tie into the major you are in. If you’re doing nothing but taking 3 fluff classes every semester then it’s not that hard. However, the smartest Berkeley students tend to go for the harder majors (not always). I’ll go one step further than riyam and say that it is incredibly difficult for any engineers to get a 4.0. The closest I have heard of is Yuxi, who’s a fourth year double-majoring in ChemE and MaterialsE and has a 3.981.</p>

<p><a href=“http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200935714[/url]”>http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2200935714&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Of course, if we’re only talking about getting a 4.0 for one semester, then it’s quite feasible.</p>

8

<p>^</p>

<p>That is incredible.</p>

9

<p>hey student,
my floormate is an EECS major and he told me about it. i guess EECS majors share this kind of info cuz i don’t know what’s going on with students in my major</p>

10

<p>just wondering, what percentage of the classes at cal are curved?</p>

11

<p>Unless your floormate has some kind of connections to the Registrar, how would he know? I am an EECS major myself, class of 2009, and I’ve never heard of that piece of information. The administration is very strict about keeping student records private, and as far as I know, they don’t release that kind of data. I remember that when I was at Cal Day two years ago, even the chairman of the EECS department didn’t know the mean undergraduate GPA when a prospective student asked about it.</p>

<p>If your floormate had a source, I’d love to know about it. I’m especially curious about the EECS honors cutoffs (not within L&S, as those are typically much higher). Each graduate who finishes in the top 20% among his class is awarded some kind of “honors,” and due to this rank-based system, the actual numerical cutoffs vary from year to year. 4.0s definitely do exist, just not every year.</p>

12

<p>4.0 at any college is going to be hard because a single A- will mar a perfect record, but at Berkeley it’s going to be even harder since many people attending have been 4.0uw students in high school, and now you’re graded on a curve.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>Only if you take curved classes. There are plenty of classes, particularly in the humanities and some social sciences, that are not curved, and which everybody can get an A.</p>

14

<p>Sakky, I beg to differ. I’m EECS as well, but even classes which are not officially curved end up having an average ~3.0. Of course, there are some exceptions in the fluff departments which just love everyone, believe in equality, and just sit in trees to protest the construction of our stadium. </p>

<p>Most courses will adhere to undergraduate grading standards and sometimes department standards are even tighter.</p>

15

<p>omg yuxi is insane, that is just insanity to another level</p>

16

<p>I know of two people in my year in EECS who have 4.0s (both CS). I also know one person a year above me (EE track) who has a 4.0 and didn’t take any powderpuff classes. Ankur Luthra also did the same thing a few years back.</p>

<p>Yea, it’s quite doable. EECS classes really aren’t that hard (I’m comparing them with MCB weeders). It’s just really easy to screw up and get an A- in something along the way by falling asleep every lecture.</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>You don’t need to take my word for it. Take it from Berkeley’s own findings in the undergraduate grading colloquia.</p>

<p>“In the late 1950’s, the average cumulative GPA for Berkeley undergraduates was 2.50 and has increased to approximately 3.25”</p>

<p>"Of 79,791 undergraduate course grades given at UC Berkeley fall 2003, almost 50% were A’s, approximately 35% were B’s, and less than 5% were D’s or F’s. "</p>

<p>"the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-, "</p>

<p><a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html[/url]”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

18

<p>Sakky,
Skiing specifically said EECS courses. Your statistics are:

  1. including all departments which:
    a) comprises very little of EECS courses
    b) includes all the fluff majors and easy humanities classes that comprise a (perhaps not-so) surprisingly large number of total courses at Cal. Your last quote was for “the humanities and social sciences…”</p>

<p>And therefore don’t apply to his statement.</p>

<p>Also, if you’ll look at EECS statistics for individual courses (since they don’t publish aggregate grades), you’ll see that about 15% of the class gets As of any kind.</p>

19

<p>

</p>

<p>Wrong. Nowhere does he say that he was talking specifically about EECS courses. He just said that he * is * an EECS student, but not that he was talking about EECS courses. And in fact, what he said precisely indicates that he wanted to talk about all courses. Here is what he specifically said, with the key phrase in bold, which reasonably interprets to mean that he is talking about all courses, not just EECS.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Again, completely wrong. See above. What I said PRECISELY applies to his statement because he never said that he was talking specifically about EECS, and in fact, indicated that he was not restricting himself in such a fashion. </p>

<p>More importantly, it applies to what the OP asked, which is simply about how hard it is to get a 4.0, without contingency upon major.</p>

20

<p>My bad.
10char</p>