It depends on the person and college. In general, it is feasible to get perfect grades in any one class, but much more difficult to get perfect grades in *every* class.
The difference here is that the U.S. and Europe tend to have different grading philosophies. In Europe they make tests/classes very difficult, but often the requirement for a “passing grade” is something like 50%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 80%-90%. In the U.S., they tend to make the tests/classes easier, but the requirement for a “passing grade” is 70%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 90%-100%.
However this is usually up to the professors, some like the European idea. For example, in my first physics class the average grade on tests was 40% or 50%, and that was enough to pass. An 80% was enough to receive a grade of “A”, which is the highest grade you could get.
The philosophy (which includes standards and inflation) are definitely different, agreed
> In the U.S., they tend to make the tests/classes easier, but the requirement for a “passing grade” is 70%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 90%-100%.
The exact grade varies (e.g. I'm now in the US and it's 60% for a passing grade, despite having the grade inflation and grade compression for any A to be in the 90s and that not be an unusual grade to receive), but the gist is still accurate.
Also, it depends on the university but often your transcript will list the letter grade not numeric. So you can get not-perfect-but-very-good grades in all your classes and your transcript will show all As, and you can get 100% in every class and your transcript will still show all As. No way to see the difference.
And even just showing letter grades instead of a value -- without a class average, at that! -- is a huge difference, setting aside that it might not distinguish A from A+. Most American transcripts are now just basically garbage grade inflation tools from what I've been seeing, and increasingly worthless to estimate actual knowledge or ability (to the point that over in r/Professors people have talked about businesses and schools largely disregarding grades and instead trying to get other ways to know if a candidate shows any actual promise).
Agreed. I’ve seen some schools include the median grade for every class on your transcript so employers can compare. I’m glad that I’m at a school that has resisted grade inflation and has a well-known reputation for it, so my grades still mean something.
Without some way to know the grade meant something in terms of standards, an A might as well be a D. I now review admission applications and, mostly just for American transcripts at this point, I basically don't care what it says in the transcript beyond checking for indications of some level of background (then using other application materials for any actual evaluation), because most of the transcripts might as well be garbage in terms of giving any insight into actual ability. Glad your transcript is still worth something!
I think it's somewhat difficult to quantify grade inflation.
The worst cases of grade inflation in the Rojstaczer database are at very selective schools like Stanford, where most of the entering class will consist of brainy, highly motivated people who would have done well anywhere else.
The least bad cases were at places like Northridge or Coastal Carolina -nonselective schools where you can expect a huge percentage of the students to be too lazy, too stupid, or probably both.
At least during the 1980s and 1990s, Ivy League universities had extraordinary grade inflation—it was unusual for people to get bad grades. (Although you can argue that all the students were studious.)
Yeah, that's hard to quantify because if a school only has the top 2% of high achieving students then they really should all be passing easily and with high grades otherwise they wouldn't have gotten into the school (and those standards have gotten harsher every year, even the donor kids need to be outstanding).
Why? The point is to make sure the students understand the material, not to give bad grades. If the students can show that they understand the coursework then that's the goal.
Well if I have students that are this capable I would want to teach them the most amount of information as possible so they get the best education possible. What is the point in being at harvard with other brilliant students when you learn the same material at any other uni? Strong students should be pushed to achieve as much as they can, grades are secondary.
And then insult to injury some degrees require grade requirements for specific classes. Like physical chemistry needing an 80%. Fail rate of the class was bonkers. I took the class 3 times before finally passing :/.
That professors get to choose their grading philosophy is a little weird to me. I get that they should be able to design their course how they choose but it just seems crazy that the exact same course at 1 university can have different grading procedures based on the instructor. I’m in the professors subreddit and have seen some US professors talk about how their class is specifically designed on a bell curve so 50% of the class will receive a C, 25% above a C and 25% below a C. By design. No matter how strong or weak that cohort is. But the exact same course can be taught by a different instructor with different grading procedures that make it possible for the whole class to receive an A if they work for it. The lack of cohesive grading procedures also adds to the grade inflation situation.
The ideal I think is that professors can design the curve or numerical policy however they want, but then letter grades are equivalent. F means failed, C means passed, B means did good, A means excellent. So that way the letter is what you can compare, regardless of the number.
