If you’re like me, trying to get an A+ in a college class is like trying to win the lottery. It’s desirable, yet time-consuming and almost entirely impossible. But before you attribute your less than perfect grades to your drinking problem and your overall severe lack of motivation, you might want to take into consideration where it is that you go to school. Former Duke Professor and creator of GradeInflation.com, Stuart Rojstaczer, created a list earlier this year of the hardest schools to get an A.

So here it is, the 16 Colleges and Universities with the toughest graders:

1) Boston University

2) MIT

3) Princeton University

4) Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

5) Auburn University

6) Florida International University

7) Hampden-Sydney College

8) Purdue University

9) Roanoke College

10) Southern Polytechnic State

11) University of Houston

12) Virginia Commonwealth University

13) Cal State University-Fullerton

14) Harvey Mudd College

15) Reed College

16) Simon Fraser University

The report also showed that more highly selective schools are more likely to give out A’s while less selective schools tend to give out lower grades. And if it makes you feel any better, the average GPA at state schools is a 3.01 and 3.3. for private schools.

Some of these are pretty obvious, but others are not at all. If your school is on this list, feel free to show your parents, future employers, your professors, and anyone that you feel the need to justify your B’s and C’s to.

[Editor’s note: I’d like to point out that Julia, our intern who wrote this, actually attends one of these schools listed above. I’m sure that writing this was somewhat painful for her but at least she now has ammunition to help her defend her GPA when her parents ask her why she was spending her time writing for us instead of studying.]