<p>Is there a lot of grade deflation at Duke?</p>
<p>According to the third figure on the front page of <a href="http://gradeinflation.com/%5B/url%5D">http://gradeinflation.com/</a>, we're on the inflated end, but by no means the highest.</p>
<p>even for science majors? or just non-science majors?</p>
<p>From my experience, grades are much more inflated in the humanities. Almost everyone can get A's and B's in many of those classes. That is not true for some of the harder science courses and many of the earlier math courses (such as 32 or 103). Economics grades also aren't very inflated; there were no curves in my intro class, and tests were somewhat challenging.</p>
<p>The website I cited - and take it for what it's worth, it's not an official commission or anything - simply claims to have taken averages over our students - i.e. not separating it by department.</p>
<p>Within Duke, obviously our non-quantitative courses (English, Sociology) are much harder than our quantitative ones (Chemistry, Math). Whether our quantitative classes are inflated relative to, say, Princeton's... I have no idea. Overall, we seem to be, and I would have assumed that that's roughly even in our departments (since Princeton's English Dept. is almost certainly more inflated than Princeton's Chemistry Dept., too.)</p>
<p>"obviously our non-quantitative courses (English, Sociology) are much harder than our quantitative ones (Chemistry, Math)"</p>
<p>Really? The non-quant are harder!?!?</p>
<p>My fault, my fault. I typed it backwards. Sorry.</p>
<p>The sciences are graded fairly tough here at Duke - there is definitely not an easy A, or even a B for that matter in some courses. For example, CHEM151/152 (Orgo) is curved to a C+/B-, as is BIO118 (Genetics/Cell Bio). Math 103 (Intermediate Calc) is curved to roughly a B-, and from what I've heard, Math41 (Accelerated Single-Variable Calc) is just as hard. I know from friends that BIO25/26 is hard, but the grading is more reasonable (i.e. curved higher). Physics 53/54 (Mechanics and E&M) from what I've heard is really, really rough - curve is even worse than that for Orgo.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all "tough" relative to other Duke courses. When you're making an inter-school comparison, it gets much trickier. I'd say on average that there are probably many schools that grade harder than we do.</p>
<p>It's also worth mentioning that some of these curves seem to be relaxing in recent years. One professor who gives out half A's and B's is reputed to be by far the toughest one - so the others must have more generous curves than he does.</p>
<p>averages in classes are so high that professors take off unreasonable numbers of points for small calculation errors (I lost half credit for a question for carrying through a wrong negative sign). The also ensure that these errors are almost unavoidable for making the tests so long that they cant be finished. Because just about everyone understands the material, the difference between an A and C becomes more a test of who can work fastest while making the fewest mistakes. Unless one studies all the time, it is nearly impossible to get an A for the average student. the bme department also has a large number of premeds, making it all the more difficult. Remember the avg student at duke has usually finished near the top of his/her hs class, etc.</p>
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<p>I agree with this (correction made).</p>
<p>There are sites out there that average out the grades recieved in different classes, Duke included. Looking at GradeABase, you can see that many courses seem to be inflated.</p>
<p>Some examples:</p>
<p>Econ 51: (Avg Grade: 86.3)
[ECON</a> 51 at Duke University - Course Difficulty Ratings](<a href=“http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_econ_51.htm]ECON”>http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_econ_51.htm)</p>
<p>Econ 55: (Avg Grade: 90.1)
[ECON</a> 551 at Duke University - Course Difficulty Ratings](<a href=“http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_econ_551.htm]ECON”>http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_econ_551.htm)</p>
<p>EGR 53: (Avg Grade: 90)
[EGR</a> 53 at Duke University - Course Difficulty Ratings](<a href=“http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_egr_53.htm]EGR”>http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_egr_53.htm)</p>
<p>Stat 101: (Avg Grade 90.3)
[STAT</a> 101 at Duke University - Course Difficulty Ratings](<a href=“http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_stat_101.htm]STAT”>http://www.gradeabase.com/Duke%20University_stat_101.htm)</p>
<p>although with this site you have to look at each course independantly, by looking over many courses its easy to see grade inflation exists.</p>
<p>^^^^ I wouldn’t put much stock in that data. Any data that claims to represent a class of 300 students (EGR53) with grades from 6 is very suspect and almost guaranteed to be statistically flawed. Not to mention that people who actually report grades online to these sites tend to constitute an extremely self-selecting population. They are usually near the extremes of the grading spectrum which can skew the results (especially in a small pool of results) wildly.</p>
