<p>What about a 3.0? And what about a 3.7?</p>
<p>In my (science) field, graduate-level courses tend to be graded more leniently than undergraduate courses. On the other hand, any grade below a B will put a graduate student on probation. That is to say, you want to avoid getting a B in a graduate course if you can.</p>
<p>I don’t think you will be cut any slack for being an undergraduate student. Quite to the contrary, your performance relative to the graduate students in the class will give you (and the people reading your graduate school applications!) a good indication which sort of graduate programs you should be aiming at.</p>
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<p>Ah, that’s definitely a very good point. Of course, one point in mind is that grad level courses have a certain percentage who are master’s students and a certain percent of those who are PhD students (it varies on the institution and the program, of course, although graduate programs that are outside of my university’s program can probably only guess). Whether they will give the benefit of the doubt will probably come from various factors, most likely coming from how they perceive the prestige of my school’s program to the prestige of their school’s program.</p>
<p>I know often times grads and undergrads in the same class will be graded on a different curve. Generally an undergrad will actually have the advantage in the course since professors are assuming incoming students will have the same education as students at their university. Often times the focus of one program to the next will be different, so students coming to a new place for grad school will be at a disadvantage compared to those that stick around.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I agree that students from other places are at a disadvantage compared to native students who take grad classes as undergrads. There’s the focus thing, but most graduate students acclimate pretty quickly to the focus. Also, often times the grad program at the school is nearly entirely different from the undergrad program/dept - the professors are the same but the approach taken may be completely different.</p>
<p>Basically taking a grad-level class and doing well looks good, just as you would expect. Earning an A or a B shows that you can handle graduate-level work, which is good.</p>
<p>It might just be my slight bias coming from an extremely interdisciplinary field. My undergrad was a very materials-centric curriculum, whereas my grad work has been very math and physics oriented. Was been a bit of a problem for those of us not coming in with physics degrees.</p>
<p>(Likewise I knew grads at my undergrad school that had a materials undergrad found the curriculum to be much easier than those coming in from related fields.)</p>