<p>
[quote]
“The nightmare scenario, if you will, is that you apply with a 3.5 from Princeton and someone just as smart as you applies with a 3.8 from Yale,” said Daniel E. Rauch, a senior from Millburn, N.J.
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New York Times article
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The percentage of Princeton grades in the A range dipped below 40 percent last year, down from nearly 50 percent when the policy was adopted in 2004.
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At</a> Princeton University, Grumbling About Grade Deflation - NYTimes.com</p>
<p>Wah-wah-wah! The percentage of As dropped below 40% for the first time! (The policy is that no more than 35% As will be awarded, and that has been in place for over 5 years.) Someone from Yale may have a 3.8! (The whole policy has lowered Princeton GPAs 7/100ths of a point since 2003.) The article is tremendously sloppy in not bothering to check whether there is any meaningful difference between Princeton GPAs and those of its competitors, whether that difference has anything to do with the policy, and whether employers etc. correct for it. The latter point would take work, but the former ones just require looking at data that lots of people have.</p>
<p>My d. teaches and grades exams at Princeton. She says that students who receive B’s at Princeton would often receive C’s or D’s at her undergraduate college.</p>
<p>^ = a typical mini comment.</p>
<p>I don’t have any confidence that your daughter necessarily knows every standard and every student from every program at Princeton, compared to her or any other undergraduate college. Her limited experience cannot be projected further than her limited worlds, plural.</p>
<p>As to JHS’ comment, again, in some classes (Princeton, Yale, Penn, Chicago, or a state U) – this is not limited to P’ton – maybe 2 people have earned an A; in others, as many as half the class, depending on the quality of that particular class. Quotas, positive or negative, are stupid and meaningless. The standard for an A should not be a curve: it should be a standard set in place by the internal and external expectations (and experience) of the professor/instructor, in the context of the larger standards of the institution. </p>
<p>This is the same dynamic that applies, for example, in highly demanding private high schools: in one year, the Val has earned an UW 3.8 and one admission to a top 20 but none to an Ivy; in the next year, there are 2 (Co-)Vals, each of whom have earned an UW 3.99, + 4-5 Ivy offers. There has been zero grade inflation between consecutive years. Zero.</p>
<p>Fair enough. Among the 288 students she was responsible for grading in the course she taught (notice I said “taught”, as preceptors are responsible in her department for introducing wholly new material that the professor doesn’t cover in lectures), many students who ended by with B’s would have ended up with C’s or D’s in the same course at her undergraduate college.</p>
<p>^I’d be surprised if Smith gives out C’s and D’s so readily. The caliber of students at Smith is high … that just does not make sense to me at all.</p>