<p>It’s actually not that hard to get a 3.8, granted you take certain courses. If you stick with certain courses you know you excel in, it’s very feasible. For instance, I know someone who is really nothing special in terms of academic ability, but she took easy Core courses coupled with lots of upper-level language courses, which hand out many As. As a result, her GPA was very close to a 3.8.</p>
<p>However, getting a 3.8 by taking an appropriately difficult course load is… very very difficult, in my opinion. In this case, yes, I would say that only the top 5% could attain such a GPA, and probably does.</p>