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Freshman with questions about grades


shahofsunset

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Hello,

 

I'm a first year at UChicago doing economics. I just had my first intro to micro test, and it was pretty straightforward, except for a couple short answer questions. My question is more general and stems from the fact that I think I got an A minus.

 

Do A-'s screw you out of top econ PhD programs?

 

How are you supposed to get all As in all these classes?

 

Do grad schools factor in how hard your undergrad institution is?

 

If I were, for example, to get a B+ in an Econ or math course would my chances at a top school be over?

 

I know it's early to be set on doing a Phd when I haven't done any research or upper-level or econ and math yet. But is is -- roughly -- my current goal and I want to learn as much as I can about the requirements so I don't wind up rushing to do things during my last year.

 

Thanks.

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How are you supposed to get all As in all these classes?

 

I'm not trying to be an ***, I swear, but I just don't understand how a Chicago undergraduate asks this question if they got accepted based on their high school performance. People actually think this way? I've never actually met someone that said this.

 

Ball-busting aside, the answers to your questions can be fairly easily garnered by reading through old threads and doing some searches. A quick answer to your questions:

No, A-'s do not inherently screw you out of top Econ Ph.D programs, however Econ Ph.Ds are extremely competitive and many top candidates have very high GPAs. Undergrad difficulty is taken into account. There's more to your profile (in terms of getting accepted to graduate programs) than only grades, so, as stated above, no single grade will not hurt your chances, but grades are important (duh).

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Your impression about the competitiveness isn't far off. So how are you supposed to get all As if that's what you need to get into a top program? The answer is straightforward. You don't need to get into a top program to have a successful career in economics doing good research. Chicago sends an average of 2-3 students per year to the top 5 programs. You're probably not going to be, and don't have to try to be, those 2-3. This isn't college application where whether you get into a top 10 undergrad is going to be a verdict of your social status or whatever. A first year undergrad shouldnt be thinking about which range of phd programs to aim at, even though its tempting. People should focus less on ranking, because if you're so invested in it you'll get constantly bothered for the rest of your career by how it's so much easier to get into a sociology PhD or MBA or masters in regional studies in Harvard than an econ PhD in iowa state.
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Hey, at least you got an A- instead of a B or C+. That means it should only take a few more hours of prep to get an A.

 

For the vast majority of aspiring PhD students studying in private US undergraduate institutions (note that state/foreign universities have significantly harsher curves), the grades in most undergrad econ courses should be predominantly A's with a few A-'s. This is a minimum standard of competency for serious applicants.

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1. Think not of how others define you, but of how you define yourself. (trans. party, shmarty)

2. Seek knowledge for knowledge's own sake. (trans. grades, shamdes)

3. Do you. Embrace being happy with what you have, and don't go off sideways because you think you're not doing enough. There's always going to be a lot of people above you on the totem pole, so quit ranking.

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For the vast majority of aspiring PhD students studying in private US undergraduate institutions (note that state/foreign universities have significantly harsher curves), the grades in most undergrad econ courses should be predominantly A's with a few A-'s. This is a minimum standard of competency for serious applicants.

 

This is correct. Definitely try for A's. The good news is, judging by your performance on this first test this is within reach for you.

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For the vast majority of aspiring PhD students studying in private US undergraduate institutions (note that state/foreign universities have significantly harsher curves), the grades in most undergrad econ courses should be predominantly A's with a few A-'s. This is a minimum standard of competency for serious applicants.

 

Haha. U Chicago is one of the finest schools in the country. It follows from your post that an admission committee might be willing to forgive an A- from the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaigne, but not from the University of Chicago. The notion is absurd.

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For the very top programs, most admitted students will have had mostly A grades (at least in math/econ and related classes) AND will have come from a competitive university, and those students who don't will probably have had something fairly exceptional about them. I do not think any one grade alone will kill your chances, but if your grades are consistently B+/A- rather than mostly A's with only an occasional A- or B+, that would reduce your chances at top schools.
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Haha. U Chicago is one of the finest schools in the country. It follows from your post that an admission committee might be willing to forgive an A- from the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaigne, but not from the University of Chicago. The notion is absurd.