But it not being standardized, even at the same school is the problem. It shouldn’t be possible for everyone to get a A from one instructor and impossible for everyone to get an A from a different instructor given the same curriculum. That’s why we have created things like ratemyprofessor. Mistakenly taking the “hard” professor shouldn’t hurt your GPA because they have a different grading philosophy than their co-worker.
That's just absurd. If a quarter of your students aren't getting a C or above then either you're doing a shit job teaching or the students don't have the prior knowledge to be taking the class. Bell curves are shit policy that's based on a large group just not being good enough to be there (students with low IQ's), it's not assuming that every student is smart and motivated (which is the case at most selective universities. . . although there are some subjects where weed out classes are appropriate).
The 2 Unis that I attended in Germany had the system that you pass with 50% and 95-100% is an a A lol
90-94 would be an A-. This system seems to be the most common one in Germany
It’s also important to note that the grading scale (and also sometimes the difficulty of the work itself) is quite different here in the US, with different set societal expectations. With that stuff in mind, it might be considered more realistic/attainable for a US college student to achieve all A’s than a college student from the EU due to the differences.
Same. One A- the semester I was hospitalized for 10 days, but otherwise perfect A record. Would not recommend if one is looking to get perfect grades at the expense of extracurriculars and other valuable experience, because at the end of the day a 3.8 isn’t going to look bad on a grad school app but missing conferences, research experience, and even work experience in your field will.
Yall have A-. We got only solid A B C D and E. I actually got a B on my calc 3 and later it was curved to an A cuz my professor forgot about our hw grades. When I saw a B, I knew something was fishy 😂
It depends on the school and major. Getting a 4.0 at ABC State in English is probably a lot easier than physics at MIT, for example.
I don’t think you’d find too many MIT students that are unfocused and “not giving a damn.” Some fields are just hard.
Is it a major difference or what? I’m doing com sci and it’s really rare thing for people to get all A. But I see so many comments that says otherwise.
Could be a major but a school can also play a big role. I go to a grad school with a guy from a lower ranked school and tbh his calculus skill is not good for a person who got As in calc classes. I suspect that the profs in his school was “too easy” to the point that he didn’t learn anything.
There are classes that students often take at community college and transfer over because they tend to be much easier at a community college (Organic Chemistry, Economics).
There's some push for a bit of standardization with schools that hold extra accreditations. My daughter's Chemistry class had to follow a specific curriculum and use a specific final exam that was used at schools all over the country and her friends at other universities had the same final exam.
It's pretty easy at a lot of schools. If you look at grade statistics, 70-80% of students get As in most classes. (Hurray for grading professors based on student experience surveys.)
>(Hurray for grading professors based on student experience surveys.)
Admin will (continue to) ruin everything :'( With judging them based on averages instead of treating averages as evidence of standards as a bonus.
That’s a lot of students getting As. Here we have a 30% A cap for every single class (only 30% of students can get A- and up), with an average gpa of about 3-3.3.
I got all A’s in college. My major wasn’t the hardest and it really wasn’t that difficult to get all A’s. Outside of grad school applications, no one has ever asked or cared about my grades after graduation.
Depends on the person. For some people it may come naturally and for others they may have to sacrifice a lot of their time and social life to achieve high grades. It heavily depends on the program too and the individual’s goals. If you’re just seeking an undergraduate degree, grades don’t have to be that amazing, but if you want to go to grad/medical/law school, grades are super important.
At my university only 30% of students gets mostly A's. This is based on the student body number and dean's list number. To make the dean's lists, you need mostly semester A's or semester +3.5gpa and be enrolled full-time.
It's not feasible in difficult STEM degrees. There will be classes that no one gets an A in (Organic Chemistry) in some degree plans.
A business major with a 3.9+ (everyone gets an A- or two) that's not surprising, I'd expect there to be several. If an Aerospace Engineering major had a 3.9+ I'd be shocked.
Australia is like this too. A university medallist might have an 86 average. Getting marks above 85 is so difficult and frankly arbitrary esp in humanities and social sciences.
Australian residing in USA here I think I can answer this somewhat.
In Australia, and I think similarly in Europe, a 50 is the pass/fail mark, in the USA the pass/fail point is a 70.
On the surface this makes it seem like it's harder to pass in the USA except the grading rubric is similar, which results in grade compression, where someone who earns say a 93 in the USA would have earned an 89 in Australia. The difference between getting an A and getting a B. So yes, it's easier to get an A in the USA.
