4 ms·
There are classes where a lot of people get A's. But I have a first hand experience to tell you that it's not easy. Just because majority got an A in a very sma
by arihant 11y ago
There are classes where a lot of people get A's. But I have a first hand experience to tell you that it's not easy. Just because majority got an A in a very small number of classes, does not disregard equal number of classes where majority fights for a C. It also does not say that people getting A's did not work their asses off.
Grade inflation does happen in some courses. But it's not easy and is far from a joke.
In the article you mentioned, the average is A-. Which means half of the smartest people recruited off from high school struggled to make it to 90 average, even after worrisome inflation. At worst, that's a 5-7% grade inflation.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- kaitai 11y agoPeople are fighting for As, and maybe working their butts off, but they could be doing a lot less, getting their straight Cs, and not get kicked out. It is easy to be mediocre and stay in Harvard if you already got in. (What gets people kicked out is a major depressive episode that results in DNFing all their classes for a while, not handing in mediocre homework consistently.)
- arihant 11y agoTrue, but nobody is trying to get a C. Mediocrity is possible everywhere. Zuckerberg could have just made a university-specific social network and have gotten by. Bill Gates could have just made software for altair and gotten by. Larry Page could have just let Google work for libraries and would have made good money. Elon Musk could have stopped after selling PayPal. When talking about people just trying to get by, you're naturally ruling out people who can start a company. The argument here is refuting the assertion that college is useless for a wannabe entrepreneur. I say it's not, for the person who wants to use it. All great CEOs did use college effectively. Some started companies there, some found talent there, some learned lessons, some learned hard work, some got inspired, and some learned skills.
- kaitai 11y agoI had some friends who used college as a placeholder time to work on their entrepreneurship or other endeavors while getting mediocre grades.