 

If I ever serve on an adcom, that's indeed how I would interpret those grades. UIUC and UChicago are not so far apart in undergrad selectivity (hell, they're both drawing from top 3% of the population) that I'd take a 60th percentile student from UC over a 85th percentile student from UIUC, which is what a respective A- probably implies. I know Chicago's core classes are sometimes graded a little harshly for a private college though, so I'd emphasize to OP that there might be an exception for the class you're taking. But once you get to electives these percentiles should hold (you can try making up some kind of distribution from these: average GPA in Chicago is around 3.55, for econ it seems to be slightly lower at around 3.45, UIUC's college-wide average is around 3.15).

 

It's interesting how people seem to either intuitively overestimate the overlap between the ability distribution across rankings of universities, or significantly underestimate it. I've essentially had to make an argument in the other direction in another thread just a few days ago. There are people who imply that there are no differences between rankings of universities and then there are people who seem to think there's some lexicographic ranking in which prestigious universities dominate. My broad impression from reading some empirical studies on wage, career success and so on is (another rough rule of thumb): at least 25% of the best students in a second-tier university are stronger than at least 25% of the worst students in an Ivy league / top 10 undergrad.

 

Note that this is just one point on the curve; if you increase the latter variable, the former variable will correspondingly fall (e.g. it may be that 5% of students in a second-tier university are stronger than 50% of the students in a top university).

Edited by chateauheart
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If I ever serve on an adcom, that's indeed how I would interpret those grades. UIUC and UChicago are not so far apart in undergrad selectivity (hell, they're both drawing from top 3% of the population) that I'd take a 60th percentile student from UC over a 85th percentile student from UIUC, which is what a respective A- probably implies. I know Chicago's core classes are sometimes graded a little harshly for a private college though, so I'd emphasize to OP that there might be an exception for the class you're taking. But once you get to electives these percentiles should hold (you can try making up some kind of distribution from these: average GPA in Chicago is around 3.55, for econ it seems to be slightly lower at around 3.45, UIUC's college-wide average is around 3.15).

 

It's interesting how people seem to either intuitively overestimate the overlap between the ability distribution across rankings of universities, or significantly underestimate it. I've essentially had to make an argument in the other direction in another thread just a few days ago. There are people who imply that there are no differences between rankings of universities and then there are people who seem to think there's some lexicographic ranking in which prestigious universities dominate. My broad impression from reading some empirical studies on wage, career success and so on is (another rough rule of thumb): at least 25% of the best students in a second-tier university are stronger than at least 25% of the worst students in an Ivy league / top 10 undergrad.

 

Note that this is just one point on the curve; if you increase the latter variable, the former variable will correspondingly fall (e.g. it may be that 5% of students in a second-tier university are stronger than 50% of the students in a top university).

 

i dont disagree with much of what you said. I'm not swayed in any particular direction between a UIUC 4.0 and a U Chicago A- average. However, "forgiving" an A- (the A- is a blemish not a pattern) would be much easier to do for the U Chicago student....

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i dont disagree with much of what you said. I'm not swayed in any particular direction between a UIUC 4.0 and a U Chicago A- average. However, "forgiving" an A- (the A- is a blemish not a pattern) would be much easier to do for the U Chicago student....

 

This is backwards. If Chicago GPA is higher, a lower grade is closer to mean shows a greater deficiency from the top. -Compare this to a school where the mean GPA is lower where an A- still represents a higher percentile above the mean. Thus, the grade is harder to 'forgive' for a Chicago student because it shows a greater deficiency compared to their peers.

Edited by Econhead
Grammar; initially written on phone
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^That's right. Blanket might be mis-reading that particular point. If UIUC's average is indeed 3.15 as reported, then a 4.0 GPA in UIUC in math/econ will be a lot, lot, lot more impressive than a 3.7 from Chicago where that's only slightly above average. 99th percentile at a #40 university absolutely dominates 70th percentile from a #5-#10 university.
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^That's right. Blanket might be mis-reading that particular point. If UIUC's average is indeed 3.15 as reported, then a 4.0 GPA in UIUC in math/econ will be a lot, lot, lot more impressive than a 3.7 from Chicago where that's only slightly above average. 99th percentile at a #40 university absolutely dominates 70th percentile from a #5-#10 university.