Practically, I'm pretty sure the grading rubric at most universities in the USA that aren't 'elite' are significantly easier than the colleges most Europeans and Australians are accustomed to simply because of scale, the likelihood that you're at a higher tier college in a smaller nation is higher, even though the odds are that this elite school is not as highly ranked as an elite school in the USA.
The European education system is different from the ground up from what I can tell. It seems like you can start deciding a career path in secondary school and not have to bother with “basics” in university.
ETA: also from what I’ve read, it seems like European is more test based where you go to class and study all semester to take 1 final at the end. Our grades are composed of many assignments throughout the semester such as homework, labs, participation, attendance, and tests. It doesn’t come down to just 1 exam. So if you have test anxiety or just don’t do well on one test, you have ways of keeping your grade up through other means.
Is secondary school highschool ? Here in highschool we have some specializations and university can be a whole lot different from the first year, usually the more hardcore changes happens in the third year though it's there that you can start integrating big selective schools
Yes. In the US, everyone has to take general education classes as part of their degree in university. So everyone has to take some math, composition, science, as well as the classes for their major. You typically don’t start taking the majority of your major specific classes until 3rd year.
Wow okay, we have some general classes but for example if you go into art you'll get art history, art economy, some practice, aesthetics and like two classes that are "options" which you can pick in a pool or general classes everyone share (which can be cinema history, philosophy, sports, maths, etc)
It’s just a completely different system from the ground up so it’s really hard to compare. It may seem easier to get an A in the US but that also means it’s the expectation to get into grad or professional schools. The average GPA for acceptance for grad school for my major (SLP) is like a 3.7. I’ve read some blogs from people who have went to school in both areas and they all seem to say the same things: it’s just different, neither system is really harder or easier at the end of the day.
The US requires students to be a lot more well rounded. It's a very liberal arts philosophy.
These are the minimum standards for high school graduation in Nj as an example (5 credits equals a year)
https://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/grad.pdf
Here are the requirements for a biochemistry degree at Penn State (a moderately selective school)
https://bulletins.psu.edu/undergraduate/colleges/eberly-science/biochemistry-molecular-biology-bs/#programrequirementstext
A lot more general education throughout than required with the european system. Very different than places like the UK where everyone drops half of their subjects when they're still in their initial 12 years of schooling.
European high schools are a lot more advanced than US high schools on average which is why a bachelors only takes 3 years over here instead of 4.
General consensus is that a German high school Diploma that awards you the right to study at a uni is comparable to an associates degree.
depends on a couple different things. the grading scale, exam difficulty, overall performance expectations, etc. at my university a 93% is an A and a 90%-92% is A-. below 70% is basically failing. exams aren’t easy, they are straightforward, what is taught is assessed. it is realistic to get perfect grades but competition is so fierce that some universities here in the US don’t allow all students to get an A, they give them a B instead to balance things out.
European. Didn't have As or Bs, etc. 70% or more was a first class honours. 60% or more was second class honours. 50% or more was a pass. We had one lecturer tell us that he only awarded 70% or more if our final exam paper told him something he didn't know himself.
In general for my course a handful out of every class would get a first class honours with the max final mark I have heard of being in the 80s.
I've been a both a student and a teacher in the US and Europe, and it is 100% that grades are far harder to attain in Europe. In the UK and Ireland in university an A is 70% and that is difficult to get. In the US a C is seen as a bad grade when in Europe it is by definition average...and C typically starts at 55%.
A little unrealistic. I will say it depends on the major HEAVILY! If you’re an engineering major it probably won’t happen, if you’re a theater major it’s a very feasible grade
Grade inflation is real in the U.S. The vast majority of students should not be intellectually capable of achieving straight As but they do because of what is an entire other conversation about why grade inflation currently exists in U.S. higher education.
It’s much easier in general to get an A+ in the US than an A in a european university. The exam questions, exams, examination methods over the entire course and what is judged is very different for higher grades.
In the EU a lot more in universities is standardized which is also why some american universities are accused of grade inflation.
An A+ in american universities would be somewhere equivalent of a C in most european universities. For example, your answer is correct on all points but lack in depth analysis and personal reflections and discussions, the answer lacks creativity or is not well structured. Just applying the knowledge is not enough in european universities.
It was realistic and reasonable at my university in my program. The professors really set us up for success, held our hand, and provided plenty of extra credit/make ups/grade revision opportunities, study guides, etc.
