Elise Cranny is a bio major with a 3.98

Asians are all billogically wired to be extraordinarily smart. That's why it's more competitive for them than other races.

biologically. Darn autocorrect...

zzzz wrote:

Stanford is known for grade inflation. The average grade given in 2011 at Stanford was 3.57:

http://www.gradeinflation.com/Stanford.html

By contrast, when I was at UCLA, I remember some professors specifically saying that they curved the grades based on a C+/B- average or 2.50. Looks like the real average the years I was there was 2.9, but that's far from giving A- as the average grade for everyone at the university.

0/10 for trying to justify your low GPA. Was it 2.9?

Easy to understand wrote:

Grade curving makes no sense. Curving grades means that GPAs are not comprabale between schools or even between classes within the same school. With curving, you don't actually know how much the student knows.

What if every track curved its times differently? Hpw are we supposed to know how fast the runners actually ran?

Tracks ARE curved. Moran.

Grade Inflation for Whites wrote:

W/O Stanford University illegally limiting Asian undergraduates, what would Elise Cranny's GPA be?

Well, it's not a lie to say Asians only care about the name of the school more than what the school offers. Just look at the ivy league schools.

It depends on where you are applying.

For Harvard and a small handful of the very top schools by department, PhD acceptances go predominantly to people in the 95% percentile for GRE. If you have below 95% percentile your odds of getting in are very low, since there are only two or three such admits per department.

Within the 95% percentile, GPAs may vary dramatically. Though again, with 1-3 schools which are the top in a given department, you will see mostly 3.9 GPA and above for admits, though this is not as dependable as the 95% percentile GRE guideline.

It's very different for programs which are outside the top 3, but within the top 10. There you can see a wide range of GRE and GPA in admitted PhD students.

I have no experience with Stanford but I would expect that a 3.0 at Stanford and at any top 10 institution in a science is comparable to a 3.8 or 3.9 at any top state school excluding Berkeley. Even if most of the class gets an A, the material is likely to be either harder than what is taught at lower institutions, or taught much quicker.

from the Stanford alumni magazine, Stanford President John Hennessy wrote:

"In a general way, our goal seems quite simple: we look for students who have excelled academically. In this regard, to quote the Stanford Bulletin, we envision a student body "whose abilities, intellectual interests, and personal qualities will allow them to benefit from and contribute to the University's wide range of teaching and research programs in the humanities, sciences, and engineering." Further, to paraphrase Dean Mamlet, we are obligated to search for a student body that will, as a whole, use the University in its entirety, rather than engaging some disciplines while neglecting others. Likewise, we value students with a highly developed skill in one area, as well as students with a broad academic portfolio.

There are other factors, of course, including athletics, artistic or musical talent, legacy considerations and a desire for a broadly diverse student body."

Note the need "to search for a student body that will, as a whole, use the University in its entirety, rather than engaging some disciplines while neglecting others."

So, they are not going to admit only potential engineering majors.

I'm sure some very specific programs are like this, but at the very least this conflicts with what most admission committees at the top schools are saying about their own process and the advice top schools give their students. If you have reliable links to average GRE scores of students at top PhD programs, especially GRE subject test averages, I would be really interested to see them.

This also conflicts with the only explicit mention of average GRE scores at Harvard I found (this is for their SEAS program), where "average GRE quantitative scores were within the 90-95th percentiles, and average GRE verbal scores were within the 75-80th percentiles." This is a lot different than being in the 95% GRE range for any given subject test, where, say, math majors are compared to other PhD seeking math majors instead of the quantitative section where they are also compared to liberal arts majors.

Also, the two articles I linked to were specifically about CS graduate programs, and CMU and Stanford are typically ranked way higher than Harvard in this field (tied for 1st vs 18th in US News at least) and say they don't care about GRE and GPA past a certain point.

Harvard's more highly ranked math department gives their students similar advice, saying "Most selective math departments do not put too much weight on the differences between good and great scores, but having poor grades in math courses or poor GRE scores can hurt your chances of admissions."

I had in mind GRE General, not GRE Subject Test percentiles, sorry for the ambiguity.

For many programs the top schools do not require Subject Tests, only "strongly recommend" them. I expect you'd see a wide range of Subject scores in admitted PhD students, but you can probably expect 95%+ from most internationals.

