GPA Deflation/Inflation a discussion

[Polite_Antagonis]

<p>I've been rereading old threads about this and have some points I'd like to bring up and have Sakky respond to, in order to achieve a sense of conclusion on the issue of grade inflation.</p>

<p>As a law school student I am not familiar with the medical school admissions process but I believe it could be analogous to the law school admissions process which I have been studying for a while and trying to glean explanatory relationships from. Here is what I have found out.</p>

<p>I compare Cal to UVA, Stanford and Yale. I could not find info on other elite schools, and I use UVA because it has similar placement to Cal in general but also includes general</p>

<p><a href="http://www.career.virginia.edu/stud.../LSAT-GPA04.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.career.virginia.edu/stud.../LSAT-GPA04.pdf&lt;/a>
<a href="http://career.berkeley.edu/Law/lawStats.stm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.berkeley.edu/Law/lawStats.stm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2004.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/media/statistics2004.pdf&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/uac/preprof/05prelawstats.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/dept/undergrad/uac/preprof/05prelawstats.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The average GPA for these schools are respectively using <a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.gradeinflation.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>UVA - 2001 (academic year) 3.18
Cal - 1996 - 3.10
Stanford - 1992 - 3.44
Yale - unknown? - not really known for grade inflation though.</p>

<p>Most schools use an academic index for admissions, with gpa and the LSAT, with the LSAT accounting for around 50-60% of the index score. .1 gpa = 1 LSAT point.</p>

<p>This are all for the graduating class of 2004. I'll compare how these 4 undergraduate institutions did in terms of their admissions to the top 3 law schools (HYS), the average LSAT and GPA of admits, and the average LSAT and GPA of the undergrad institutions themselves.</p>

<p>Harvard Law School.
School / Admitted / Matriculated / Avg LSAT / Avg GPA
Cal / 12 / 9 / 171 / 3.93
UVA / 7 / 3 / 173 / 3.87
Stan/ 59/ 35 / 171.5 /3.78
Yale /62 / 37 / 171.5 / 3.81</p>

<p>Yale Law School
Cal / 2 / 1 / 169 / 3.93 (one admit was URM)
UVA / 5 / 5/ 171 / 3.79
Stan/ 22/14/171.1/3.83
Yale / 34 / 24/171.8/3.86</p>

<p>Stanford Law School
Cal / 3 / 1 /170 /3.99
UVA /5 / 2 /170 /3.91
Stan/37/16/169.7/3.82
Yale/36 /13/170.3/3.83</p>

<p>Columbia Law
Cal / 7 / 5 / 172 / 3.79
UVA/18/ 4 / 171/ 3.74
Stan/37/16/169.7/3.82
Yale/78/14/170.4/3.74</p>

<p>NYU Law
Cal /24 / 5/171/3.83
UVA/26 / 8 /170 /3.68
Stan/81 /10 /170.7/3.72
Yale/92 /15 /171.2/3.74</p>

<p>Now the career center numbers are only for GRADUATING seniors wheras all the other numbers refer to seniors and alumni. Hence, the berkely nubmers are definitely skewed against admittance to Yale and Stanford since they are small schools and can afford to differentiate by soft factors.</p>

<p>The numbers are also skewed in general because of this; law schools often assign a lot of weight on soft factors, all else being held equal, so a graduating senior will be at a disadvantage to a graduate with the same statistics but a few years work experience.</p>

<p>Cal seems to do about as well as UVA across the board, even though the numbers are drawn from different population samples, the numbers are quite similar and I'll use UVA as analagous to Cal (since Cal doesn't post information on non-seniors). In most cases Cal and UVA numbers seem similar as are the aggregate academic index average for the admits from each school.</p>

<p>At Harvard LS, Cal students needed 1 LSAT point higher on their academic index versus Yale and Stanford (easily explainable in relation . YLS's stats are not comparable for Cal since one of the 2 admits was a URM. Using UVA's number as a baseline, and taking Cal's numbers with a grain salt, public school students actually had slightly worst numbers than Stanford and Yale admits - yet this is probably a result of admitting 4 to 6 times the number of people from SY versus Cal for Yale. Stanford Law School's statistics mirror those for Yale LS.</p>

