Update 4/29/2020: Read part 2 here.

Ah, the University of Texas at Austin. What starts here changes your GPA. Emphasis on the ‘A’ part. Do you care about getting an A more than anything else? Are you willing to sacrifice all your learning and academic engagement just for that one number on your resume or application? You shouldn’t, but I decided to take a look at what types of classes are statistically the easiest / hardest to get an A in anyway.

Luckily, if you know where to look, UT Austin (in compliance with FERPA) offers free full grade distribution data for every course taught in a semester! The only exceptions are:

Individual instruction, one-on-one classes

Study abroad programs

When an undergraduate class had less than 10 students enrolled.

When a graduate class had less than 5 students enrolled.

When all the students got the same grade.

When all but one of the students got the same grade.

When none of the students got letter grades.

So the data won’t be 100% complete, but there’s enough data to provide some insights. I decided to take a look at the latest full semester, Fall 2019. The famous grade distribution site Catalyst doesn’t have Fall 2019 data yet as of writing this post (April 14, 2020), so I figured I’d fill this niche.

Here’s a brief overview of UT courses during Fall 2019. Shown is a breakdown of enrollment, number of credit hours available and total number of credits received, for lower division, upper division, and graduate division classes / students. Graduate students include all Masters, PhD, medical, and Pharm. D students. For some reason UT reports its law students and courses separately from both undergrad and grad student numbers however, so I’m gonna neglect law students for now. Sorry law students.

Divison Number of Courses Total Enrollment Total Course Credit Hours Available Total Credit Hours Taken Grad 737 19421 2147 53223 Lower (Undergrad) 3044 112234 7259 260423 Upper (Undergrad) 1515 51472 6465 232409 Total 5296 183127 15871 546055 Avg Number of Courses Taken Avg Hours Taken Undergrad 4.076040136 12.2707965 Grad Student 1.960133226 5.37171982 Overall 3.657346568 10.905614 All data are from Fall 2019 only.

Looks like the average undergrad on the Forty Acres was full-time at just over 12 credit hours of enrolled undergraduate coursework spread across approximately four courses for Fall 2019.

Graduate students are technically considered full-time at 9 hours of enrollment which makes the 5.37 average enrolled hours a bit confusing, but this can be explained by the lower hours requirements for Master’s thesis students and doctoral candidates.

Note: the above table assumes that graduate students only take graduate courses and undergraduates only take undergraduate courses, which isn’t always the case. However, the number of undergraduate students taking graduate classes is almost certainly too small to make a meaningful differences.

So, out of curiosity, I wondered which type of course has the highest proportion of students earning an A grade, on average. For every division of course (lower, upper, graduate), there were classes with almost everyone earning an A as well as classes with very rare A grades. Most classes fell somewhere in between the extremes.

Graduate-level courses had significantly higher proportions of A grades than lower or upper-division undergraduate courses (p = .0000000000000002 for both), but there was no significant difference in proportion of As earned between lower and upper division classes (p = .2677). Graduate school doesn’t really carry the same attitudes towards assigning letter grades though, so this isn’t really a meaningful comparison. These numbers do include the small number of undergrads taking graduate courses, but they are a tiny minority and shouldn’t skew the data.

IMPORTANT NOTE: UT’s dataset did NOT distinguish between plus/minus grades. Thus the numbers of As in the data reflect the total number of As plus A-minuses (no pun intended), and likewise for Bs and Cs. I suspect this is because not all classes use plus/minus grading, so it’s simpler to directly compare all courses this way. Still, keep all this in mind. An A in this dataset does NOT necessarily mean a 4.0 GPA.

