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<p>This clear enough for you Sunfish? Perhaps you should pay attention to what you type instead of just purely pounding away at the keyboard.</p>
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They do not accomodate based on how tough the school is.
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<p>Sunfish, if you do not see the humor in what I wrote, then you truly are an idiot and you need to get out more. I am merely pointing out that your assertion that an admission officer will not noticed what your undergraduate institution when apply to graduate school is false. A 4.0 GPA from any CSU is not as highly valued as a 4.0 GPA from Cal/MIT.</p>
<p>
Please do us all a favor and go take an ESL writing class man.</p>
<p>You need to stop being a damn socialist and stop talking about relative fairness and start telling it how it is. I am sure most of the people are not happy with what I writing, but at least I am the most realistic. I am done debating with Sunfish because he is in the bottom 10th percentile for intelligence on this board.</p>
<p>Tax Bear:
Sorry to hear that you’re the second one done debating. Please accept my apology for any emotional distress I might have casued.</p>
<p>So can we now officially end this thread. It is time to move on.</p>
<p>In the grand scheme of things, Berkeley students still have it pretty good. After graduation, they can afford a car, air conditioning, a washing machine, a laptop, etc. These are all luxuries that our great-grandparents did not have. These luxuries have significantly improved the quality of our lives to the point that those considered “poor” today are in fact living more comfortably than the “rich” of some 500 years ago.</p>
<p>If you want to get rich, you don’t need a good GPA. To get rich, you must recognize weakness inherent in a process, a product or service and then have the initiative to improve it. You bring value, through change, to the market.</p>
<p>Wow. What a productive thread with no useless name-calling whatsoever. </p>
<p>I don’t think most Berkeley students are like this. Hopefully not, at least not the ones I see.</p>
<p>Sorry, I just wanted to say one more thing.</p>
<p>Mathboy:</p>
<p>"Actually, I think the best way to get the flakier students to drop out is not making it harder to get a good grade, but making the level of the material very high. So I think we can compromise the ruthlessness of grading and still achieve the same output in scholarly performance, if we take a mature view on what a course is – just a place to be introduced to some material. "</p>
<p>I think this is a good point, but making the level of the material very high can be an iffy thing. I took a class this semester called BioE10, which it an E10 equivalent for bioengineers. It was advertised as a fairly easy freshman course with no prequisites though three quarters of the class were sophomores or juniors. The curve was very generous with A being excellent, B being average, and C being failure. The problem was that the material of the course was ridiculously high level (at least my opinion and that of most of my fellow freshman). We learned upper division biology and engineering concepts in a day, wrote up homework explaining it, and then took exams on it. One of my professors was also Russian so her explainations were sometimes rather convoluted. Oh yes, there were no textbooks for the course and the exam was open note (not that it helped much since we were sometimes tested on things that only appeared in small print on one lecture slide). Even though I did okay in the class, I still feel that I don’t want to repeat the class ever again. It’s one thing to raise the level of the material to compensate for less ruthless grading, but its another thing to disguise an upper classman level course as a freshman level course and compensate with an easier curve.</p>
<p>dill_scout - yes, professors are known to make freshmen try to finish their latest research work at times, and I <em>do</em> have sympathy for the students =] </p>
<p>My point works if in moderation. Actually, to clarify what I mean, I don’t think it’s ideal to introduce so to speak a topic which is traditionally covered later earlier. But it is very possible to take a course’s material and spice it up, making it more thorough. </p>
<p>As an example, take the physics 7 series - I imagine you’ve heard of the H (honors) courses. I am personally much more in favor of doing an H level of course with slightly easier grading (erhm I haven’t taken these, but I hear they’re NOT easier about the grading) and a sophisticated, thorough presentation of the topics in the regular series than doing a regular course with an ickier curve. So the name of the game is more sophisticated and thorough, not jumping from freshman to the upper division needlessly.</p>
<p>And I’d be of the view that it’d be better, not worse, to make the H course slightly easier graded. Why? Encourage students to take 'em! Honestly, the uninterested engineers who just are forced to take physics for the heck of it will still find an easier graded physics course with more sophisticated material a lot tougher to do well in. </p>
<p>The people who take the H series are probably a more self-selected group too, and I think they’d <em>not</em> become more complacent about learning if they got slightly better grades.</p>
<p>Yes it is hard to graduate from Berkeley. My sister is staying up four nights straight to maintain an A- average (3.8? I think…)</p>
