Grade Inflation U?

College Search & Selection
21

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Sakky, I'm sure grad schools and employers look at students' grades in relation to the course medians and the school in general. At Dartmouth at least, the course median is even included on transcripts along with students' individual grades.

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<p>Wouldn't it be nice if all schools did the same? Unfortunately, I can tell you that, sadly, a Berkeley transcript provides no information about the median grade of a particular class. In other words, at Berkeley, getting an A- in a class where the median grade was an A is better than getting a B+ in a class where the median was a B, because nobody knows what the median grades are. What that means is that people at Berkeley become incented to cherry-pick the easiest possible classes. For example, I know people at Berkeley who were already fluent in a foreign language, but decided to take the intro language classes anyway, just to get a string of easy A's. They didn't learn a darn thing, because they already knew it all. But they didn't care. They just wanted to get the easy A's. </p>

<p>What makes the problem so frustrating is that a lot of organizations and a lot of awards are based on a strict application of GPA, without regard for the varying difficulty of your classes. For example, at Berkeley, graduating with honors/distinction requires that you meet a certain GPA threshold, without regard for how difficult your classes are. So people who major in difficult subjects tend to get screwed when it comes to honors/distinction honorifics, and people who majored in creampuff subjects have a comparatively easier time. You also have the sad phenomenom of students deliberately loading up on a bunch of super-easy classes in their final semesters just so they can break that honors GPA threshold. What I think should happen is that honors GPA cutoffs should be calculated by major, so that the Berkeley physics students are compared against other physics students, and the Berkeley students majoring in American Studies should be compared against other students majoring in American Studies. But that doesn't happen right now. Sad but true. </p>

<p>Other things like outside scholarships also tend to be heavily GPA dependent. For example, I know a guy who got an outside scholarship that would pay for his entire time at Berkeley, but only if he maintained a 3.0 GPA throughout his tenure there. He said that actually wanted to major in engineering, but didn't dare to do so, because he feared that his GPA might dip below a 3.0, causing him to lose his scholarship. His scholarship organization didn't care that some majors were graded harder than others. All it cared about was whether he maintained a 3.0, regardless of how he did it or how easy his classes were. So he ended up choosing an easy major to ensure that he could keep his scholarship. His family is not rich, so basically the only way he could reasonably afford Berkeley was through that scholarship, so he is clearly doing the risk-averse thing by choosing an easy major in order to preserve his scholarship. It's better to major in something that you don't really want, and graduate, than to major in something that you do want, but then lose your scholarship because of the lower grading schemes used by that major, and thus have to drop out because you can no longer afford it. Frankly, if I was put in his situation, I would probably do the exact same thing.</p>

<p>What I think Berkeley (and other schools) should do is renormalize their grading standards. The truth is, some classes are easier than others. Grading systems should dynamically reflect that fact. But that doesn't really happen right now.</p>

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<p>Grade inflation is one of the big myths of college. First of all, the amount of inflation/deflation at certain schools of the same selectivity is hugely exaggerated. Grade deflation, in fact, depends more on the courses than the school. If half of Brown's class were engineering majors, the average GPA would lower.</p>

<p>Secondly, I keep on hearing how schools like UChicago, Berkeley, and Cornell are grade deflated. What you find surprising is when applying to graduate school, a 3.5 from Harvard is more favored than a 3.5 from Berkeley (for example) with the exact test score, even though the latter is supposivly more grade deflated. The reason is that on average, a 3.5 from Harvard is a better student than a 3.5 from Berkeley. Therefore, if using GPA as a comparative number, Berkeley is more grade inflated than Harvard.</p>

<p>My point is that if you go to elite universities looking for grade inflation, you'll be dissapointed. In fact, if you compare GPAs vs. LSAT/MCAT/GRE scores, you'll find that among candidates of the same test score, the one from the more elite university will have the lower GPA. In other words, many of the Ivies etc. are actually grade deflated compared to lower-tiered schools.</p>

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<p>To answer the original question, all of those schools listed have about the same "grade inflation/deflation." The only exception is brown, but Brown has to be an exception because it takes a much different approach to its curriculum.</p>

24

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Grade inflation is one of the big myths of college. First of all, the amount of inflation/deflation at certain schools of the same selectivity is hugely exaggerated. Grade deflation, in fact, depends more on the courses than the school. If half of Brown's class were engineering majors, the average GPA would lower.</p>

<p>Secondly, I keep on hearing how schools like UChicago, Berkeley, and Cornell are grade deflated.

