Grade Deflation at BU

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston University
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<p>This is nonsense. The kids at Harvard SCORE HIGHER. They SCORED HIGHER on the SAT. They SCORE HIGHER on the LSAT. They SCORE HIGHER on the MCAT. </p>

<p>In fact, if you back into a gpa from LSAT’s, then Harvard is grade deflated because they score so high. I would bet the same is true if you back into grades from the MCAT.</p>

<p>So there is a problem, that the system relies on standardized test scores and that favors a specific group of people, but it isn’t the grades.</p>

<p>If you score well at BU and get sufficient grades - which are not great but sufficient - then you will get into medical school. If you get high grades and can score really well, you can get into a top ranked school in either law or medicine. </p>

<p>There should be an absolute ban on comparisons between BU or x school and Harvard.</p>

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<p>I’m not talking about standardized tests, I’m talking about each school’s individual grading policy and how that will affect students when the barriers come down and they are all applying to graduate schools. Of course Harvard students will average higher MCATs, LSATs, and SATs - they are smarter students (or just better test-takers hohum)! My discussion is on the grades the schools will give their students. I don’t think my comparison is nonsensical. Flawed, maybe, because I discuss graduate schools without taking into account standardized tests, but not altogether defunct.</p>

<p>Yeah, yeah the world is not perfect and so on and so forth. Can I reasonably expect all schools to use the same grading policy or have an identical average GPA? Never. Do I believe this would make a fairer and altogether more adequate system? Yep, but I’ll live. However, as long as there are problems where one school is higher ranked and less demanding for good grades, where there is an unequal playing field, I reserve the right to **** and moan. (This is all the time)</p>

<p>Edit: For the record, I use Harvard as an example because I know someone personally who goes there. Each time we meet up he tells me how painfully easy his classes are. The information might be tough, the exams might be difficult, but the grades are almost always easy to get A’s in. Could this guy be full of hot air or maybe a genius? Maybe, but he isn’t the only one thats been saying this. “The hardest to get into, the easiest to graduate” isn’t that what they say?</p>

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<p>Your comparison is not only nonsensical, it is delusional. </p>

<p>Your premise that Harvard is less demanding than BU for good grades is flat out wrong.</p>

<p>The same work in the same class will not earn a lower grade at BU than at Harvard. If anything it will earn a higher grade at BU. You do not want your BU grading based on the standard at Harvard. </p>

<p>You can count on you fingers those who graduated from Harvard with a 4.0 - ever. Your “friend”, if he exists, is lying.</p>

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<p>Fair enough. </p>

<p>I haven’t been to either school, or college at all, so I can’t back up what I’m saying. All I’ve done is gathered what I’ve heard and pulled together a hypothetical situation. You tell me Harvard has a higher standard of grading than BU, other sources say otherwise. Who am I to believe?</p>

<p>Regardless the point was to explore grade deflation at BU, not to compare individual schools, even if my hypothetical situation did just that. I was trying to put the situation into perspective by explaining how deflation would give students an unfair disadvantage, and so far no one has denied that. But hell, even from looking at the posts in this thread, its hard to determine if the grade deflation even exists. Some people (students in the school) say they’ve felt it themselves, others say shake their heads. I guess I’ll find out myself next year, but thanks all for taking the time to post. </p>

<p>This thread is over unless someone with new insight wants to chime in.</p>

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<p>If I happen to get a B at BU that is due to a curve in a class that the administration/a professor says is necessary to have, it doesn’t adequately reflect my aptitude in a specific subject in absolute terms but rather it reflects my aptitude in relative terms. I won’t delve into an in-depth analysis regarding the inadequacies of grades in measuring anything of any worth, but rather will simply question as to why one’s aptitude in relative terms is a measurement of anything. If students portray an exemplary aptitude in a subject then a grade ought to reflect that. The usage of a curve to determine the grade distribution in a class (and thus to measure aptitude in relative terms) leads to the following argument:</p>

<p>1) Grades ought to reflect aptitude in a subject relative to an arbitrary set of students whose nature and absolute aptitude changes based on the set in examination (the end part is worded oddly, but basically the set of students being used in determining the curve is not constant when measured in terms of aptitude)</p>

<p>2) If grades are only indicative of relative attainment, then they do not necessarily correlate to, well, anything due to the fact that the grade doesn’t necessarily relate to anything outside of the aptitude of those in the set and the average aptitude of those in the set is indeterminate when only being given the grade attained.</p>

