@collegebobollege can get it from gradeinflation.com, from fraternity and sorority websites, even some of the course websites (mostly in STEM but some outside) are just public…I can go on there and see what the instructors do to grade their courses and look at their materials. I also have friends there that explain it to me and show me their course materials (we would compare).
My conclusion is that Vanderbilt is hard like the other elite schools but within that group isn’t among the especially tough. Surprisingly, outside of STEM oriented schools where especially tough course work is no surprise, that actually goes to some of the schools that do grade quite leniently on average, Also, there is grade inflation at Vanderbilt and basically every other elite and non-elite and it has been well-documented. Many faculty (especially older ones who have witnessed grading norms change over decades and may have also adjusted their own grading or workload) will even admit to it (yes, including those at elite schools). It doesn’t seem sensible that other schools with similar semester wide and graduating GPA’s have grade inflation but one particular school doesn’t.
@Sophie1295 : I’m sure I would have claimed the same thing my freshman year. I’m not saying it is easy perse, but is likely easier than it could be (I assure you that in most humanities courses, not many grades are given below B+ and certainly not below B). Notice that within STEM and econ (which has similar grading tactics as STEM but maybe a little less intensive), many will work really hard and not get even a B+ or B for that matter. In most humanities course, typically B flat is the exception to a rule (though admittedly courses taken by many non-majors may have more freedom) if you simply did most of the work. I had to do quite a bit of work my freshman year to earn solid grades, but I wouldn’t say that the grades were harsh. They were honestly a bit more forgiving (especially in my writing class) than my AP instructors (though I liked my English class better in UG because we got to use the rare books lib. for one research paper…my instructor had good standards, and I learned, but I’m not going to say getting an A grade made break as much sweat as I did in other classes). There were some teachers during my undergrad in history and political science who were tougher than normal so would give many B grades (they typically had intensive workloads and expected lots of good class participation and good writing as well), but a B- or lower was pretty exceptional and I don’t think it was because we were simply all amazing.