HIgh Stakes

One thing around BYU that I feel is a problem is the escalating level of competition that runs rampant through college classes. Now this is to be expected since BYU is known for being a respectable school to attend and it must keep up this image by keeping things competitive. But is this the only way of making sure the school appears to be at the top of its game by making the competition level so high?
As a freshmen just experiencing the whole BYU atmosphere I may have not experienced enough college to make this call but from what I've seen and heard it seems it continues in the same direction. As a freshman taking freshman level classes the class size usually is enormous. The size of the class makes it hard on professors to teach so many students and therefore have to make a generalization. That there are really smart and dumb people in their class. Then they must grade accordingly and that's were competitions evil friend the grading curve comes in. This makes life easier for professors but not for us. We must scramble and fight to crawl our way into that small percentage that gets the A and with the high expectancy of BYU students for good grades that scramble can turn into an all out brawl. Professors don't mind though because it makes their class look like a challenging course that must stay in the program. So in a way professors are competing against themselves to prove their class rigorous enough. Why can't everyone who works hard enough get an A?
Well grade inflation is a whole other story that drives the competition level up. Speaking as a student who didn't get straight A's in high school I feel like I'm sort of out of my league here. Did I just get accepted so that I could be a cushion for the real students to get their A? I'd hope not but it sometimes feels that way.