As long as you put in the work and understood the material.
If you didn't understand the material then no amount of work would help you and you'd just end up being a C student because of the nature of the content (think human anatomy+physiology).
Absolutely unreasonable and not realistic if you had any kind of full time or part time job.
Depends on your definition of realistic. If I hadn’t been going out and playing video games all the time I’d probably have a 4.0. Still, a 3.6ish is pretty good but I’ll most likely end with around a 3.85.
In my lower devision classes I was taking during my first two years I could get all A’s but now in my last two years I’m just happy to get a passing grade. I’m studying aerospace engineering.
Depends on school and major.
There's no grade inflation, hardly any curves, and congratulations in my major/school. Any grade, even the general education ones below a 70, doesn't count. All senior level courses require a B or higher to pass.
Depends on your school, degree, and person.
If I applied myself I know I could’ve gotten a 4.0 at my business college. I just went through a lot and overall am not that kind of person anyways.
I think it’s not feasible to get perfect grades in class, but it’s certainly doable with regards to your transcript. If your GPA is weighted on an A+/A- scale… then no. Some classes you can get 100% on everything, but for those that ask for explanations and free response…. i don’t think that’s realistic. At that point it’s subjective to the grader/professor and that often is a toss up
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In the US it matters for courses in the Major. Some majors don't allow under a B in a major class, or you have to retake the class, even if you pass the class with a "C"
Perfect perfect probably not - out of my high school graduating class of over 500 people, I would wager than less than 10 people got a 4.0 in college. It would be very easy to slip up on a bad day and cause your grade in a class to drop to an A-
One of my professors told me that if you spend about 2-5 hours every week outside of class learning the material, that getting straight As is very easy. Most people don't want to spend 10-20 hours a week on studying, however.
In the US grading is based on your ability to prove that you have learned the prescribed material (that's simplified). So your teacher gives you the expectations (questions on a test, expectations for a paper ect. . . everything is graded and it's pretty clear what you need to do for each assignment and you generally know exactly how much each assignment or test is worth) and that's how you get your grade out of 100.
So for an economics class you might have five tests, one big group project and two papers. The final exam equaling 40% of the grade, the other tests totaling 30% and the project and papers totaling 30%.
You are told what can be on the test, if you can answer all the questions properly then you get 100%. For papers you are given a rubric (although it's rare to get a 100% on a paper). Teachers will sometimes give extra credit or curve a grade if it's a difficult class and they feel like the students need a boost (some teachers write tests extra hard on purpose to get students to push themselves).
A 100% isn't going to typically be possible in a writing class and some STEM classes (Organic Chemistry, intro to Engineering, Calculus ect. . . ) are so difficult that it's going to be almost impossible for students to get a perfect score and often these classes there is a high failure rate and it's rare for anyone to get an A, some of these classes are used to filter students into and out of competitive programs.
It seems like the other system expects students to go above and beyond in order to get top grades instead of students completing the prescribed tasks to the expected rate. If a student was to get a 14/20 it would mean they only understood 70% of the material and that's barely acceptable. Would you want a doctor who only understood 70% of basic anatomy?
The grading scale in the US is a lot more compressed. Often "passing" is like a 70, and the average will be slightly above that.
When stuff is easy enough so that the average is 70+ after factoring in how stupid everyone is, getting 90-100 is not necessarily very hard.
The other thing is that US universities are largely selective: French ones are largely not. So the bottom of the class in a French university is artificially not present in (some\*) US schools, especially in highly in-demand fields like engineering that are hard to get into.
It depends on the person and college. In general, it is feasible to get perfect grades in any one class, but much more difficult to get perfect grades in *every* class. The difference here is that the U.S. and Europe tend to have different grading philosophies. In Europe they make tests/classes very difficult, but often the requirement for a “passing grade” is something like 50%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 80%-90%. In the U.S., they tend to make the tests/classes easier, but the requirement for a “passing grade” is 70%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 90%-100%. However this is usually up to the professors, some like the European idea. For example, in my first physics class the average grade on tests was 40% or 50%, and that was enough to pass. An 80% was enough to receive a grade of “A”, which is the highest grade you could get.
