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As far as I'm aware, graduate schools are aware of schools that don't inflate grades as much and take that into account.
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<p>I'm afraid that many grad schools - notably med and law schools - don't really do this. </p>
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Why on earth would an employer or grad school knowingly hire/accept a 3.9 grade inflated graduate over a 3.6 grade deflated graduate? I thought it was in our interest to discourage grade inflation.
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<p>As far as grad schools are concerned, one reason is quite obvious - the grad schools themselves are worried about their rankings, which are partly predicated on the GPA's of the students they bring in. Those rankings tend to calculate "student selectivity" via those GPA's, but don't care whether those GPA's are inflated or not, which means that those grad school adcoms dare not admit too many students with relatively low GPA's - even if those adcoms know that those GPA's are deflated - because doing so would lower the calculated "selectivity", and hence the ranking, of the program. </p>
<p>Now, as far as employers are concerned, I think it boils down to the fact that it's easy to use GPA as a cutoff. It's a flawed, but simple metric and that very simplicity is its greatest feature. The truth is, most employers don't want to spend a lot of time culling through the piles of prospective employee candidates. Hence, they're going to use simple thresholds and simple screens to vet the numbers down to something manageable.</p>
<p>It's the same mentality that explains why companies require college degrees for jobs that, frankly, don't really require higher education to do. For example, I remember working for a company that needed an entry-level receptionist/file clerk - basically, somebody to answer the phones and maintain paperwork. We posted it on various online job boards, and within a week, got over a thousand candidate responses. The first cutoff we used was with those who had work experience as receptionists, but even doing that, we still had several hundred candidates. So the manager decided to implement a second cutoff which was the bachelor's degree. That brought down the pile to a manageable size. Note, the job hardly needed somebody who had a bachelor's degree. It's not that complicated of a job. I probably could have done the job when I was still a high school student. But that doesn't matter, for when you have lots of candidates, you can afford to be choosy. If you didn't have a bachelor's degree, you wouldn't even get an interview because many of your competitors did have bachelor's degrees. {Think of it like an arm's race.} We ended up hiring a woman who had not only extensive experience, but who also had a master's degree. Remember, this was for an entry-level position. </p>
<p>You also have to keep in mind that GPA cutoffs are useful for managers for "cover your ass" purposes. Never underestimate the importance of covering your rear-end politically. If a manager hires somebody who turns out to be absolutely terrible, then his boss is going to ask him why that person was hired. If the manager can claim that the person's high GPA seemed to indicate that the person was going to be a good employee, then he can mitigate some of the political damage. While every company claims that they want to hire the "best" people, what they usually end up doing is hiring the most "politically safe" people. A high GPA translates into safety. </p>
<p>You have asked why don't employers or grad schools factor in grade deflation into their calculations. I would actually turn this question right on its head and ask: why do schools that engage in grade deflation persist in doing so? After all, frankly, all they're doing is just hurting their own students. They're hurting their own students when it comes to getting good jobs, and they're hurting their own students when it comes to getting into good grad programs. Furthermore, because schools are ultimately measured by the success of their alumni, that means that those schools are ultimately hurting themselves. So, why do they keep doing it? Ultimately, I think schools should be doing their very best to help their students, not hurt them. </p>
<p>{Note, that doesn't mean that schools can't also be rigorous. But you can be rigorous yet still help your students look better to employers. Here's a simple example. Let's say a guy decides to try out electrical engineering as a major but does poorly in the weeder intro EE class and so wisely decides to switch to some other major. In that case, why not just expunge his bad grade in that class? After all, the guy is not going to major in EE anyway, so who cares what his EE grade was? What does it matter? Yet many schools will insist on permanently tagging that student's record with that bad grade. Why?} </p>
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My cousin and his gf graduated from Yale 3 yrs ago, and what they say is that Yale is still as rigorous and difficult as it can get. what they told me is that it is very easy to get ok gpas, like 3.2-3.3ish, but it is still very competitive to get gpas like 3.8-3.9. It is a large misconception that students from HYPS all can get 3.8+ easy, and these students shouldn't deserve it. The grade inflation, as some have explained, makes it easier for mediocre students to get by w/ ok gpas, but it doesn't allow mediocre students to get away w/ top gpas at these top institutions.
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<p>I agree, but that just reverses the problem. I agree that it's not 'easy' to get top grades at grade-inflated schools. But that's not where the major problem is. After all, there really isn't THAT big of a difference in outcomes between somebody who gets a 3.8 vs. somebody who gets a 3.1. After all, both people still end up graduating. The REAL difference is between somebody who gets a 3.1 and somebody who doesn't even graduate at all because he flunked out. Grade-deflated schools flunk out plenty of students who would have done just fine and who would have successfully graduated if they had just gone to an easier school. Like I described in my story above, many employers won't even grant you an interview if you don't have a degree. They won't know why you don't have a degree and they won't care why. All they will see is that you don't have a degree. Sad but true. One of the greatest features of grade-inflated schools is that, as long as you put in some minimal effort, you're going to graduate. Probably not with top grades. But you will graduate. You can't really say that at grade-deflated schools. At those schools, you run the significant risk of not even graduating at all.</p>