<p>Going on to bigger Law schools like Columbia and NYU (400+ each), where numbers are going to be a more critical component for admissions, we see at Columbia and NYU you see many more admits than from Cal, but fewer matriculations (all the ones that are going to HYS Law School), so that in the end only about 2-3 times the number of students from Yale and Stanford go to Columbia and NYU versus UVA and Berkeley. The numbers from Columbia showing students from UVA having to score 1 LSAT point higher in general.</p>

<p>The numbers from NYU seem to show Yale students having to score 1 point higher relative to UVA, and Cal and Yale showing similar numbers.</p>

<p>Across the board, it seems like Cal students are pretty evenly matched with their counterparts at Yale and Stanford--they seem to get in with mostly the same stats. </p>

<p>The slightly higher academic index of cal admits to top law schools could easily be explained by the fact that cal's numbers are only for graduating seniors, and not all of Cal. </p>

<p>UVA's numbers match up better with Stanford and Yale's and can probably be said to be representative of similar results from Cal.</p>

<p>So if Cal students are getting in with similar grades, is this fair to them?</p>

<p>Stolen from another post I made:</p>

<p>"<a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm"&gt;http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>'Under the Boalt formula, each college is ranked according to how its students perform on the standardized law board exam, the LSAT, and how common a certain G.P.A. is at that school.'</p>

<p>Berkeley evidently suffers from grade inflation too with an average gpa of 3.25 (versus 3.7 (not so sure on this number)).</p>

<p><a href="http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Since the average gpa at berkely is 3.25 (much higher for humanities according to the article) and Stanford's only about a 3.7, this would be about 3.5 LSAT points worth of difference. Stanford's average LSAT is 165 versus Berkeley's 161 (Yale's is 165 as well). This is a 4 point LSAT difference. Berkeley's index in that list is 78.5 versus stanford's 80.5, which seems to make sense considering the facts. " Yale's index number is 82.5 (probably because it has harder grading than Stanford).</p>

<p>Even though Stanford has a higher average GPA, this GPA is from competing against a much higher quality student body than at Cal. The same is true for Harvard and Yale. The ivies just have a greater concentration of smart students so that even a grade inflated A at Harvard is worth more than an A at Cal where one would be competing against worst students. the index seems to mitigate these differences and makes a Cal GPA about an LSAT point worst than one at Stanford/Yale/Harvard, despite grade inflation. Still, relative to most schools, Cal is still doing very well.</p>

<p>So in short, despite "GPA deflation" at Cal, colleges for the most part understand this and adjust it in their index, which in the end hurts Cal students a little bit. The help that should come from grade deflation is offset (and then some) by the fact that the student body is so worst relative to Yale, Stanford, and other top schools.</p>

<p>Is this fair? I'm going to argue no. Since Cal is so big and certain departments are equal in size to entire undergraduate popuations, using an academic index that uses the average GPA at Berkeley is more likely to be rife with problems since you are compacting so many people into one aggregate statistic.</p>

<p>The grade inflation of other schools relative to Cal can still hurt cal students as I will show below.</p>

<p>For example, all the "--" studies majors are easy knockoff majors that will give you a 4.0 without a doubt. The article I posted above: <a href="http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ls.berkeley.edu/undergrad/colloquia/04-11.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Shows that there is a dramatic difference between the GPA's of the humanities and sciences. Lets say for example that the average gpa in a science is 2.5 and the average GPA in a humanities course is 3.7. That will average out to be 3.1 (berkeley's average gpa) if equal numbers of people are in both departments.</p>

<p>Stanford has an average overall gpa of 3.5. Lets say that the average humanities GPA is a 3.8 (not much room to go up, and I'm certain that even at stanford, not THAT many people get straight A's). That means the average science gpa will be 3.2 if there are equal numbers of science and humanities students.</p>

<p>So, even with an index that accounts for grade inflation, depending on the spread of grades at a school, this may especially screw over students in certain majors. I believe a fairer way of adjusting gpa's is to compare a person's major gpa to the average gpa in their major.</p>

<p>This inequality makes it easier for students in the humanities to "free-ride" off Berkeley's low average GPA by taking an "------" studies major. They get a ridiculously easy curve, but are helped by the fact that Berkeley''s average gpa is so crappy: it makes their grades actually look like it required much more than a slight amount of effort. They ride on the backs of the science/engineering majors who are the ones getting screwed over.</p>

