Advising plays an important role for students all four years. Ask other parents more about Carleton’s Liberal Arts Advising for first and second years, and how that transitions after students choose their major.
Do Carleton professors grade students rigorously with a curve? Like top 10% students get As, top 20% students get Bs, Top 40% students get Cs? Do the students compete with one another for GPA? Thanks
My kid's strength is in social science, but he is interested in trying statistics, data science and computer science. If the STEM class he tries turns out to be too hard, can he shift to pass/fail, or any other alternative, instead of sticking to letter grade? What does interdisciplinary exploration mean in practice? Thank you
Hi Jean and Shawn - I'll answer both of your questions!
Grading varies by professor; from what my daughter (a junior) has told me there is not one standard curve that all professors are using. Some classes and professors are harder than others, but all have seemed fair.
Her experience has been that students are really collaborative. She is a biology major and has taken many classes that have weekly problem sets. Students work together and really help one another. She has not sensed any of the competitive atmosphere that was rampant in high school and has heard about at some other colleges.
Carleton's distributional requirements really push students to take classes outside their comfort zone! They can decide by week 7/10 to "scrunch" a class, which is pass/fail. So they really have most of the semester to figure out how they're doing before they have to make that decision. There is a limit of 5 scrunched classes in their time at Carleton, and they cannot scrunch a class that is part of their major. But I think it is common for students to use those for classes that are far outside their major that they really want to explore so that they can focus on learning without the stress of a grade.
The average GPA for the high school graduates to Carleton is 3.9. Does anyone know the average GPA of the Carlton students who graduate after 4 years of learning life at Carleton? Online search shows 3.5. Is that true? Thx
Carleton does not track the GPA of incoming students in any systematic way. Perhaps the history of applicants from your student's high school suggests that a 3.9 is what admitted (or enrolling?) students might be, but our experience is that there are so many highly divergent GPA formats and weighting mechanics out there that we see no institutional value in calculating them back to an unweighted 4.0 system. I can report that--in any given year--about 70% of our students come from the top 10% of their high school class.
I'll look further into the median GPA at graduation, but such numbers aren't readily available.
How many units are the three classes per trimester? How many hours of class time, office hours, and study time for each class? I mean approximately. Thanks
Trimester credit hours at Carleton don’t translate meaningfully to the outside world, but here’s the overview. A full trimester-long course at Carleton is 6 credits. A standard trimester load is 3 courses (ergo 18 credits). Students should expect to be in standard classroom settings about 4 hours/week per 6 credit course, with additional time being added to that time obligation for things like language practicums, lab sections, etc.
I would add that it’s also fairly standard to expect about 3 hours of work outside of class to prepare for an hour of non-lab course meetings. Between class meetings and the resulting homework/labs/other, 35-40 hours per week is a reasonable estimate.
You might find the below link useful. (Select "Credit Unit" from the drop down menu if your browser doesn't take you there automatically.) A standard full-credit course is 6 units, so 18 units per term is typical. Some classes are less. The link goes into a fair amount of detail on the minimum hours of workload per unit, and what forms that work can take.
A few excerpts to note:
"Based on the conversion of Carleton credits to semester hours, under this definition a standard 6-credit Carleton course requires a total of at least 125 hours of student work in the term, including both direct instruction and out-of-class work."
...and...
"This total implies that a standard 6-credit course normally includes an average of at least four hours of direct instruction per week."
...and...
"For each hour devoted to direct instruction, students are typically expected to carry out at least two additional hours of out-of-class work. (Most Carleton classes require more, typically three or more hours of out-of-class work for each hour of direct instruction.)"
Around 2010, the College switched from numerical GPA designations (eg, 3.5+ = magna cum laude) to a percentage-based approach. Here’s the current model:
Questions and Comments
Do Carleton professors grade students rigorously with a curve? Like top 10% students get As, top 20% students get Bs, Top 40% students get Cs? Do the students compete with one another for GPA? Thanks
My kid's strength is in social science, but he is interested in trying statistics, data science and computer science. If the STEM class he tries turns out to be too hard, can he shift to pass/fail, or any other alternative, instead of sticking to letter grade? What does interdisciplinary exploration mean in practice? Thank you
Hi Jean and Shawn - I'll answer both of your questions!