<p>Hmmm…I see your point Mathboy though I feel that the Physics H7 series might even be too much. I have a friend taking Physics H7A and he frequently stays in Le Conte until 2 or 3 in the morning. However, I think therewas a Physics 7A professor this semester whose last name starts with an S that teaches physics in a very sophisticated though theoretical manner and gives really hard tests that fits the bill better. I’m not sure how he curves though. I think his class with a generous curve is probably ideal. </p>
<p>I’ve always kinda wanted to ask you, Mathboy, how difficult is your math major? I am considering switching from my current major to maybe a math major. I’m not a math genius or anything, but I am really interested in math.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of the Physics H7A horror stories! That is rather unfortunate. I only personally know people who’ve taken H7B, and while they said it was quite tough, they did enjoy it, and loved the book used for E&M.</p>
<p>“I’ve always kinda wanted to ask you, Mathboy, how difficult is your math major?”</p>
<p>I think it’s about as tough as I make it. It is possible to get a math degree without taking a class with an especially hard professor, and just studying hard for standard classes. However, the main question is - what do you WANT with a math degree. If you want to be competitive for grad school, for instance, the math degree automatically becomes quite, quite hard. I wouldn’t say the honors courses like H110 through H185 are at all easy, unless the professor happens to be easy a given year, and it’s wise to take classes like these if you’re headed for grad school. You’ll also probably end up taking a course like 202A, which is a pretty heavy workload I hear. </p>
<p>In short, I think I make the math major difficult =] but, I’ll say one thing - while the subject matter may be hard, I think the math major sounds a lot less competition-obsessive than the physics major. As in, if you <em>really</em> get what you’re doing in a math class, unless you have a prof. with a bad reputation, you should do OK.</p>
<p>How much math have you taken? Is there any good indication you’d like the math major, and what would your plans be after you finish your undergrad education?</p>
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</p>
<p>Sinking to ad-hominem attacks now, Tax Bear? Is that the best you can do? How badly are you trying to embarrass yourself? </p>
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</p>
<p>Are you defending the equity of the current grading distribution - where certain majors are simply graded easier than others? I am shocked that you would defend the status quo. </p>
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<p>Uh, even according to your own logic, the guy with a 4.0 from Hayward has no advantage over a guy with a 4.0 from Berkeley when it comes to med-school admissions.</p>
<p>The question is whether the guy with the 4.0 from Hayward has an advantage over somebody with a 3.5 from Berkeley (ceteris paribus of course). The question is almost certainly ‘yes’. Sad but true. </p>
<p>Consider the following premed advisory document written by, Michael McCullough who is, yes, a Rhodes Scholar who later went to UCSF med-school. The document is written for Stanford premeds (which is where the author went for undergrad), but the advice is generalizable.</p>
<p>*Myth #11.
I AM ALWAYS BEST OFF TAKING ALL OF MY
INTRODUCTORY PRE-MED CLASSES AT
STANFORD.</p>
<p>False. It is true that it is more difficult to get
an A in a Stanford pre-med class than it is at most other
schools. This is easier to understand since you are
graded on a curve with some of Americas best
students. Consequently, an A at Stanford can mean a
lot, particularly in science classes with a C mean.
However, most of you wont get As in every
class, and some of you certainly would have had higher
GPAs elsewhere. It is also true that medical schools
know this and will take it into account.</p>
<p>However, this forgiveness factor is not
infinite. Getting a 4.0 in your pre-med requirements at
a junior college will certainly make you a stronger
applicant than a 3.5 in your pre-med requirements at
Stanford. One admissions officer I spoke with
estimated the bump factor of attending a school like
Harvard or Stanford to be between 0.3 and 0.5 of a
grade point.</p>
<p>For some of you, an A in high school could
be achieved through hard work and determination. This
is not necessarily true of the pre-med classes at
Stanford. Everyone is trying hard. They are all smart.
And the classes can be very difficult.
The upshot of all of this is that some of you
may be more successful applying to medical school by
taking most of your pre-med classes elsewhere. I have
known many applicants who would have been more
successful in applying to medical school if they had
pursued their academic passions at Stanford and had
taken their pre-med classes elsewhere, either in summers
or during a year off. I have also known students
at Stanfordwho would have been fantastic physicians
who quit the pre-med process in frustration
without exploring this option. If you want to be a
doctor and are struggling at Stanford, this option is
worth exploring.</p>
<p>I say this with some hesitancy because I know
it may cause controversy and it is difficult to know who
would be statistically better off focusing their pre-med
energies at a less competitive institution. I should also
add, however, that all such core classes cover the
material required both for the MCAT and to be a good
doctor.</p>
<p>This in no way is meant to imply you made the
wrong choice by coming to Stanford if you are a premed.
