Grade Deflation Debate on the Prince

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Comments</a> on "Editorial: On grade deflation" - The Daily Princetonian</p>

<p>A lot of strong feelings about Dean Nancy Malkiel!</p>

<p>What's interesting is that while some individual faculty members have complained about the policy, the faculty as a whole voted for it, and apparently in a more recent survey, the majority of the faculty reaffirmed that they would vote for it again.</p>

<p>So we hear a lot from the students, but not very much from the faculty. Of course much of the faculty live in a different world from that of job-seeking students; their priorities differ.</p>

<p>Anecdotally, some students seem to feel that alum and parent don't count in their opinions; they are not experiencing the policy directly. Employer opinions seem divided.</p>

<p>Don't know what prospective applicants make of the whole thing.</p>

<p>Still, what do people think?</p>

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<p>Wait so just a few questions.</p>

<p>Wouldn’t students be negatively impacted when they apply for grad schools, with such low GPA’s as compared to other universities? </p>

<p>Wouldn’t such an increase in grade deflation cause extreme competition amongst students, resulting in less collaboration and a focus on receiving high grades? (Such as UC Berkeley) </p>

<p>For Princeton students, how is the academic and social life there? Can you, especially those in engineering, find a balance? </p>

<p>Also, how is the Princeton engineering and business departments? Research opportunities? I would like to know, because I will be attending Princeton next year.</p>

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<p>Princeton Students are not doing well in top Law School admissions.</p>

<p>Look at this web site. Only 17 Princeton students are enrolled at Yale Law. </p>

<p>[Yale</a> University Bulletin | Yale Law School 2009?2010 | Law School Students](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/law-school-students.html]Yale”>http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/law-school-students.html)</p>

<p>82 from Yale College
63 froM Harvard College
36 from Stanford
26 from Columbia
20 from Brown
and
only 17 from Princeton</p>

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<p>Nice job with your admission, tomjonesistheman. Were you a recruited athelete?</p>

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<p>German_car, the numbers you provide show that fewer students from Princeton go to Yale Law than many other colleges. That could be the result of grade inflation, but may not be. For example, Princeton starts out smaller than Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, and Yale, though that alone is not a sufficient explanation, since Princeton is not that much smaller. It could also be that many of the good students in Princeton are not interested in law. For example, Princeton’s engineering is generally thought to be stronger, and is certainly bigger, than Harvard’s and Yale’s. Also, many of the other schools do not have the equivalent of the Financial Engineering major or the Woodrow Wilson School for undergraduates. So, the numbers could be driven by a mixture of overall size and student interest.</p>

<p>There was another article in the Daily Princetonian, appearing around the same time as the editorial against the grade deflation policy, about adverse outcomes for Princeton students in elite law school admissions.</p>

<p>[U&lt;/a&gt;. trails Yale in law school acceptance rates - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/12/04/24648/]U”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/12/04/24648/)</p>

<p>Many of the student comments do indeed try to relate that to grade deflation. Again, there may be a connection, but the numbers as they stand do not prove it. For example, the Princeton LSAT scores start out lower, so it could be just be that for this particular pool, the Princeton applicants happen not to be as competitive. Also, the figures include students who have graduated from Princeton years ago, in which case the grade deflation policy effect does not apply.</p>

<p>At the same time, an older article in the which Daily Princeton presented Dean Malkiel’s new figures showing that grade deflation has not hurt Princeton students was thoroughly discredited in the comments to the article; the statistics were misleading and the conclusion was evidently quite invalid. I am unable to find that article.</p>

<p>In sum, the numbers that have been allowed to be published by the Dean’s Office are pretty inconclusive about whether grade inflation has hurt graduate school admissions. There may, of course, be privacy reasons for not releasing the raw data.</p>

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<p>Not true, and let’s not keep pretending it is in front of 16 year olds who might buy it. I’ve posted a counterargument before, too, to which you’ve not responded:</p>

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<p>17 Princetonians at Yale? Pretty good since only like 40 wanted to go to that ****show.</p>

<p>82 Yalies at Yale? Well, probably 100% of the prelaw students (like 300 kids) probably applied. </p>

<p>Thanks German_car for showing us that Princeton rocks for pre-law.</p>

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<p>Princeton is less selective school and consequently only 40 are qualified to apply to YLS.</p>