Grading varies by professor; from what my daughter (a junior) has told me there is not one standard curve that all professors are using. Some classes and professors are harder than others, but all have seemed fair.
Her experience has been that students are really collaborative. She is a biology major and has taken many classes that have weekly problem sets. Students work together and really help one another. She has not sensed any of the competitive atmosphere that was rampant in high school and has heard about at some other colleges.
Carleton's distributional requirements really push students to take classes outside their comfort zone! They can decide by week 7/10 to "scrunch" a class, which is pass/fail. So they really have most of the semester to figure out how they're doing before they have to make that decision. There is a limit of 5 scrunched classes in their time at Carleton, and they cannot scrunch a class that is part of their major. But I think it is common for students to use those for classes that are far outside their major that they really want to explore so that they can focus on learning without the stress of a grade.
The average GPA for the high school graduates to Carleton is 3.9. Does anyone know the average GPA of the Carlton students who graduate after 4 years of learning life at Carleton? Online search shows 3.5. Is that true? Thx
Hi Tom,
Carleton does not track the GPA of incoming students in any systematic way. Perhaps the history of applicants from your student's high school suggests that a 3.9 is what admitted (or enrolling?) students might be, but our experience is that there are so many highly divergent GPA formats and weighting mechanics out there that we see no institutional value in calculating them back to an unweighted 4.0 system. I can report that--in any given year--about 70% of our students come from the top 10% of their high school class.
I'll look further into the median GPA at graduation, but such numbers aren't readily available.
Hi Tom,
I've done some investigating and I can confirm my suspicions: Carleton does not publish median GPAs of graduates.
Adam
may I please ask how many students got the summa cum laude, magna cum laude, and cum laude respectively in 2025's graduation ceremony?
How many units are the three classes per trimester? How many hours of class time, office hours, and study time for each class? I mean approximately. Thanks
Hi Greg,
Trimester credit hours at Carleton don’t translate meaningfully to the outside world, but here’s the overview. A full trimester-long course at Carleton is 6 credits. A standard trimester load is 3 courses (ergo 18 credits). Students should expect to be in standard classroom settings about 4 hours/week per 6 credit course, with additional time being added to that time obligation for things like language practicums, lab sections, etc.
I would add that it’s also fairly standard to expect about 3 hours of work outside of class to prepare for an hour of non-lab course meetings. Between class meetings and the resulting homework/labs/other, 35-40 hours per week is a reasonable estimate.
Hi Greg,
You might find the below link useful. (Select "Credit Unit" from the drop down menu if your browser doesn't take you there automatically.) A standard full-credit course is 6 units, so 18 units per term is typical. Some classes are less. The link goes into a fair amount of detail on the minimum hours of workload per unit, and what forms that work can take.
A few excerpts to note:
"Based on the conversion of Carleton credits to semester hours, under this definition a standard 6-credit Carleton course requires a total of at least 125 hours of student work in the term, including both direct instruction and out-of-class work."
...and...
"This total implies that a standard 6-credit course normally includes an average of at least four hours of direct instruction per week."
...and...
"For each hour devoted to direct instruction, students are typically expected to carry out at least two additional hours of out-of-class work. (Most Carleton classes require more, typically three or more hours of out-of-class work for each hour of direct instruction.)"
https://www.carleton.edu/handbook/academics/policy/357/credit-unit/
I hope this helps!
- Alex
Now *that* is some citation work @Alex! Thank you!
Hi Alex,
Around 2010, the College switched from numerical GPA designations (eg, 3.5+ = magna cum laude) to a percentage-based approach. Here’s the current model:
https://www.carleton.edu/handbook/academics/policy/13/latin-honors-at-graduation/
The upshot is that the top 30% of the graduating cohort are in line for a Latin honor of one kind or another.