Of the 3,044 total undergraduate classes offered at UT in Fall 2019, here are the twenty within the grade dataset that had the highest proportion of students receiving an A:

Dept Number Name Size Proportion Receiving A Proportion Receiving D or F ENS 207L LONGHORN BAND 381 0.97375328 0 CSD 113P HEARING SCIENCE: LAB 57 0.96491228 0 N 309 GLOBAL HEALTH 57 0.96491228 0 ACC 151 ACCOUNTING CAREERS EXPLORATION 194 0.96391753 0 N 310 COMM IN HEALTH CARE SETTINGS 55 0.96363636 0 LAH 102H THE IDEA OF THE LIBERAL ARTS 150 0.96 0.00666667 M E 177K PROJECTS IN MECHANICAL ENGR 45 0.95555556 0 MAN 327H INNOVTN/ENTREPRNRSP: HONORS 44 0.95454545 0 CHE 253K APPLIED STATISTICS 84 0.95238095 0 E E 364D INTRO TO ENGINEERING DESIGN 123 0.95121951 0 ENS 109L CONCERT CHORALE 41 0.95121951 0 ADV 332C NEW MEDIA ENTREPRENEURIALISM 244 0.95081967 0.00409836 ADV 334 INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING 79 0.94936709 0 S S 302E HON SOC SCI: ANTHROPOLOGY 39 0.94871795 0 NTR 332 COMMUNITY NUTRITION 39 0.94871795 0 SED 303 AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER-WB 494 0.94736842 0.00202429 KIN 311 WSI / LIFEGUARD TRAINING 36 0.94444444 0 NTR 334 FOODSERVICE SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT 36 0.94444444 0 SDS 348 COMPUTATNL BIO & BIOINFRMTCS 35 0.94285714 0 ADV 332 TECHNOLOGY MARKETING/ADV 243 0.94238683 0



Well, some of those top twenty might be restricted, research credit courses or honors seminars. But quite a few are traditional lecture-style courses that truly are blow-off classes.

Also, individual discussion sections within a larger lecture class may be listed as separate courses; thus, some classes technically encompass multiple listed “courses.” Still, the grade distributions should still be fairly representative of course difficulty.

Here are the twenty undergraduate weed-out classes / sections with the highest proportion of students receiving a D or F:

Dept Number Name Size Prop. Receiving A Prop. Receiving A, B or C Prop. Receiving D or F BIO 311D INTRODUCTORY BIOLOGY II 13 0.15384615 0.61538 0.38461538 BIO 311D INTRODUCTORY BIOLOGY II 21 0.04761905 0.57143 0.38095238 BIO 320 CELL BIOLOGY 11 0.09090909 0.63636 0.36363636 BIO 320 CELL BIOLOGY 18 0.33333333 0.66667 0.33333333 E E 460R INTRODUCTION TO VLSI DESIGN 12 0.5 0.58333 0.33333333 E 316M AMERICAN LITERATURE 22 0.22727273 0.36364 0.31818182 GEO 302D AGE OF DINOSAURS 17 0.11764706 0.58824 0.29411765 PHL 313 INTRODUCTORY SYMBOLIC LOGIC 21 0.23809524 0.52381 0.28571429 C E 356 ELEMENTS OF HYDRAULIC ENGR 15 0.4 0.73333 0.26666667 E 316M AMERICAN LITERATURE 23 0.34782609 0.60870 0.26086957 BIO 311D INTRODUCTORY BIOLOGY II 12 0.08333333 0.58333 0.25 C E 311S PROBABIL/STATS FOR CIVIL ENGRS 20 0.2 0.75000 0.25 E E 312 SOFTWR DSGN AND IMPLEMENTATN I 16 0.375 0.68750 0.25 M 333L STRUCTURE OF MODERN GEOMETRY 28 0.46428571 0.67857 0.25 AET 326C 3D MODELING AND TEXTURING 29 0.27586207 0.58621 0.24137931 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I 21 0.28571429 0.76190 0.23809524 BIO 320 CELL BIOLOGY 17 0.17647059 0.70588 0.23529412 BIO 311C INTRODUCTORY BIOLOGY I 13 0.15384615 0.61538 0.23076923 E E 306 INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING 26 0.19230769 0.73077 0.23076923 BIO 326R GENERAL MICROBIOLOGY 18 0 0.72222 0.22222222

*What does a grade of “Other” mean? According to UT’s report:

*Other includes all non-standard letter grades, including In Progress, Incomplete, Permanent Incomplete, Oblit, Q-Drop, Withdrawn, Credit, No Credit, Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, and Registered on CR/F or CR/NC basis.

