How hard is it to get an A in Princeton??

aparent5
Sat, 04 Jun 2005 15:22:18 +0000

Akx’s comments are similar to what I’ve heard from other students. Just to add a few things: my d was proud to get an A in frosh sem after the professor announced that although many of the students deserved A-range grades, only 35 percent were permitted to get them; as Akx says, there is a lot of variation from one class to another. And in several upper-level courses, profs (apparently on a deflation scheme of their own) have announced at the start that only 20 percent of students will get A-range grades. Also, in the intro courses realize that some students enrolled will have taken a similar course before, have competed internationally in the subject, or do no extracurriculars, and so they are likely to get many of the top 20-30% A-range slots. Finally, even if you did well on the midterm and papers/problem sets, you can’t assume you will do well on the final, because often the final will be extremely difficult so as to make it easily curved.

Overall, they have definitely not worked the kinks out of the new grading system yet. I hear from quite a few students that they have no regrets about coming to Princeton, and that the atmosphere among the students continues to be friendly and collegial (a credit to them, in my view), but that the new system has some problems. One sad thing is that it is leading some students to play to their strengths, rather than to follow their intellectual curiosity and try new things, in choosing course work.

The undergrad student government and the student paper have said they will speak out on this issue, and that sounds like a good idea to me.