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<p>Actually, the contrary seems to be true. Seems to me like the reason so many Yalies go to YLS is because law school is the only option smart Yalies have. Put it another way, there’s less market demand for top Yale students compared to that for the top Princeton students. Top firms simply either skip Yale while recruiting or recruit in far smaller numbers.</p>

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<p>I’ve always been under the impression that “smart” people are those who look beyond material success and wish to lead lives of consequence and purpose.</p>

<p>That so many Princetonians end up in business in reality reflects very poorly on the school and its graduates.</p>

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<p>If I do engineering at Princeton, how hard would it be to maintain a “good” GPA (3.5+) and what would be my chances at Stanford/MIT for grad?</p>

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<p>See, I completely understand this perception, but as a graduating senior who’s had to sit down and really evaluate his choices (as well as see that of friends), I’m not sure I buy it.</p>

<p>For one, I’m not sure that law school is any more “noble” a pursuit than business. Look, reality is that the vast majority of the college students who eschew business and go to HLS end up in corporate law anyway (and there’ve been years when McKinsey, a consulting firm, was actually the biggest recruiter at HLS). Anecdotally, it seems to me that many who pursue law as a career value the fact that it’s lucrative, secure, and a possible route to power. I just don’t buy your assessment that Princeton’s a bad school because it produces businessmen and not lawyers.</p>

<p>I’m actually not sure what I think of grad schools, either. Many of my friends are math and physics majors, for example, who’re deciding between grad school and a job at a financial services firm. If you went up to them and said “do you want to come up with the next big idea of our time or make a lot of money”, I can guarantee 90% would want to come up with the next big idea. But in the real world, unfortunately, the way to live the life of the mind is to go through the convoluted, highly political tenure process. By and large, the chances are that you’ll end up not getting tenure. If you do, it may be at an institution with very limited resources. And even at the best of universities, being a professor seems to consist as much of political battles with other professors or scrounging for funding as it does actually coming up with the next brilliant idea. Not sure that’s a “life of consequence or purpose”.</p>

<p>Most importantly, I think Americans falsely conflate career choices with a person’s goodness, when life’s more complicated than that. There are plenty of law school grads who seek power and business school grads who seek money, but also plenty of people who used their law school education to represent the underprivileged or their b-school education to spur entrepreneurship in low income communities. So my guess is that the fact that Princetonians go into business is probably more a reflection of the recruiting environment at the school than a reflection of moral inferiority.</p>

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<p>Depends also what engineering discipline you’re in, but short answer is that it’s hard but not impossible. I’d guess maybe 35-40% of engineers maintain 3.5+.</p>

<p>Grad school is a funny game. It depends much more so on your research, whom you know, and how hard your professors are willing to vouch for you. GPA’s a tiny part of that equation. I’ve only recently come to realize how much of an advantage going to Princeton (and thus working closely with well known professors) is for grad school.</p>

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<p>I love how some originally ignorant and small minded posts have led to such intelligent and insightful discussion.</p>

<p>german_car, if you’re trying to turn prospective students away from Princeton, I must say you’ve done a very poor job, because this has had quite the reverse effect upon me.</p>

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<p>Silly Puddy, thanks for the response! I’m actually looking into ChemE, and maybe a minor in economics. I’m glad GPA is not as important for grad school, considering Princeton’s intense grade deflation. </p>

<p>What could you say about the competitiveness of ChemE? Are people willing to share and collaborate on labs/hw even through the grade deflation policy? Thanks!</p>

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<p>I don’t understand your hostility.</p>

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<p>I was just exaggerating to p i ss (why is “p i ss” censored?) off german_car since he’s ■■■■■■■■.</p>

<p>Yale law is okay. :)</p>

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<p>I’m not all that familiar with the ChemE department’s coursework, but in terms of culture, I feel like my friends in the department seem to enjoy it. This is also anecdotal, but I get the impression that the ChemEs know each other and have a closer bond to one another than other departments of the same size (some of the ChemE parties are also hilarious).</p>

<p>This is just one man’s view - take it with a grain of salt.</p>

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<p>If you want to get engineering graduate degree from MIT, then you should get undergraduate degree from MIT, because graduate school strongly prefer their own undergrads.
Look at Law, Medical, Business, PhD programs at Harvard Yale, Stanford Columbia MIT and undergrad schools represented.</p>