<p>Is it hard to get into the program? The website makes it sound hard, but really you have to take official information with a grain of salt. I remember when I went into high school and they kept hyping up AP classes as really hard, but they ended up being bs easy. Is the IR program really that hard to get into?</p>
<p>That depends on how easy it is for you study. You need to have a 3.65 GPA to even apply for the program. Intro classes also grade on curves. Which means even if you do well, sometimes your grade gets knocked down because other people did a little better. Your GPA has to be cumulative, not just in your politics classes. But if you believe that getting a 3.65 GPA won’t be too difficult and are capable of doing it, then it won’t be that difficult to get in.</p>
<p>NYU2012, </p>
<p>That curve is a killer. Sonny was one point below a cut-off for A-/A and ended up with a B for one of his tests. Required MAP course. That 3.65 is not that easy unless you are prepared to study a lot (at least more than your classmates). Need I say more?</p>
<p>Well, NYU naturally has grade inflation. American universities generally do. Only a handful don’t (e.g. JHU, Berkeley). I don’t know the workload of NYU so I can’t say how well I would do, but I don’t want to matriculate unless I am sure I can do IR</p>
<p>I think we are talking about grade deflation here. Only the top 25% or whatever get "A"s and then the rest are "B"s and "C"s. This is for the intro classes, as pointed above.</p>
<p>Evolving is correct. In some cases the curve boosts students, in others it deflates them. Typically, only 20% of students are allowed to get an A in some of the intro classes, 20% B’s etc. That means if 30% of students EARNED an A, only 20% will receive an A, the other 10% will be knocked down to a lower grade. Of course, the opposite is true as well. If only 10% earn an A, 10% will be knocked up from a lower grade to an A.</p>