Thus, since this category encompasses not only withdrawals and incomplete grades but also “Pass” and “Fail” grades, it’s impossible to determine the true pass rate for all courses. Thus, I’ll only be computing the likelihood of receiving an A for a course, as well as the likelihood receiving either an A, B or C (passing the “traditional” way) and the likelihood of receiving a D or F (failing the “traditional” way).

Anyway, so I’ve always heard that student:faculty ratio is an important indicator of educational quality. One must thus ask: how is class size related to the likelihood of receiving an A in said class? I turned to statistics to find out, analyzing all 5,296 classes at UT offered in Fall 2019.

Indeed, there was a significant negative relationship between class size and proportion receiving As (p = 0.02444788)

r = -0.3807448

Okay, that looks confusing as heck. So here’s the same plot after removing outliers of classes with enrollment under 10 and over 500:

Eh, not much better. But the negative correlation remains. Looks like smaller classes really are more effective learning environments after all.

Here’s a plot of class sizes vs. proportion receiving As, this time grouped into their respective departments (n = 158). The significance remained (p = .02444).

r = -.1789

Here are the top ten hardest departments to receive an A in last semester:

Department Number of Courses Department Name Average Percent Receiving As Average Pass Rate Total Departmental Enrollment Average Class Size E M 24 Engineering Mechanics 30.07% 87.66% 879 36.63 L A 5 Liberal Arts 35.37% 56.28% 801 160.20 MNS 12 Marine Science 37.93% 94.05% 238 19.83 GEO 73 Geology 39.35% 84.02% 1134 15.53 ECO 54 Economics 39.45% 89.07% 3337 61.80 PBH 12 Public Health 39.63% 95.62% 494 41.17 ITL 10 Italian 41.42% 91.16% 192 19.20 BIO 429 Biology 41.77% 88.55% 9604 22.39 LEB 19 Legal Environment of Business 42.72% 96.31% 1625 85.53 I B 5 International Business 43.43% 94.12% 326 65.20



And the ten easiest:

Department Number of Courses Department Name Average Percent Receiving As Average Pass Rate Total Departmental Enrollment Average Class Size HCT 2 Health Care Transformation 92.65% 94.12% 68 34.00 VAS 1 Visual Arts Studies 90.48% 100.00% 21 21.00 ENS 6 Ensemble 90.28% 93.12% 548 91.33 EVS 1 Environmental Science 89.66% 100.00% 29 29.00 EVE 1 Environmental Engineering 88.64% 100.00% 44 44.00 MAL 1 Malayalam 88.24% 94.12% 17 17.00 MEL 1 Middle Eastern Languages/Cultures 87.50% 93.75% 16 16.00 SED 3 Special Education 84.78% 89.76% 514 171.33 SCI 1 Science 83.33% 100.00% 24 24.00 F A 4 Fine Arts 80.15% 97.36% 96 24.00

In keeping with the theme of larger classes offering less individual attention leading to lower grades, I also found a significant negative relationship between the average proportion receiving As within a department and the department’s average class size (p = .02445), total enrollment (p = .0000008) and the number of courses within the department (p = .000067):

r = – .17

r = – .38

r = -.31

So big intimidating academic programs are big and intimidating after all.

So, with the current 2020 quarantines in mind, what about in-person versus online courses? Surely online courses, with no face-to-face interaction between student and professor, as well as being largely undergrad-level, would see a smaller proportion of As earned? Perhaps surprisingly, there was no significant difference in the proportion receiving As in in-person versus online classes (p = .8143) for Fall 2019.

There certainly was a difference in the overall learning environment, however, namely in the class sizes. Online courses were significantly larger even when removing outliers (p = .00004), with an average course enrollment of 165 students compared to 32 students per in-person class.

So classes end up larger when you remove the physical constraints of a classroom, no surprises here. What about division? Lower- and upper-division classes were significantly smaller than graduate classes overall (p < .0000000000000002), but there was no significant difference between lower- and upper-division course sizes (p = .5244).

Graduate classes are smaller and have higher proportions of A grades, no surprises there.

Below are the top ten largest Fall 2019 courses by enrollment, all undergraduate-level, nine of which were online. How many of these have you taken?

