[ruddzw]

Here at Cornell, the general consensus among students is that it's really hard to get good grades, especially among some majors. Cornell started a few years ago releasing "Median Grade Reports" so that students would see what classes were easy and hard in terms of grading. The idea was that students would enroll in classes with low median grades so that they could challenge themselves. Instead, people took the reports and took as many classes as they could with high median grades, so they would have an easier time and a higher GPA.

Sure, people come here because it's known to be hard. But once they're here that goes out the window. You're trying for grades, not challenges.

[RK]

When I was an undergrad, organic chemistry was widely considered to be the hardest. They eventually released some grade statistics like the ones you mentioned and it showed that organic chemistry had the highest mean grade and the highest percentage of A+'s of any course.

Of course it was full of pre-meds and chemical engineering majors (ie. pre-oil). Draw your own conclusions.

The departments that had the lowest mean grades across their courses were physics and economics. I took that to mean that physics was actually a very difficult major (I admit I'm biased here). Economics, on the other hand, was what most of the scholarship athletes majored in (my university didn't offer communications or marketing degrees that you sometimes see). Not to say that economics wasn't difficult, though I never had a chance to take any courses.

[icefox]

Why would you go for challenges, your first job isn't going to ask you for how challenging your classes were, but for your grades. Higher grades == more pay.

[potatolicious]

Not to mention many people intend to go to grad school - where grades are king, and nobody really cares if your marks are low because you were challenging yourself.

The system shares as much blame as its users. If challenging oneself was rewarded then we'd have more of it.