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<p>No…</p>
<p>The survey is self-selective and has a very small sample n. umber, and thus, completely misrepresents the actual statistics. Most intro courses are curved somewhere between a C+ to a B+ range. You really do have to put into a lot of work and/or be really talented to make an A (like…93 or above) in some of the classes (i.e Orgo, some Bio courses ect…). Or…just take the hard courses during the summer and transfer them in.</p>
<p>Oh btw, how do they curve exactly? I been trying to figure this out lately, but it gets somewhat confusing. For example, say the class average (uncurved) was a 750/1000 points with a standard deviation of 50 points, and the class is curved to a C+/B- range (so a 80). So if you make a 750/1000, you will make a 80, but what if you make 1 standard deviation above a 80, what does that translate into? Don’t you have to know what 1 standard deviation above average translates into in the normalized scale in order to figure out what your grade is?</p>
<p>It depends on what you mean by “grade inflation.”</p>
<p>Traditionally, it meant a rise in the average grades given over time (years). In that sense, yes there has been grade inflation. Take a list at the cut-off GPA’s for academic honors (which give awards to fixed percentiles): [Academic</a> Honors - Office of the University Registrar, Duke University](<a href=“http://registrar.duke.edu/registrar/studentpages/student/academichonors.html]Academic”>http://registrar.duke.edu/registrar/studentpages/student/academichonors.html) Over the past decade, there’s been a steady rise.</p>
<p>On the other hand, grade deflation/inflation is often used today to refer to average grades. In this sense, it becomes much more difficult to abstract meaning from the trend, simply because there is so much disparity in the average grades between different departments (and even then, within different courses and professors). Science/engineering and economics tend to have class averages of B-, which most people consider to be pretty low. In certain humanities, such as sociology (and psychology to a much lesser extent), it can be much easier to get an A. Other humanities, like PubPol, can be just as difficult as the sciences.</p>
<p>In general, departments at Duke seem to do quite a bit of “weeding out.” Thus, popular courses, such as introductory economics, pre-med (chem/orgo/bio/calculus), and pubpol classes curve the grades much less leniently. Intro to psychology is a major exception: it’s huge lecture class, but most people get A’s. Smaller classes are generally (but not always) more lenient in their grading.</p>
<p>knat seems to have nailed it. As for as I can tell you have to put in a ton of effort for intro classes, where the average will be low, but in upper classes you still have to put in the same amount of work, but the averages are higher, because more qualified students are taking those classes. Overall I would say its pretty fair, compared to the light humanities, Duke has grade deflation in engineering and the sciences.</p>
<p>If the class is curved to a B-/C+, one standard deviation above the average would be the B+/A- cutoff. On the contrary, one standard deviation below the average would be the D+/C- cutoff. Note however this generally gets skewed a little because many people drop out in these courses to avoid getting a D, so most professors make those people who dropped the course “take up the slots” of the D grades, and everyone else can’t receive them. Or you could be in a really nasty class like Bio 25 where as people drop out, they aren’t kept in the curve, so everyone’s grades just keep sliding down.</p>
<p>Also, there are many professors who say they curve to a certain letter grade but try to make grade cutoffs the points where natural separations in the scores occur. So if there were a decent number of people having the same score they would get the same grade. Unfortunately, what’s really shady a lot of the times is you don’t get your final exam score back or the class average on it, and all you see is a seemingly random grade pop up on ACES.</p>
<p>econ 105 (after weeded out from math 102/103 and econ 55 and 51). You don’t take this class unless you’re going to be an econ major for sure basically
“38% received some sort of A, 46% some sort of B, 11% some sort of C, and 5% we’re in the D/F range.” </p>
<p>econ 55 (lots of non majors, lots of minors basically have to take this to open up electives)
After these adjustments, the DISTRIBUTION of FINAL COURSE GRADES was as follows:</p>
<p>A+ 5
A 13
A- 37
B+ 49
B 40
B- 11
C+ 14
C 11
C- 5
D+ 2
D 4
D- 3</p>
<p>More than half (53.6%) of the class received a B+ or higher as their grade in the course and 87.1% received a C+ or higher.</p>
<p>I don’t have anything from my econ 51…
I would say C+ avg probly, MAYBE B- but i doubt it (not from a teacher, my guess)</p>
<p>“Unfortunately, what’s really shady a lot of the times is you don’t get your final exam score back or the class average on it, and all you see is a seemingly random grade pop up on ACES.”</p>
<p>This is the worst, and does happen</p>
<p>^UGH WORST THING IN THE WORLDD. makes the rest of my day go either really well or makes we want to jump off a gorge at cornell or something</p>