<p>Topic says it all. For a premed curriculum, how hard is it to get a GPA of around 3.8 or higher? Is is next to impossible? About what percentage of the undergrads get grades like this?</p>
<p>very possible if you actually plan your schedule right to give yourself a chance based on your own limits (some people can take 4 science courses a quarter and ace them all. yes these people do exist and they surprising have a life outside of classes/study as well, while others can’t and need to space them out with ge’s. in the end it doesn’t matter since the end results will be the same since the science crammer will have a few easy quarters of just GEs while the other person would never have any super difficult science packed quarters since they spaced it out with ges.)</p>
<p>know your cramming limits so you don’t try to cram more than you possibly can in not enough time (or on the contrary adopt good study habits but i’m the cramming type)</p>
<p>its all about knowing your limits. </p>
<p>then again there are people who try really hard and somehow end up still failing and i dont get this because if i spend nearly the amount of time studying as some of them do, i can just about recite the lectures verbatim by memory. i think for people like these, they have some fundamental issues with the way they are studying. maybe just glancing over lecture notes without trying to grasp the concepts behind them and hoping that somehow exams will be pure regurgitation</p>
<p>are GE courses really easy?</p>
<p>yes and no.</p>
<p>some are, but that doesn’t mean you can just sleep with your notes under your pillow and get an A (though i’ve heard art of listening is basically a breeze).</p>
<p>some aren’t, especially the ones that happen to be pre-reqs for certain majors (like comm studies 10, which is a weeder course, but not impossible to do well in IF YOU TRY). also, a GE won’t be easy if you don’t care about the material (like oceanography, i mean, that’s really not for everyone).</p>
<p>Latin Honors: </p>
<p>Summa Cum Laude is awarded to to the top 5% of the graduating students and its GPA cutoff is currently at 3.872. Next 5% gets Magna Cum Laude (3.791). Next 10% gets Cum Laude (3.654). So according to the UCLA general catalog, about 10% of the undergrads would have GPA above 3.8 by the time they graduate.</p>
<p>Math, physics, and chemistry:
Beside going to lectures and paying attention to professors, the most important thing is to understand the concept by heart and be able to apply them to new situations. These are the main criteria for getting A’s. Simple memorization just doesn’t work in science courses. Professors often throw in problems in the exams that you’ve never encountered before because they want you to solve new problems by applying the concepts discussed in lectures. </p>
<p>Practice, practice, practice! The time allotted for midterms are only 50 minutes and the exams are designed so that most people won’t be able to finish in time. Practice a lot of problems so that you can solve problems quickly and accurately. Look for past midterms and finals. They are available from variable sources. Use them to test yourself to see where you stand, find your weakness, and improve. </p>
<p>And also, keep in mind that professors seek to reward those who attend their lectures. For example, my Chem 30C professor talked about a suntan lotion brand that claimed to contain no chemicals, which is absurd since everything is chemical. The second midterm’s bonus question asked what the particular lotion did not contain. Easy points for those who were there, clueless for those who skipped the lecture that day.</p>
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<p>premed is not hard. it’s all about how much you study and about how good you are at picking professors/classes. i know a decent group of people with 3.8+ and in the LS classes ive taken (they’re the only ones that put up final grade distributions) ~20% of the class ends up with A/A-</p>