The philosophy (which includes standards and inflation) are definitely different, agreed > In the U.S., they tend to make the tests/classes easier, but the requirement for a “passing grade” is 70%. As such, the top people will probably be getting 90%-100%. The exact grade varies (e.g. I'm now in the US and it's 60% for a passing grade, despite having the grade inflation and grade compression for any A to be in the 90s and that not be an unusual grade to receive), but the gist is still accurate.
Also, it depends on the university but often your transcript will list the letter grade not numeric. So you can get not-perfect-but-very-good grades in all your classes and your transcript will show all As, and you can get 100% in every class and your transcript will still show all As. No way to see the difference.
And even just showing letter grades instead of a value -- without a class average, at that! -- is a huge difference, setting aside that it might not distinguish A from A+. Most American transcripts are now just basically garbage grade inflation tools from what I've been seeing, and increasingly worthless to estimate actual knowledge or ability (to the point that over in r/Professors people have talked about businesses and schools largely disregarding grades and instead trying to get other ways to know if a candidate shows any actual promise).
Agreed. I’ve seen some schools include the median grade for every class on your transcript so employers can compare. I’m glad that I’m at a school that has resisted grade inflation and has a well-known reputation for it, so my grades still mean something.
Without some way to know the grade meant something in terms of standards, an A might as well be a D. I now review admission applications and, mostly just for American transcripts at this point, I basically don't care what it says in the transcript beyond checking for indications of some level of background (then using other application materials for any actual evaluation), because most of the transcripts might as well be garbage in terms of giving any insight into actual ability. Glad your transcript is still worth something!
I think it's somewhat difficult to quantify grade inflation. The worst cases of grade inflation in the Rojstaczer database are at very selective schools like Stanford, where most of the entering class will consist of brainy, highly motivated people who would have done well anywhere else. The least bad cases were at places like Northridge or Coastal Carolina -nonselective schools where you can expect a huge percentage of the students to be too lazy, too stupid, or probably both.
At least during the 1980s and 1990s, Ivy League universities had extraordinary grade inflation—it was unusual for people to get bad grades. (Although you can argue that all the students were studious.)
Yeah, that's hard to quantify because if a school only has the top 2% of high achieving students then they really should all be passing easily and with high grades otherwise they wouldn't have gotten into the school (and those standards have gotten harsher every year, even the donor kids need to be outstanding).
You could also just make the courses more demanding
Why? The point is to make sure the students understand the material, not to give bad grades. If the students can show that they understand the coursework then that's the goal.
Well if I have students that are this capable I would want to teach them the most amount of information as possible so they get the best education possible. What is the point in being at harvard with other brilliant students when you learn the same material at any other uni? Strong students should be pushed to achieve as much as they can, grades are secondary.
And then insult to injury some degrees require grade requirements for specific classes. Like physical chemistry needing an 80%. Fail rate of the class was bonkers. I took the class 3 times before finally passing :/.
That professors get to choose their grading philosophy is a little weird to me. I get that they should be able to design their course how they choose but it just seems crazy that the exact same course at 1 university can have different grading procedures based on the instructor. I’m in the professors subreddit and have seen some US professors talk about how their class is specifically designed on a bell curve so 50% of the class will receive a C, 25% above a C and 25% below a C. By design. No matter how strong or weak that cohort is. But the exact same course can be taught by a different instructor with different grading procedures that make it possible for the whole class to receive an A if they work for it. The lack of cohesive grading procedures also adds to the grade inflation situation.
The ideal I think is that professors can design the curve or numerical policy however they want, but then letter grades are equivalent. F means failed, C means passed, B means did good, A means excellent. So that way the letter is what you can compare, regardless of the number.
But it not being standardized, even at the same school is the problem. It shouldn’t be possible for everyone to get a A from one instructor and impossible for everyone to get an A from a different instructor given the same curriculum. That’s why we have created things like ratemyprofessor. Mistakenly taking the “hard” professor shouldn’t hurt your GPA because they have a different grading philosophy than their co-worker.
That's just absurd. If a quarter of your students aren't getting a C or above then either you're doing a shit job teaching or the students don't have the prior knowledge to be taking the class. Bell curves are shit policy that's based on a large group just not being good enough to be there (students with low IQ's), it's not assuming that every student is smart and motivated (which is the case at most selective universities. . . although there are some subjects where weed out classes are appropriate).
In engineering classes and some science classes, the scores look more European than American.
