<p>@friedman. If you consider yourself a “slacker” then the average GPA for slackers is about 3.0 to 3.2 (minimal worker). If you consider yourself a “diligent” student as I stated above one can easily manage 3.5-3.7 as long as you don’t try to take “unnecessary” killer classes no matter what your major happens to be. If you take “appropriate level” courses not too easy not too hard you will be fine…but as I said before Chicago students are masochistic by nature. Your friend was not joshing nor exaggerating. Don’t let your ego about taking the “toughest” classes get in the way of getting a good GPA…that’s how they do it at Stanford and Harvard. You need time for research, extracurricular activities, and such.</p>