You're right, much of what the departments say goes against what they actually practice. Take undergraduate admissions, for example: There's nowhere on the website that says "Donate $5 Million for almost guaranteed admission", yet it's a very real way in.

I don't think the CS GRE Subject test exists any longer. The key to "not caring about GPA or GRE General past a certain point" lies in whether that point is 2.5, 3, or 3.9... or 90% or 95% percentile.

If you search here

you will find self-reported stats for various institutions and programs

To Blithering fools and "your 2.9", I have absolutely nothing against Cranny. I don't know who she is or what she looks like even. To me, she is just a name I've seen only on Letsrun, and I know she goes to and competes for Stanford. I'm sure she is a smart and hard working young woman, and apparently gets better grades than her teammates.

All I'm pointing out is that the achievement sounds much more impressive to someone who doesn't know that the average Stanford student has a GPA of A-. Many people in this thread did express surprise at that point, so I don't feel like I'm minimizing her accomplishments - which in deserves nothing but praise - but putting it into context.

At a different university, you would expect that someone with a 3.98 to 4.00 GPA would be in the 99th percentile or something like that. At a university where the average student has an A- (and maybe the average GPA in 2016 is higher than the 3.57 in 2011 if you look at the trend) maybe that is 66th percentile? Think about it. If the average grade is A- in every class, you basically just have to be in the top half of every class to get an A instead of an A-. It's Stanford's "fault" that you don't get more separation in GPA of the top-of-the-top from the mere top students, but I'm sure that's by design.

Pics?

wowzzz wrote:

http://www.gostanford.com/news/2016/11/29/cross-country-ten-named-all-academic.aspx

jeez good for her.

Yeah but those 34% at Stanford with a A- average would likely easily get a 3.98 GPA at average universities across the country.

Studying biology is a sin. Nobody should be questioning the creations of our lord. The earth is 3000 years old and these dumb "intelligent" liberal college grads dare think they know more than the bible! SHAME!

Can't wait until Daddy Donald shuts down liberal unpatriotic institutions like Stanford. Poor Liberal babies need their safe spaces and science BS that isn't real. Only thing that is real is Jesus and God and Daddy Donald. Bye Stanford. Nice knowing you. Thanks for ruining America. MAGA!

Glad to know you have nothing against Elise Cranny or the other fine young women and men on the list of Stanford XC runners who achieved combined academic/athletic recognition. The initial thread was about a young lady who is exceptionally gifted, and holds the bar high for others to emulate.

The grade escalation argument may be valid and may be a good separate thread. I happen to think students at highly selective private learning institutions tend to be high achievers with few who gain entry being of academic ability deviation.

Interjecting this argument into a titled discussion thread that has nothing to do with grade escalation creates the appearance of "sour grapes". The grade escalation argument, being completely different from the post, comes across more as a psychological issue trying to prove to ones self, or anyone willing to listen, that one school (or my school) is better than the other or one school isn't as great as people think etc.

Let's do our best, in this new year, to look for the positives in people (runners given this website and Elise Cranny give the initial post).

jjjjjjj wrote:

from the Stanford alumni magazine, Stanford President John Hennessy wrote:

.

that clown is from a state school, SUNY, and bought his job with money made in Silicon Valley ;-)

This is getting silly. If you look back at my posts here, I never said anything bad about Cranny. I never said anything bad about Stanford - grade inflation isn't a good or bad thing to an outsider, just something to be aware of for providing perspective. I like Stanford and think it's great. I never tried to prove one school is better than another. I didn't brag. I didn't answer your question about what my GPA was. You wouldn't be able to tell if I was telling the truth anyway, and it doesn't matter because if was more than a quarter century ago. You can look at my entire history of posts here at Letsrun too - I don't tear people down or troll.

This thread was just kind of weird: A Stanford student getting straight As! Well, if you know that just about all Stanford students get straight As (including A-s), it just isn't as noteworthy. If the OP knew this, it might not have been a thread in the first place. My comment was appropriate because it gave perspective to the accomplishment. It's still a good accomplishment, just not amazing because they all get As.

If everyone at Stanford gets As, why did only a few Stanford athletes get on the all-academic team? You'd think all of them would then ... I noticed a lot more folks from other schools, which made sense bc they aren't as academically rigorous ...

Too lazy to put numbers up for each school because I am lazy.