[Polite_Antagonis]

<p>And Berkeley also fails a lot of students as well, wheras Stanford, Harvard, and Yale never would. Is this taken into account by the average GPA numbers used? Probably not. Berkeley's classes themselves can also be graded incredibly unevenly. If you screw up at Harvard or Yale you will most likely get a B minus; nothing crippling. If you get a jerk of a professor at Berkeley, who makes the final ridiculously hard--in order to make up for a midterm with a mean of 90%--you might very well be crippled with a C, D, or F. The average GPA at Berkeley likely also fails to account for students who fail out of the school.</p>

<p>In short, Berkeley students get the shaft because of their grade deflation. Even academic indexes that attempt to take into account berkeley's grade deflation fail to mitigate all the consequences of Berkeley's uneven grading system.</p>

<p>Also, many classes at Berkeley are harder than you would ever get at Harvard. This is anecdotal but from a friend who has friends and siblings at harvard for graduate studies, it seems harvard's science classes are really watered down compared to berkeley's; especially in upper division. He told me that the equivalent of mcb 102 (what most premed students take) doesn't even cover half the stuff Berkeley does. As someone who took mcb 102, I would have to say this is very believable; MCB 102 is worth about 2-3 poli sci classes worth of reading and studying. Once again, not only can you fail, you also have to work much harder for each grade at Berkeley (if you're not majoring in a creampuff major that is).</p>

<p>So let me reiterate my points in numbered format for those with too short of an attention span.</p>

<p>1) GPA deflation is offset by Berkeley's lower quality student body relative to the Ivies.
2) Cal's admittance to Law schools seems more or less fair as a result and are in-line stats-wise with applciants from other top undergraduate schools.
3) In absolute and especially relative terms, there seems to be fewer Cal student capable of getting into elite professional schools and institutions (They just don’t have the necessary numbers and/or ability) relative to elite undergraduate institutions.
4) Berkeley's grade deflation is not adequately accounted for by graduate and professional schools:
a) The wider the difference in gpa between departments, the less fair adjusting a person's gpa to the school's overall average gpa will be.
b) The current system of adjusting gpa in graduate/professional school admissions fails to account for the gpa’s of people who fail.
5) Berkeley students often have to take harder and more comprehensive courses than some of the grade-inflated Ivy schools.<br>
a) This means they will likely have less time to get the soft factors necessary for professional school admissions.</p>

<p>In short, Berkeley students do not seem necessarily hurt by attending Berkeley. Higher admissions rates to law school by undergraduates of Yale, Stanford, and probably other high-quality institutions seem to be more a function of the fact so many smart, motivated people attend those schools relative to Cal. A person at Berkeley may have to work harder—much, much harder--for their grades if they do what they love rather than getting the grade, but they can still pull it off if they had the capability in the first place.</p>

<p>This is a stream of consciousness post, grammar nazis forgive me for my errors.</p>

[sakky]

<p>
[quote]
Yale - unknown? - not really known for grade inflation though

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yale is grade inflated. Think of it this way. Both George Bush and John Kerry managed to graduate from Yale, and both of them have freely admitted that they were unmotivated college students. Bush has admitted that he was just a drunk fratboy during college. Kerry has admitted that he was more interested in learning how to fly planes than in his Yale classes. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student?mode=PF%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student?mode=PF&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
4) Berkeley's grade deflation is not adequately accounted for by graduate and professional schools:
a) The wider the difference in gpa between departments, the less fair adjusting a person's gpa to the school's overall average gpa will be.
b) The current system of adjusting gpa in graduate/professional school admissions fails to account for the gpa’s of people who fail.
5) Berkeley students often have to take harder and more comprehensive courses than some of the grade-inflated Ivy schools.
a) This means they will likely have less time to get the soft factors necessary for professional school admissions

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't think it's just Berkeley that does not have its grade deflation accounted for, but rather ALL grade deflated schools that don't have their deflation properly accounted for. For example, I would surmise that the MIT and Caltech students have far more to complain about when it comes to grade deflation than the Berkeley students do. I think nobody will dispute the academic ability of MIT and Caltech students, yet they don't do all that well in terms of getting into law school.</p>