<p>^ I dont think anyone says its easy. 3.6-3.7 is not easy especially in the sciences. IvyPbear might find it easy- judging by his discussion he probably graduated top 10%. For those of us who barely scrapped pass marks (cough cough), its not easy but still not as hard as getting into other places.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I strongly differ having gone through the graduate admissions process before. Although dartmouth and brown dont have many top programs they still make them selective. Also US schools dont have the high number of taught masters that are common at Oxford so even PhD graduate admissions at schools like illinois, Texas and purdue would be harder than Oxford because you need good grades+Phenomenal research experience+Good GRE scores+Good Recommendations. This is opposed to just a 3.7 which you could get by studying excessively for four years.</p>
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<p>Even Grade-inflated schools do have class rank of some sort. Typically 3.86+ would guarantee top 10%. I do not believe that 90% of the people at Oxford would graduate in the top 10% in even over 20 US universities. One bad class and a couple of wrong choices would screw you up big time.</p>