Quite the contrary, Stanford may be the best
place in the country for pre-meds to attend college.
You can attain a first-rate education in any field and
simultaneously approach your pre-med curriculum with
more flexibility and more creativity than at nearly any
other university.</p>
<p>Take home point: Consider taking some of
your pre-med classes elsewhere if you are hitting a wall
here. Many successful medical school applicants have
done this.*</p>
<p><a href=“http://scope.beagooddoctor.org/documents/Pre-med_Handout.pdf[/url]”>http://scope.beagooddoctor.org/documents/Pre-med_Handout.pdf</a></p>
<p>So, Tax Bear, you don’t have to worry about your ‘secret strategy’ to med-school being revealed on this thread, for it had already been revealed by people like McCullough. It has also been discussed at length within the premed section on CC.</p>
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</p>
<p>Interesting that you refuse to see the faults that are inherent within your own logic, despite them being pointed out repeatedly and by numerous posters. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Uh, what aptitude? The whole point of creampuff classes is that you don’t really have to know what is going on, you don’t have to study very hard, and you can still get a very good grade anyway, just because those classes don’t grade hard.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. I know a guy who took a creampuff class which shall remain unnamed. I think he went to class at most one time, which was the first day of class (and I suspect he may not have even attended on the first day). Nor did he do any of the reading. The grading was based on 2 papers which were supposed to be based on the reading. Instead of actually doing the reading, all he did was go to Amazon and look up the books, read the user reviews, and then reword and recompile them into a paper. That’s it. He freely admits that he knew nothing and learned nothing from the class. But he got an A-, and the only reason he didn’t get a solid A was because he got a 0 for class attendance (which was worth 10% of the grade). </p>
<p>Would he be considered the “cream of the crop”? Well, he did get a top grade, so I guess he would be, right? Actually, his grade was rather poor on a relative scale - for I think he may have gotten the lowest grade for that class. But the lowest grade given out was an A-. But according to your logic, Tax Bear, I guess he’s considered the “cream of the crop”.</p>
<p>I’ll even admit that there are a (very) few creampuff engineering courses. Undergrad research courses (i.e. the 196 series), for example, are generally considered to be easy grades, in the sense that practically everybody will get at least an A-, and usually an A. It’s practically unheard of for anybody to get a worse grade. You don’t have to obtain significant results, your research experiment can be a total flop, and you will still almost certainly get a top grade. Is that really a case of the “cream of the crop”? </p>
<p>That gets down to my basic point: certain courses are simply graded easier than others. It is entirely fair to ask why. </p>
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</p>
<p>And you just gave away the store right there. Sure, I agree, an easy major is not that easy if a curve is applied to it. But does that always happen? </p>
<p>Again, consider the words from the Berkeley undergraduate colloquium:</p>
<p>Rine described the shock he felt during his three years on the Committee on Teaching from roughly 1998 to 2000 when he reviewed teaching records for large undergraduate classes, with more than 100 students, in which no one got less than an A-, year after year. At the time, Rine asked Associate Registrar Walter Wong to assemble some data looking at upper division and lower division grading in the physical sciences, biological sciences, social sciences, humanities and engineering, so that he could distinguish trends from anecdotal exceptions. The results were clear. “The physical sciences and engineering had rigorous grading standards roughly in line with the recommendations from 1976,” stated Rine, "while the humanities and social sciences in many classes had all but given up on grades below a B, and in many courses below an A-,</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Education Colloquium, The College of Letters and Science, UC Berkeley](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html]Undergraduate”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html)</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is, creampuff majors don’t really use curves, of if they do, they use ridiculous ones, such as the worst students nevertheless receiving A-'s. What kind of a curve is that? But you don’t seem to care about that.</p>
<p>“The fact of the matter is, creampuff majors don’t really use curves, of if they do, they use ridiculous ones, such as the worst students nevertheless receiving A-'s. What kind of a curve is that? But you don’t seem to care about that.”</p>
<p>With due respect, the answer to this will certainly be that choice of major is a part of the ultimate process to weed out the stupid and those unable to survive. It’s socialism to do anything otherwise. </p>
