Undergrad grades affected by program/classes

[ProudCrocodile]

26 minutes ago, Lycidas said:

One of my best friends was an engineering major, absolutely killing himself day in and day out (routine 12-15 hour study rips in the library) studying massively complicated and intricate things, ended up with literally a 3.3.

Honestly if every day he spent 12 hours in the library literally learning, perhaps that's why he's only got 3.3 in his program. This number is undoubtedly unhealthy and those who did well in the same program must have spent less time in a library.

[GGrievous]

1 hour ago, Lycidas said:

I literally did almost nothing in university, I studied humanities and social sciences and walked away with a very respectable GPA after never doing any readings and barely studying - it was a joke. I invested almost no effort and now I'm doing very well for myself. 

One of my best friends was an engineering major, absolutely killing himself day in and day out (routine 12-15 hour study rips in the library) studying massively complicated and intricate things, ended up with literally a 3.3. 

Anyone who claims a 3.9 education/social sciences/humanities major is anything close to the equivalent in a hard science/engineering is out of their mind. 

That is not evidence that the program is harder, that just shows your friend was incapable of realizing that his methods were not working. If this likely exaggerated anecdote is at all true, I do feel bad for some people that are like that and just have no clue how to study, or how to ask for help.

 

[epeeist]

@boo

TL;DR: sympathetic but so what, doesn't help because not how law schools work. I agree mark variance (even within same program at same university with profs with different marking schemes allowing greater or lesser variance), let alone between programs and universities, may lead to GPA not adequately reflecting potential at law school and should make LSAT more important in assessing splitter students. But I'm not an adcom member anywhere, my opinion like OP's or OP's girlfriend's doesn't matter.

OP, most peoples' marks are curved. it wouldn't matter if you were correct about your grades not adequately reflecting your ability to succeed in law school, if you somehow managed to persuade everyone here you were correct about relative grading, whatever, what matters is what law schools look at which is primarily GPA and LSAT. Unless you have an official letter from your university saying e.g. your program has average marks that are significantly lower than other programs, why would anyone reading a personal statement about an explanation for marks believe you (even if you were correct which many here doubt)?

Note, I went to law school years ago so pay more attention to other posters. I have some sympathy as I was what's called a splitter (so-so GPA, high LSAT or vice versa) coming from an engineering program. So unlike some here I'm more sympathetic to the possibility that your GPA may not adequately reflect your ability to do well in law school. But being sympathetic doesn't help you. In a pre-Covid grad event a couple of years ago I was discussing program difficulty with the dean who said they instructed the admissions committee to try to take program difficulty into account, but even if correct this was one law school and relying upon the subjective perceptions of adcom members and probably more in a tie-breaking sense, not 3.9 vs. 3.1.

Replying more generally to other posters, it should be obvious that different programs test and mark different skills. Someone good at differential equations might do poorly in history, or vice versa. I tend to think that courses involving lots of reading and writing (like many arts programs) are better prep for law school than STEM, so my assumption is higher marks in arts electives for a STEM major "should" matter more than core STEM courses for law school admission, but likewise it doesn't matter whether or not my belief is correct, that's not how it works.

There may be systemic differences that e.g. an arts faculty at one university might have the same average (mean and median) as an engineering or math faculty, but maybe the former has greater variance (more fails, but also more A+ marks) than the latter, or vice versa, so given the hypothetical person good at everything, higher marks in one program might be more feasible than another. This has nothing to do with difficulty but with marking schemes and degree of variance (outliers, high or low marks).

Even within a program there may be significant differences. My (years ago) experience, one mandatory computer science course split into two sections, one prof had a broader mark distribution and gave multiple final marks in the 90s. The other prof did not. Both profs had curves and averages that were acceptable to the administration, but good students in one course had a chance of marks in the 90s, students in the other course had none. Or history profs, one prof I had explicitly said that even the best student would never get a mark higher than 85% in his course, and that was unusual, typically the highest mark would be in the low 80s. Another history prof happily gave marks in the 90s, and likewise, they both had average (mean) marks and distributions that were acceptable to the university despite the outcome for those thinking of law school (or anything else needing high marks) being much, much better off even within the same program at the same university, just based on how the profs distributed marks on the curve they used and the variance they allowed in terms of high marks.

[WiseGhost]

Lycanis, have you considered that your friend might have been studying poorly? He also might not have been particularly gifted for the subject. 

At my university, the deans list gpa (top 10%) for science students is a 3.9+. For arts students, the gpa needed to be in the top 10% of the faculty is a 3.8. Science programs are demanding, but unless you're attending a university which hands out As like candy, getting a high gpa in the arts is NOT easy. Unlike stem exams, essays are very subjective. If you want to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack, you have to hand in something exceptional, and you have to do that consistently if you want As. 

Categorically stating that the equivalent gpa from the sciences will always be more impressive than an arts gpa is ignorant.  

 

Edited October 7, 2021 by villiuski

[Pantalaimon]

On 10/4/2021 at 6:26 PM, Avatar Aang said:

The simple truth is that there are people are still graduating from MIT physics and U of T engineering science with 3.9+ GPAs.

Seriously. I'm looking at my eng transcript now and the cGPA of the class averages is 3.01, with... let's call it a "strong upward trend" for the last two years. My humanities options? 2.3. This idea that it's hard to excel in engineering is very strange.

[123]

5 hours ago, Ben said:

Bad news for your pal if he was routinely studying for 15 straight hours and pulled a 3.3 lmao 

Is the friend Michael Scott?

[Lycidas]

I stand by what I said. In no universe is a humanities 3.x equivalent to an engineering 3.x. I applaud the efforts of non-STEM students trying to feel better about their efforts, but there's no reality in which they're equivalent. 

[GGrievous]

55 minutes ago, Lycidas said:

 

I stand by what I said.

 

That’s embarrassing

[Lycidas]

6 minutes ago, Barry said:

That’s embarrassing

😘

 

[Rashabon]

1 hour ago, Lycidas said:

I stand by what I said. In no universe is a humanities 3.x equivalent to an engineering 3.x. I applaud the efforts of non-STEM students trying to feel better about their efforts, but there's no reality in which they're equivalent. 

Both you and engineers would benefit from courses in formal logic.

I did a STEM degree and did well with putting in very little effort over all 4 years. Your friend got bad grades in engineering not because it's impossible to do well but because they are dumb.

[LMP]

6 hours ago, Lycidas said:

I stand by what I said. In no universe is a humanities 3.x equivalent to an engineering 3.x. I applaud the efforts of non-STEM students trying to feel better about their efforts, but there's no reality in which they're equivalent. 

I mean, they are in the eyes of law school admission committees. Which is kind of the topic of discussion here. 

You can think all you'd like that a $5 is worth more than 5 loonies, but at the end of the day they'll buy you the same thing.