 

I'm in a unique position as someone who initially attended a state school and has since gone Ivy. Allow me to make my point succinctly before class begins. UIUC's mean GPA may in part reflect its difficulty, but its mean gpa cannot be divorced from the average student it attracts. So when we consider identical transcripts comprised of 90% A's and 10%'s others, I take the U Chicago student any day. Though there is no quantifiable metric, I'd go so far as saying I'd be incredibly surprised to find that UIUC's classes are more difficult than U Chicago. Any divergence in mean GPA can be attributed to the fact that, well, U Chicago students are smarter than UIUC's students, and that's that.

 

But anyways, not a very important or worthwhile discussion to be having in the context of the board, I'm sure OP will be fine one way or the other, and I hope y'all have a great day.

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Chateau, where did you find these?

 

UChicago has a student-designed website Can I Graduate, where they collect self-reported grades. There used to be statistics posted about average GPA overall and in each department from the data, but they seem to have been removed. I did record some of that data though; the average GPA for econ courses was 3.42, probably biased downward compared to the typical econ major's graduating GPA because of data from non-majors as well as freshman/sophomores who haven't started taking electives. University-wide GPA was reported as 3.55. You might wonder if there's a significant self-selection issue from high-performing students on a website like that but (i) the math/comp-sci gpa was 0.2 lower than the humanities, which matches most other sources from other universities that we know of, so at least there isn't self-selection from geeks/nerds; (ii) this overall GPA isn't far off from what we would extrapolate from the figure that UChicago reported in 2006, which was 3.35. Average GPA has gone up by around 0.1 in most top private colleges from 2006 to 2014, and my impression is that UChicago had a lot of internally driven pressure in the last decade to match the other top colleges in their entire education structure, so there might be additional catch up growth (3.35 was actually relatively low compared to most Ivies).

 

UIUC has some statistics here, from 2014: Office of the Dean of Students :: University of Illinois

 

A little off-topic but hopefully these will be helpful to OP as well.

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UChicago has a student-designed website Can I Graduate, where they collect self-reported grades. There used to be statistics posted about average GPA overall and in each department from the data, but they seem to have been removed. I did record some of that data though; the average GPA for econ courses was 3.42, probably biased downward compared to the typical econ major's graduating GPA because of data from non-majors as well as freshman/sophomores who haven't started taking electives. University-wide GPA was reported as 3.55. You might wonder if there's a significant self-selection issue from high-performing students on a website like that but (i) the math/comp-sci gpa was 0.2 lower than the humanities, which matches most other sources from other universities that we know of, so at least there isn't self-selection from geeks/nerds; (ii) this overall GPA isn't far off from what we would extrapolate from the figure that UChicago reported in 2006, which was 3.35. Average GPA has gone up by around 0.1 in most top private colleges from 2006 to 2014, and my impression is that UChicago had a lot of internally driven pressure in the last decade to match the other top colleges in their entire education structure, so there might be additional catch up growth (3.35 was actually relatively low compared to most Ivies).

 

UIUC has some statistics here, from 2014: Office of the Dean of Students :: University of Illinois

 

A little off-topic but hopefully these will be helpful to OP as well.

 

Just so that future readers aren't misled by the above, there is definitely selectivity bias in who chooses to report GPA on canigraduate.uchicago. The average GPAs there differ significantly from what the College Advisors will tell you in private.

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And one day you will realize what your college advisors tell you in private is often ludicrously wrong. Universities don't report percentiles and don't usually release data on the GPA distribution for a good reason. There's usually a deeply embedded culture in every college's education structure to prevent any particular student from feeling alienated; students are generally happier (and donate more) if they all think they're above average academically, which, if you actually go do a survey of college students and ask them how they think they rank relative to their class, is funnily true. UChicago econ graduates for example will tell you their average GPA is around 2.8-3.0, which is only 3 standard deviations off the mark; I've known way too many 3.9+s from UChicago for this to be even remotely plausible.

 

Not trying to call you out specifically here; there hasn't been a single person I've encountered who actually believes in the mean GPA that's empirically reported about their universities or doesn't get slightly upset about it.