<p>You know, I think the most eerily similar logic I’ve heard ever is when teachers say that there ain’t partial credit in a math or physics class, because in real life, if a bridge breaks, nobody’s going to give you partial credit. What it fails to take into account is that school is partially a time when one figures out academic interests, and the more options one has, the better; i.e. modeling school after the real world in every sense doesn’t have to serve the purpose.</p>
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</p>
<p>Sure, but these are market considerations. I don’t know that the market should necessarily dictate grading.</p>
<p>Again, let me bring up the Stanford example. Stanford engineering is far safer than Berkeley engineering. But does that mean that Berkeley engineers get paid more? I think not - the evidence seems to indicate that they get paid the same, or perhaps a slight advantage for Stanford engineers. </p>
<p>[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/CompSci.stm)
[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/EECS.stm)
[Career</a> Center - What Can I Do With a Major In…?](<a href=“http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm]Career”>http://career.berkeley.edu/Major/MechEngr.stm)</p>
<p>[Career</a> Development Center | Student Services](<a href=“http://cardinalcareers.stanford.edu/surveys/0607/engineering.htm]Career”>http://cardinalcareers.stanford.edu/surveys/0607/engineering.htm)</p>
<p>Hence, the logical (but sad) conclusion is that anybody who is considering engineering at Berkeley or Stanford should prefer Stanford. After all, Stanford offers less risk and the same or higher salary. In other words, as long as the market refuses to properly reward Berkeley engineers for the higher risk, then you should not choose Berkeley. Sad but true. </p>
<p>Or consider the striking examples of the PhD programs - which I think we can all agree are Berkeley’s crown jewels. Clearly a Berkeley PhD in EECS is more marketable than a Berkeley PhD in English. But does that mean that the former is more difficult to complete than the latter? I have seen no evidence of such a case. The English PhD program is exceedingly difficult to complete, with numerous students not even completing their qualifying exams. In fact, I might even argue that the English PhD program may actually be harder to complete, as its normative time for completion is 6 years vs. 5 in EECS.</p>
<p>The point simply is that I don’t necessarily see a reason for why grading should be subject to market forces. Just because a program is highly marketable does not necessarily mean that the grading for that program needs to be harsh. Stanford has figured this out within its engineering programs. I am surprised that Berkeley to this day still refuses to learn from the Stanford model. After all, they are just across the Bay.</p>
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</p>
<p>Hmm, seems like a certain school in Palo Alto has managed to get away with ‘socialism’, despite being located smack in the middle of the most techno-capitalistic cluster in the entire world.</p>
<p>And besides, I still fundamentally disagree with the basic characterizations of ‘stupid’ and ‘unable to survive’. Let’s face it: a Berkeley engineering student with a 3.5 GPA is hardly ‘stupid’ or ‘unable to survive’. He just doesn’t look as good as the guy with the 3.8 GPA in a creampuff major, despite probably having worked far harder.</p>
<p>“Hmm, seems like a certain school in Palo Alto has managed to get away with ‘socialism’, despite being located smack in the middle of the most techno-capitalistic cluster in the entire world.”</p>
<p>Sakky, hope you caught the sarcasm in my post 
I was predicting what Tax Bear would say.</p>
<p>“And besides, I still fundamentally disagree with the basic characterizations of ‘stupid’ and ‘unable to survive’. Let’s face it: a Berkeley engineering student with a 3.5 GPA is hardly ‘stupid’ or ‘unable to survive’. He just doesn’t look as good as the guy with the 3.8 GPA in a creampuff major, despite probably having worked far harder.”</p>
<p>I mean, part of my sarcasm was to point out that the consistent response to this line of logic is that those who choose the right major to begin with have won the survival test inherent to college. The logic is kind of ridiculous, but it’s what I’ve been consistently seeing. </p>
<p>One interesting thing – when I was once taking an EE course, just a lower div one, I heard from the professor that the department forces the average GPA to be below 3.0, and enforces it. He’s just not allowed to change that. So it seems like this is inherent to the system. </p>
<p>“anybody who is considering engineering at Berkeley or Stanford should prefer Stanford.”</p>
<p>Well, I’d say SOME may know that they’re actually going to be top students at either from the start, and could choose more based on the structure of the programs and what appeals to them about either school, but I understand that you’re principally concerned with the possibility of “what if they don’t make it?”</p>