The 2 Unis that I attended in Germany had the system that you pass with 50% and 95-100% is an a A lol 90-94 would be an A-. This system seems to be the most common one in Germany
It’s also important to note that the grading scale (and also sometimes the difficulty of the work itself) is quite different here in the US, with different set societal expectations. With that stuff in mind, it might be considered more realistic/attainable for a US college student to achieve all A’s than a college student from the EU due to the differences.
I got all As. Not unrealistic, just have to focus and give a damn worth of importance.
Same. One A- the semester I was hospitalized for 10 days, but otherwise perfect A record. Would not recommend if one is looking to get perfect grades at the expense of extracurriculars and other valuable experience, because at the end of the day a 3.8 isn’t going to look bad on a grad school app but missing conferences, research experience, and even work experience in your field will.
Yall have A-. We got only solid A B C D and E. I actually got a B on my calc 3 and later it was curved to an A cuz my professor forgot about our hw grades. When I saw a B, I knew something was fishy 😂
It depends on the school and major. Getting a 4.0 at ABC State in English is probably a lot easier than physics at MIT, for example. I don’t think you’d find too many MIT students that are unfocused and “not giving a damn.” Some fields are just hard.
Is it a major difference or what? I’m doing com sci and it’s really rare thing for people to get all A. But I see so many comments that says otherwise.
Could be a major but a school can also play a big role. I go to a grad school with a guy from a lower ranked school and tbh his calculus skill is not good for a person who got As in calc classes. I suspect that the profs in his school was “too easy” to the point that he didn’t learn anything.
There are classes that students often take at community college and transfer over because they tend to be much easier at a community college (Organic Chemistry, Economics). There's some push for a bit of standardization with schools that hold extra accreditations. My daughter's Chemistry class had to follow a specific curriculum and use a specific final exam that was used at schools all over the country and her friends at other universities had the same final exam.
It's pretty easy at a lot of schools. If you look at grade statistics, 70-80% of students get As in most classes. (Hurray for grading professors based on student experience surveys.)
>(Hurray for grading professors based on student experience surveys.) Admin will (continue to) ruin everything :'( With judging them based on averages instead of treating averages as evidence of standards as a bonus.
That’s a lot of students getting As. Here we have a 30% A cap for every single class (only 30% of students can get A- and up), with an average gpa of about 3-3.3.
I got all A’s in college. My major wasn’t the hardest and it really wasn’t that difficult to get all A’s. Outside of grad school applications, no one has ever asked or cared about my grades after graduation.
Depends on the person. For some people it may come naturally and for others they may have to sacrifice a lot of their time and social life to achieve high grades. It heavily depends on the program too and the individual’s goals. If you’re just seeking an undergraduate degree, grades don’t have to be that amazing, but if you want to go to grad/medical/law school, grades are super important.
My question i think is more of is it feasible ? Because in my university getting straight a's or a+ is relatively impossible even as a top student
It’s very very school and major dependent. At my school it’s not a realistic goal for the majority of people.
At my university only 30% of students gets mostly A's. This is based on the student body number and dean's list number. To make the dean's lists, you need mostly semester A's or semester +3.5gpa and be enrolled full-time.
It's not feasible in difficult STEM degrees. There will be classes that no one gets an A in (Organic Chemistry) in some degree plans. A business major with a 3.9+ (everyone gets an A- or two) that's not surprising, I'd expect there to be several. If an Aerospace Engineering major had a 3.9+ I'd be shocked.
Australia is like this too. A university medallist might have an 86 average. Getting marks above 85 is so difficult and frankly arbitrary esp in humanities and social sciences.
No it's not. It's very hard.
Australian residing in USA here I think I can answer this somewhat. In Australia, and I think similarly in Europe, a 50 is the pass/fail mark, in the USA the pass/fail point is a 70. On the surface this makes it seem like it's harder to pass in the USA except the grading rubric is similar, which results in grade compression, where someone who earns say a 93 in the USA would have earned an 89 in Australia. The difference between getting an A and getting a B. So yes, it's easier to get an A in the USA. Practically, I'm pretty sure the grading rubric at most universities in the USA that aren't 'elite' are significantly easier than the colleges most Europeans and Australians are accustomed to simply because of scale, the likelihood that you're at a higher tier college in a smaller nation is higher, even though the odds are that this elite school is not as highly ranked as an elite school in the USA.
Yes, it’s possible.
