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

akx
Sat, 04 Jun 2005 03:47:03 +0000

well, thats 35% As and A-s together. So in your average course you’re probably looking at closer to 20% of students getting A/A+s (which GPA-wise are the same thing). Also, because of the 35% departmental thing, it looks like departments are gonna be a bit more stringent with their large intro courses so they can give the more more realistic levels of 45-50% of A range grades to students in upper level courses. For comparison, between 45% and 55% of grades given out at every other ivy, stanford, and mit are in the A range.

So getting a solid A is not that easy at princeton - it pretty much means u have to perform in the top quintile of your course. And don’t forget, this is princeton. If you got into princeton because your major stength was being smart, then you’ll certainly get As in the areas you’re good at, especially if you take easier classes. It’s just that unless you’re really intelligent, a good test taker, and hard working, you’ll probably have some Bs mixed in as well. This isnt like high school where you have tests throughout the year. Have a bad day on the final and your A can easily become a B. Grade deflation just makes it that much easier to see your grade fall.

It’s certainly not impossible or anything to get As. But most people who come to princeton just feel that they’re doing badly if they’re not getting a 4.0. Getting a 4.0 for even a semester pre-grade-deflation was hard. Now, unless you take a joke schedule or are just that smart at everything, its extremely difficult.

In general, I’d say that if you arent horrible at something and work reasonably well at it, a B+ is pretty much always achievable (unless its something like advanced math or physics, which tends to reflect ability more than work). In any class, except for maybe higher level math and hard science classes, you’re going to have the bottom third of students who really don’t work that hard. They’ll get the Cs and low Bs, so if you work reasonably hard, then you’ll never have to worry about that. The major difference between high school and princeton, though, is that unless you’re especially smart, you won’t be able to hardly work in a class and get an A as was in the case in the majority of high school classes.

As for writing seminars, they are by far the most grade deflated of courses you’ll find. The writing program strongly recommends that the professors do not give out As and severely limit even A-s. To get an A, you either have to be among the very very best writers at princeton or you have to have a prof who doesnt go by the rules. From what i’ve heard, in a class of 12 or so students, 1 or at max 2 people may get A-s. Most people get something in the B range. Writing seminars are hell even for humanities majors.

And as for freshman seminars, since they don’t fall under a specific department, they are as grade inflated as the prof allows for. In my frosh seminar, you had to not turn in work to not get an A. I’ve heard about people having some fairly difficult frosh seminars though, so it really depends on the prof.