Grade Deflation: Why Pre-Med Biology Majors Have the Lowest GPAs

The Freshman Massacre

You were a straight-A student in high school. You arrive at college as a Pre-Med Biology major. You take "Intro to General Chemistry" (Chem 101). You study constantly.

You take the first midterm. The class average is a 42%. You end the semester with a 'C+'. Your college GPA is a 2.8. You are devastated.

Welcome to the phenomenon of Grade Deflation and the infamous "Weed-Out" class.

Why STEM Departments Deflate Grades

If you look at the national data for college GPAs:

Education & Humanities Majors: Average GPA is often around a 3.6.

Biology & Chemistry Majors: Average GPA is often around a 2.9 to 3.1.

Why? Because the university Biology department has a specific job: They must protect the medical schools. If the university hands out 'A's to everyone, the medical schools won't know who the actual geniuses are.

To solve this, STEM departments intentionally design Freshman Chemistry and Biology courses to be brutally difficult. The goal is to mathematically force the bottom 50% of the class to fail or drop out of the Pre-Med track, leaving only the most resilient students.

The Law School Dilemma

This grade deflation creates a massive crisis for students who want to go to Law School.

Law Schools (unlike Medical Schools) only care about your raw Cumulative GPA. They do not care about your major. If you are a brilliant student who majored in Chemistry and earned a 3.3 GPA, Harvard Law School will likely reject you. If you are a mediocre student who majored in Communications and coasted to a 3.9 GPA, Harvard Law School is highly interested.

The Strategy: If you want to go to Law School or Business School, avoid STEM majors like the plague. Major in a humanities field where grade inflation is rampant, protect your 4.0, and crush the LSAT/GMAT.