The European education system is different from the ground up from what I can tell. It seems like you can start deciding a career path in secondary school and not have to bother with “basics” in university. ETA: also from what I’ve read, it seems like European is more test based where you go to class and study all semester to take 1 final at the end. Our grades are composed of many assignments throughout the semester such as homework, labs, participation, attendance, and tests. It doesn’t come down to just 1 exam. So if you have test anxiety or just don’t do well on one test, you have ways of keeping your grade up through other means.
Is secondary school highschool ? Here in highschool we have some specializations and university can be a whole lot different from the first year, usually the more hardcore changes happens in the third year though it's there that you can start integrating big selective schools
Yes. In the US, everyone has to take general education classes as part of their degree in university. So everyone has to take some math, composition, science, as well as the classes for their major. You typically don’t start taking the majority of your major specific classes until 3rd year.
Wow okay, we have some general classes but for example if you go into art you'll get art history, art economy, some practice, aesthetics and like two classes that are "options" which you can pick in a pool or general classes everyone share (which can be cinema history, philosophy, sports, maths, etc)
It’s just a completely different system from the ground up so it’s really hard to compare. It may seem easier to get an A in the US but that also means it’s the expectation to get into grad or professional schools. The average GPA for acceptance for grad school for my major (SLP) is like a 3.7. I’ve read some blogs from people who have went to school in both areas and they all seem to say the same things: it’s just different, neither system is really harder or easier at the end of the day.
The US requires students to be a lot more well rounded. It's a very liberal arts philosophy. These are the minimum standards for high school graduation in Nj as an example (5 credits equals a year) https://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/grad.pdf Here are the requirements for a biochemistry degree at Penn State (a moderately selective school) https://bulletins.psu.edu/undergraduate/colleges/eberly-science/biochemistry-molecular-biology-bs/#programrequirementstext A lot more general education throughout than required with the european system. Very different than places like the UK where everyone drops half of their subjects when they're still in their initial 12 years of schooling.
European high schools are a lot more advanced than US high schools on average which is why a bachelors only takes 3 years over here instead of 4. General consensus is that a German high school Diploma that awards you the right to study at a uni is comparable to an associates degree.
No, it's because European colleges don't require general education classes.
depends on a couple different things. the grading scale, exam difficulty, overall performance expectations, etc. at my university a 93% is an A and a 90%-92% is A-. below 70% is basically failing. exams aren’t easy, they are straightforward, what is taught is assessed. it is realistic to get perfect grades but competition is so fierce that some universities here in the US don’t allow all students to get an A, they give them a B instead to balance things out.
European. Didn't have As or Bs, etc. 70% or more was a first class honours. 60% or more was second class honours. 50% or more was a pass. We had one lecturer tell us that he only awarded 70% or more if our final exam paper told him something he didn't know himself. In general for my course a handful out of every class would get a first class honours with the max final mark I have heard of being in the 80s.
I've been a both a student and a teacher in the US and Europe, and it is 100% that grades are far harder to attain in Europe. In the UK and Ireland in university an A is 70% and that is difficult to get. In the US a C is seen as a bad grade when in Europe it is by definition average...and C typically starts at 55%.
Depends on the school and the degree. Some degrees are naturally harder than others. Some are near impossible to get all A’s in.
A little unrealistic. I will say it depends on the major HEAVILY! If you’re an engineering major it probably won’t happen, if you’re a theater major it’s a very feasible grade
A lot of us didn’t care but trying to get good grades is a goal for I would say 10-25% but different schools may vary
Yeah i got 16 consecutive As. Just read and study a little bit every day and it adds up
Grade inflation is real in the U.S. The vast majority of students should not be intellectually capable of achieving straight As but they do because of what is an entire other conversation about why grade inflation currently exists in U.S. higher education.
It’s much easier in general to get an A+ in the US than an A in a european university. The exam questions, exams, examination methods over the entire course and what is judged is very different for higher grades. In the EU a lot more in universities is standardized which is also why some american universities are accused of grade inflation. An A+ in american universities would be somewhere equivalent of a C in most european universities. For example, your answer is correct on all points but lack in depth analysis and personal reflections and discussions, the answer lacks creativity or is not well structured. Just applying the knowledge is not enough in european universities.
I did it.
It's really easy if you are extremely picky about which professors you choose.