<p>3) If the average aptitude of those in the set is not determined by seeing one’s grade alone and the grade that one receives is (at least partially) determined by the set that one happens to be in (which is, of course, completely arbitrary), then one’s grade is not necessarily related to one’s aptitude and can only serve to inadequately construe one’s aptitude in a subject-matter (assuming that the average aptitude of those in the set, when determined, is higher than qualitative benchmark necessary for one to be given an ‘average’ grade - an assumption that holds true for a college with an exceptionally academically gifted student body (such as that of BU)).</p>

<p>I simply fail to see how measuring aptitude in relative terms is somehow superior to measuring aptitude in absolute terms. The concept of ‘grade inflation’ itself either must be necessitated by an increase in the absolute aptitude of those being graded or a decrease in the qualitative standards necessary to receive certain grades and, if the former is the case, then I fail to see why that students must be punished for that and, if the latter is the case, then all that is necessary is to increase the standards necessary for exemplary levels of attainment (getting A’s and B’s).</p>

<p>As well, equating test scores with grades is something that ought not be done. While some of the variables that they are determined by and meant to represent overlap, there are certain crucial variables that are found in one that are not found in the other (and vice versa) that make a side-by-side comparison of them difficult. I mean, I received an SAT score that was higher than the average SAT score of the Harvard student body but I have relatively lower grades (at least I’m not as bad as my friend haha; he has a 3.5 and a 2350, I have a 3.75 and a 2220) and, to various admissions committees, this reflects my lacking of certain qualities that are found in students with a higher performance level over four years.</p>

<p>Hopefully this all makes sense as I’m tired as heck right now.</p>

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<p>It does make sense. Harvard and the like are committed to placing their students in high places after college. Giving the majority of them Cs and Bs conflicts this ideal, and therefore isn’t practiced.</p>

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<p>An interesting article in Harvard magazine on grading at the school</p>

<p>[The</a> Truth About Harvard - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/03/the-truth-about-harvard/3726/]The”>The Truth About Harvard - The Atlantic)</p>

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<p>Sorry Atlantic Magazine</p>

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<p>Like honestly, how does it make sense. When it comes down to things, most of the students who go to Harvard, Yale and Princeton are hard working students. Throughout high school most of them manage to work hard enough to garner spectacular grades, SAT scores WHILE still juggling extracurricular activities while even holding jobs. What makes you think that these students did not bring the skills garnered from all their hard work to Harvard, Yale, Princeton or whatever ivy league that they are attending.</p>

<p>Heck we can even ask Lergnom an alumnus from Yale. Yes you can say it was a few years ago he went to school, however it was still at the same standard. The students who went into those schools had worked hard to get in and stay in. I bet you if you asked Lergnom if he had to work for his grades or if they were handed to him, he would tell you for a fact, that he had to work for them.</p>

<p>And then there is the fact that many of you say you have friends that go to Harvard and tell you how easy it is? Honestly that friend is just a figment of your imagination. (Heck you should only make that assumption IF YOU WENT to that school) My high schools valedictorian of the year before had gone to Harvard, I’ve just recently talked to her in the past year, and she’s told me herself not to believe the stupid myth that grades are handed to you on a silver platter at Harvard. As she believed that, and the lax in her course work reflected upon her first semester GPA.</p>

<p>Then there are my friends that I have made during my stay in Boston. I don’t know if you are Pre-Med or not, but my friends and I are, and we all take a common course that most Pre-Med students take General Chemistry. However I decided not to take the basic course but instead took an intensive chemistry course. Thinking I would tease my friends at Harvard for being in a Chem course even more basic than mine. However, when i found out that their chem was at the same level as my intensive course, and they were struggling at certain points as well as I. If their grades were just handed to them as everyone thinks, I don’t get why they had to struggle, and work long nights if their grades were inflated?</p>

<p>Heck I don’t get how people can assume that they receive the grades they do because they are inflated. I would first assume that they are hard workers and that’s how they get the grade. Heck I found out a friend of mine who also took an Intensive Chemistry course as well, however his varied from the fact that what I learned in ONE year he learned HALF of it. He also was able to receive an A-, however this was due to his hard work and dedication to the course.</p>

