<p>M-Webster's Collegiate even has an entry for our case:</p>
<p>grade inflation: the assigning of grades higher than previously assigned for given levels of achievement</p>
<p>yes, that's how the WORD deflation is defined straight out of the dictionary, but when its placed in the context of colleges the word takes on the meaning of the difficulty of obtaining a grade at a given university in relation to others. Show me one place where a college is branded a "grade deflator" or "grade inflator" because of trends isolated to within the institution itself and not relative to the national scene. That is why Harvard is known as a grade INFLATOR and JHU is known as a grade deflator. </p>
<p>Just google it and you'll find stuff like this: </p>
<p><a href="http://www.ericdigests.org/2005-1/grade.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ericdigests.org/2005-1/grade.htm</a></p>
<p>you posted before i could edit my post, i understood too late that that was what you meant and not a slant at harvard being "easy to get As at"</p>
<p>from elsijfdl: "if harvard gives out lots of As it's because the average SAT score there is near a 1500, and it is full of the hardest-working students in the country. many students there DESERVE As"</p>
<p>and so ONLY kids in harvard are the hardest working and brightest and that eliminates the students at all the other schools, especially other top schools? ummmm... NO... therefore, harvard has big grade inflation</p>
<p>Caltech has had an average GPA of ~3.2 (for graduating students only) for the last 30 years or so.</p>