<p>@ overachiever
You are giving the “Harvard” name too much credit. Most top privates, especially universities such as the Ivies, suffer from crazy grade inflation. In starch contrast, publics, such as UCI, suffer from serious grade deflation.</p>
<p>This may blow your mind, but that 3.9 at UCI is harder to attain than the 3.75 at Harvard! Not only that, the gap is not insignificant. The way the university system works in the US, universities such as Harvard are literally handing out A’s!</p>
<p>The students worst off are obviously those from Berkeley followed by the rest of the top publics. UCLA is fortunate to have a less competitive atmosphere relative to schools such as UCSD.</p>