<p>Now you all may be wondering what the hell I am trying to get at?? Well here it is, even if there is supposed grade deflation, when students do poorly they blame it on that first? Why not blame it on the fact that they didn’t put enough work in the class. Cause heck when I heard about a student in my chem class start blaming his grade on the grade deflation, I asked him what were his grades throughout the course. He told me he was averaging around 60’s, which is where the class average hanged around. The professor clearly told us if you score around average you will get a C+/B-, you have to have a high jump away from the average to do well. (around 80’s for a B+/A-) I don’t get how you can blame a curve on receiving your grade. Honestly the students should be complaining on why they didn’t work hard enough to attain the grade they wished to receive instead of blaming the professors on a curve.</p>

<p>I don’t get why most students come into college thinking, that if they get 60’s on tests they will do fine, the curve will save them. Heck from the classes I’ve taken so far, I can conclude, that the professors will rarely curve only scale the grades (and we’d be lucky to even have that). That most of the A’s are earned by the students who actually received an A grade…</p>

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<p>Yes, they are smart. But that is a marginal issue. The majority of students at any prestigious college are there for the benefits of the prestige, not the implied academic challenge. Harvard realizes that the best way for them to put people in high ranking positions after college is to give them good transcripts.</p>

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<p>^
What a load of ####.</p>

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<p>[?C-Minus</a>? Prof To Give More A?s | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2006/2/13/c-minus-prof-to-give-more-as/]?C-Minus”>‘C-Minus’ Prof To Give More A’s | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

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<p>[The</a> Dangerous Myth of Grade Inflation](<a href=“http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm]The”>http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/gi.htm)</p>

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<p>Last time: grades at Harvard and Yale don’t matter to a BU student. The difference is test scores, not grades. The LSAT, for example, now scores on a 180 scale. The kids from Harvard and Yale scored high on the SAT and they will score high on the LSAT. That is why they get into top law schools. The kids at Harvard who didn’t score well on the SAT will tend highly to be minority and thus if they get into a top law school it’s because of that factor. None of that matters to a BU student. Or a Rutgers student. Or a Missouri student. Or a BC student. At any of these schools, if you do well enough and score well enough, you’ll get into whatever grad school programs you apply to. If you do very well and score very high, you’ll get into top programs. That’s the way it works.</p>

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<p>hate to jump in on a thread like this (especially when I haven’t posted in months)…but to the people complaining about how it’s hard to get good grades and grades shouldn’t be done in relative terms…unfortunately that isn’t how life works. humans are hard wired to rank order. Companies hire the BEST candidate they can, schools accept the BEST student they can, we marry the BEST person we can…etc etc. Grades absolutely should be relative. Your own aptitude means nothing if it can’t be compared to anything else. If you’re one of the best students in the class, you get the best grades. If you’re next on the list, you get the next best score. You were rank ordered in high school too…it probably just didn’t matter as much because you were at the top of your class and gettin accepted to decent universities. the secret of college is everyone was at the top of their respective classes…now they’ve got to be rank-ordered based on the caliber of everyone else. It sucks when you work hard and don’t get what you expected…but it’s the way life goes. Might as well get used to it now.</p>

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<p>Well said, BUBailey. though this topic is not specific to engineering, I only want to comment on grades and hiring policies relative to what I know. I graduated from an engineering school and have worked for a major company for 20 years. We hire the top in the class because we want the best, and we let the lesser known companies pick up the B and C students. Yes, the students all know their material to some degree, and they all attended the same classes, but it is well known that students that fight it out for 3.5 GPA and higher will also fight out to hit tough schedule dates on engineering projects that they are assigned, also. The higher GPA students were better than their peers on average throughout college, and they’ll more likely out-perform those types of employees at our competitors, too. Yes, life is tough, and it starts in college. There is no easy path to an A last I looked.</p>

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<p>the person mentioned earlier who averaged 60’s on exams and expected more is obviously a terrible example.</p>

<p>we could talk about the fact that I averaged an 84 over my 3 general chemistry exams at BU compared to a class average of 59 and am still going to get a B+ in the class. No, not the end of the world, but I put my heart and soul into it and feel a little deflated if you catch my drift.</p>

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<p>Not to revive this… but I still would like some insight. Can anyone say anything about hiyhello’s situation?</p>

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<p>I’m in law school now. We’re all putting our heart and soul into studying, learning, participating, etc etc. Only 3 people in a class of 100 get an A. And even that’s not guaranteed. If I get a B plus, even if I put my heart and soul into it…it means someone else is smarter than me. It’s not deflation: it’s life. Sometimes working hard doesn’t mean you deserve an A. Unfortunate, maybe, but that’s how it goes in every aspect of life that I can think of.</p>

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<p>I LOVE BU! Applied there ED… Lol I know not a bit relevant to the top but I just love BU lol</p>