Dept. Number Name Instructor Day / Time Size Prop. Receiving A Prop. Receiving D or F GOV 312L ISS & POLICIES IN AMER GOV-WB Moser N/A 1892 0.39112051 0.07029598 PSY 301 INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY-WB Gosling & Pennebaker TTH 3:30 – 5 987 0.24620061 0.11752786 GOV 310L AMERICAN GOVERNMENT-WB Albertson & Theriault MW 2:30 – 4 830 0.58192771 0.03373494 PSY 352 ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY-WB Carlson N/A 770 0.64415584 0.00779221 GOV 310L AMERICAN GOVERNMENT-WB McDaniel N/A 730 0.26027397 0.09315068 MUS 307 3-JAZZ APPRECIATION-WB Hellmer & Sailors MW 11:30 – 1 686 0.80758017 0.01895044 MKT 320F FOUNDATIONS OF MARKETING-WB Williams N/A 686 0.43877551 0.01895044 MAN 320F FNDTNS MGMT & ORG BEHAVIOR-WB Aroian N/A 674 0.21958457 0.03264095 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Laude TTH 2 – 3:30 529 0.70888469 0.01512287 SED 303 AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER-WB Tackett N/A 494 0.94736842 0.00202429

Unsurprisingly, all of these courses are either prerequisites for a wide variety of degrees (e.g. PSY 301 or CH 301), known for being relatively easy and accessible as a general elective (e.g. MUS 307) or flat-out required for everyone (e.g. GOV 310L and 312L). The online format of most of these classes means no constraints by classroom size, so that helps as well.

I was curious about how large in-person classes could get, so here are the top ten largest in-person classes. Try to take a wild guess at which two classrooms they were held in…

Dept Number Name Instructor Room Day/Time Size Prop. Receiving A Prop. Receiving D or F CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Laude BUR 106 TTH 2 – 3:30 529 0.70888469 0.01512287 ECO 304K INTRODUCTION TO MICROECONOMICS Schneider UTC 2.112A MWF 3 -4 493 0.43002028 0.07707911 HIS 315K THE UNITED STATES, 1492-1865 Brands UTC 2.112A MWF 10 – 11 479 0.72860125 0.00835073 CH 320M ORGANIC CHEMISTRY I Iverson BUR 106 MWF 1 – 2 464 0.39439655 0.09698276 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Sparks & Biberdorf BUR 106 TTH 11 – 12:30 440 0.37954545 0.05 ECO 304K INTRODUCTION TO MICROECONOMICS Thompson UTC 2.112A MW 8 – 9:30 434 0.24654378 0.08064516 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Sparks & Anderson BUR 106 TTH 12:30 – 2 429 0.38228438 0.06993007 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Anderson BUR 106 MWF 11 – 12 428 0.35747664 0.0864486 CH 301 PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY I Biberdorf BUR 106 TTH 9:30 -11 419 0.35322196 0.08591885 HIS 317L 9-THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT Moore UTC 2.112A TTH 11 – 12:30 419 0.71121718 0.01909308

For those curious, the official capacity of BUR 106 is 527 (Fat R.I.P. to Dr. Laude’s over-capacity class of 529) and the capacity of UTC 2.112A is 514. Both of these classrooms had multiple broken seats last time I checked, which doesn’t help with overcrowding either. I also suspect many of these classes were more crowded in practice than the enrollment numbers suggest; for instance, I anecdotally know that Dr. Iverson’s CH 320M class is filled with students auditing or setting in on his course to take advantage of his well-known quality teaching.

Okay, so that’s my analysis of getting As at UT thus far. Sure, most of the factors aren’t that controllable and certain dreaded classes may be unavoidable for your degree, but I hope I’ve provided a little fun entertainment for you (especially some of my more neurotic peers out there).

That’s UT for you. It’s a big public school, and it can be intimidating. You won’t get coddled here, but the school’s resources are more than adequate if you reach out and ask. Academically, scholarly or mentally, there’s free help out there just for you. No matter how you may feel, you’re never alone.

(Disclaimer: I did not intend to arrive at any conclusions based on the data; the interpretation is up to you. This post is not meant to imply an element of causation in any sense. Correlation does not imply causation. Plus, I’m just an undergrad. I’m not a statistics or data science major. I’m not even a science major. But I have a right to fill my quarantine free time.)