This comment doesn't really add anything to the discussion especially because colleges have different grading scales and culture of grade inflation or deflation. For example in mine most GPAs hovered around 3.5. A 3.8 would be rare.
Grade inflation is a problem for many state American universities, at least. Havard also is a private university where grade inflation has been highlighted as a real problem. See:
No, but in engineering the flunk-out rate is near 70%, or at least it was 25 years ago when I was a student. I don't think there is grade inflation going on there.
I only witnessed cheating twice; Chinese and Indians. In general though, the Asians worked their asses off; 1st generation immigrants "off the boat". Very tough competition.