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And one day you will realize what your college advisors tell you in private is often ludicrously wrong. Universities don't report percentiles and don't usually release data on the GPA distribution for a good reason. There's usually a deeply embedded culture in every college's education structure to prevent any particular student from feeling alienated; students are generally happier (and donate more) if they all think they're above average academically, which, if you actually go do a survey of college students and ask them how they think they rank relative to their class, is funnily true. UChicago econ graduates for example will tell you their average GPA is around 2.8-3.0, which is only 3 standard deviations off the mark; I've known way too many 3.9+s from UChicago for this to be even remotely plausible.

 

Not trying to call you out specifically here; there hasn't been a single person I've encountered who actually believes in the mean GPA that's empirically reported about their universities or doesn't get slightly upset about it.

 

This is really interesting, and I wonder how it reconciles with the department's grading guidance for profs/lecturers (which isn't nearly that generous). Hmmm, here are my thoughts.

 

Our non-UChicago UG used to have a normalization process whereby instructors submitted tentative grades, which they'd compare to historical averages and adjust accordingly. The idea was that if one instructor gave above average grades or below average grades, it wasn't fair to students who didn't have the chance to be in that class. Basically, a no-arbitrage policy that's had the effect of stemming grade inflation.

 

Off the top of my head, here are three explanations:

1) UChicago doesn't have this second-level normalization, so we'd expect actual inflationary pressure

2) Selection bias may be present in the self-reported results, as you and anon mention (that seems legit)

3) University reported GPAs might have some non-intuitive denominator (similar to faculty-to-student ratios...which vary significantly depending on whether adjuncts, grad lecturers, etc. are included)

 

My guess is the 3.45 report is higher than the actual, since it'd represent a pretty large delta and probably suffers from some of the above.

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My reply to the OP:

This forum, while great, suffers from this really obsessive view that you *MUST* be one of the lucky few who go to a top 10, and everything else is just a waste, as though the entire federal reserve system, every policy think tank, every major firm, every academic department is staffed entirely by MIT grads (Keeping in mind that perhaps 150 top 10 school students graduate per year, given attrition rates). If you really want to be one of those few that makes it into the 10, yeah, you will need to push yourself in unhealthy ways. You will need all As, and not just in regular courses, but in maths and statistics. You will need to find research opportunities. You will need to be willing to put in very large time investments to make the connections with professors to get good letters of rec. You'll probably need to study extensively for the GRE, retake the GRE, and on top of it all, have some sort of major academic distinction. If that's how you want to spend the next 4 years, then you probably are a good fit for those programs.

 

But there are a lot of situations that can arise that make that impossible. I work two jobs. I have a severe mental health condition that has disrupted my life countless times in my undergrad. I pushed as hard as I could given my circumstances, and you know what? I'm still pretty darn happy with my options for grad school. I've got a good chance at a 30th to 40th rank school, and even my safety schools place at Moody's and the Fed. I'm sure someone will sneer at the idea I could be happy going to a schlubby institution like University of Pittsburgh or Vanderbilt, but honestly, if you can't be happy in this field unless you go to the most prestigious institution, then you're probably in it for the wrong reasons. Do your best, push yourself, and when the time comes, pick the schools that are the best fit for you.

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My reply to the OP:

This forum, while great, suffers from this really obsessive view that you *MUST* be one of the lucky few who go to a top 10, and everything else is just a waste, as though the entire federal reserve system, every policy think tank, every major firm, every academic department is staffed entirely by MIT grads (Keeping in mind that perhaps 150 top 10 school students graduate per year, given attrition rates). If you really want to be one of those few that makes it into the 10, yeah, you will need to push yourself in unhealthy ways. You will need all As, and not just in regular courses, but in maths and statistics. You will need to find research opportunities. You will need to be willing to put in very large time investments to make the connections with professors to get good letters of rec. You'll probably need to study extensively for the GRE, retake the GRE, and on top of it all, have some sort of major academic distinction. If that's how you want to spend the next 4 years, then you probably are a good fit for those programs.

 

OP, this poster is quite wrong. If you have been following threads that have seen replies in only this past week you will clearly see that this is backwards as hell. If you look through past sweat threads you'll see many posts aimed toward trying to
convince
people that they will be
very
happy at most programs that have funding, that they will
not
​ feel
under-placed
, and they they can be successful graduates. Further, one look through 'profiles and results' and similar threads will show just how happy individual are when they get into schools outside the top 10 and how happy everyone on this forum is for them​.

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