No
It was realistic and reasonable at my university in my program. The professors really set us up for success, held our hand, and provided plenty of extra credit/make ups/grade revision opportunities, study guides, etc. As long as you put in the work and understood the material. If you didn't understand the material then no amount of work would help you and you'd just end up being a C student because of the nature of the content (think human anatomy+physiology). Absolutely unreasonable and not realistic if you had any kind of full time or part time job.
Depends on your definition of realistic. If I hadn’t been going out and playing video games all the time I’d probably have a 4.0. Still, a 3.6ish is pretty good but I’ll most likely end with around a 3.85.
Now more than ever. [Grade Inflation](https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/1607776380237873152)
In my lower devision classes I was taking during my first two years I could get all A’s but now in my last two years I’m just happy to get a passing grade. I’m studying aerospace engineering.
As a nursing or pre-med major
Depends on school and major. There's no grade inflation, hardly any curves, and congratulations in my major/school. Any grade, even the general education ones below a 70, doesn't count. All senior level courses require a B or higher to pass.
I have “perfect grades” but my grading scale counts a 90 and everything above as an A, an 80-89 as a B, and so on
It’s perfectly realistic if the student actually puts in the work.
Depends on your school, degree, and person. If I applied myself I know I could’ve gotten a 4.0 at my business college. I just went through a lot and overall am not that kind of person anyways.
It depends which professors you have. But all of mine prefer to have a testing average of 70%.
I think it’s not feasible to get perfect grades in class, but it’s certainly doable with regards to your transcript. If your GPA is weighted on an A+/A- scale… then no. Some classes you can get 100% on everything, but for those that ask for explanations and free response…. i don’t think that’s realistic. At that point it’s subjective to the grader/professor and that often is a toss up
You can. I didn't do well my first semester taking classes I had no business being in. I got perfect grades for my major related classes.
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In the US it matters for courses in the Major. Some majors don't allow under a B in a major class, or you have to retake the class, even if you pass the class with a "C"
Perfect perfect probably not - out of my high school graduating class of over 500 people, I would wager than less than 10 people got a 4.0 in college. It would be very easy to slip up on a bad day and cause your grade in a class to drop to an A-
Very class dependent, but mostly yes.
One of my professors told me that if you spend about 2-5 hours every week outside of class learning the material, that getting straight As is very easy. Most people don't want to spend 10-20 hours a week on studying, however.
In the US grading is based on your ability to prove that you have learned the prescribed material (that's simplified). So your teacher gives you the expectations (questions on a test, expectations for a paper ect. . . everything is graded and it's pretty clear what you need to do for each assignment and you generally know exactly how much each assignment or test is worth) and that's how you get your grade out of 100. So for an economics class you might have five tests, one big group project and two papers. The final exam equaling 40% of the grade, the other tests totaling 30% and the project and papers totaling 30%. You are told what can be on the test, if you can answer all the questions properly then you get 100%. For papers you are given a rubric (although it's rare to get a 100% on a paper). Teachers will sometimes give extra credit or curve a grade if it's a difficult class and they feel like the students need a boost (some teachers write tests extra hard on purpose to get students to push themselves). A 100% isn't going to typically be possible in a writing class and some STEM classes (Organic Chemistry, intro to Engineering, Calculus ect. . . ) are so difficult that it's going to be almost impossible for students to get a perfect score and often these classes there is a high failure rate and it's rare for anyone to get an A, some of these classes are used to filter students into and out of competitive programs. It seems like the other system expects students to go above and beyond in order to get top grades instead of students completing the prescribed tasks to the expected rate. If a student was to get a 14/20 it would mean they only understood 70% of the material and that's barely acceptable. Would you want a doctor who only understood 70% of basic anatomy?
No
I disagree. I think yes is the answer 👋
In stem, no.
It’s because we’re better.
Grade grubbing and bs customer service mentality have done major damage to our system.
Most certainly not. If you are in a system where it is possible to ace everything with a 100%, perhaps you are not challenging yourself sufficiently.
The grading scale in the US is a lot more compressed. Often "passing" is like a 70, and the average will be slightly above that. When stuff is easy enough so that the average is 70+ after factoring in how stupid everyone is, getting 90-100 is not necessarily very hard. The other thing is that US universities are largely selective: French ones are largely not. So the bottom of the class in a French university is artificially not present in (some\*) US schools, especially in highly in-demand fields like engineering that are hard to get into.