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<p>I think what people mean is that school grade inflation/deflation is inherently intertwined with "course" grade inflation/deflation. Leaving aside Chicago, when people say that Berkeley or Cornell is grade deflated, what they usually mean is that Berkeley/Cornell * technical courses * is grade deflated. I completely agree that Berkeley creampuff majors are not grade deflated, but rather are almost certainly grade inflated. It's just that Berkeley and Cornell have a lot of students in technical majors. Similarly, when people say that MIT and Caltech are grade deflated, what they really mean is that MIT and Caltech * technical courses * are grade deflated, but of course the overwhelming majority of the students are majoring in technical subjects. </p>

<p>But in many cases, the distinction is a distinction without a difference. Again, take the example of the guy I know who had an outside scholarship that required him to maintain a 3.0. It wouldn't have mattered if he had gone to Caltech and majored in physics. The rules were crystal clear - he had to maintain a 3.0 cum GPA in college. The scholarship committee didn't care that certain majors or certain schools might be easier than others. All that mattered is that he had a 3.0 if he wanted to maintain the scholarship. So that's why you end up seeing people shirking away from tough majors.</p>

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My point is that if you go to elite universities looking for grade inflation, you'll be dissapointed. In fact, if you compare GPAs vs. LSAT/MCAT/GRE scores, you'll find that among candidates of the same test score, the one from the more elite university will have the lower GPA. In other words, many of the Ivies etc. are actually grade deflated compared to lower-tiered schools.

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<p>Nevertheless I would still argue that there is such a thing as grade inflation, even controlling for the major. For example, BigGreenJen has stated that the median grade in upper-division bio and chem classes at Dartmouth is around an A-. I defy you to find upper-division bio/chem classes at MIT or Caltech that have median grades that high. Yet I don't think there is much dispute that the students at MIT/Caltech are at least as qualified as those at Dartmouth.</p>

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<p>So basically, what you're arguing that the same course at Dartmouth gives higher grade than the same course at MIT, especially technical courses? </p>

<p>While I can see why someone would assume so, is there actually hard evidence to back that theory? From what I've seen, grading depends significantly on the instructor and department. For example, Thermodynamics from Chemistry may differ significantly in grading as opposed to thermo in chemical engineering.</p>

<p>In reality, I think you might find a few specific example schools that might exhibit abornmal grade inflation/deflation. However, I still maintain that for the majority of schools of approximately same selectivity and curriculums, there is not very much of a difference in grade inflation/deflation.</p>

<p>The OP's list:</p>

<p>Brown
Dartmouth
Penn
Northwestern
Wash U
Carnegie Mellon
Cornell
UChicago </p>

<p>All of these schools are pretty well-rounded and I'd expect similar grade inflation/deflation, except for maybe Brown.</p>

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<p>If anyone is interested, you can check out the specific median grades at Dartmouth for the past two years:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Ereg/courses/medians/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~reg/courses/medians/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Maybe other schools have something like this too?</p>

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<p>Interesting list.</p>

<p>At a glance, it seems like Chem and Physics are slightly grade inflated. The rest looks pretty typical.</p>

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<p>Wow... quite an interesting debate.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the info so far, especially the dartmouth-list thing.</p>

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So basically, what you're arguing that the same course at Dartmouth gives higher grade than the same course at MIT, especially technical courses?

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<p>Yep, that is what I am asserting. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I can't "prove" this with data, at least not yet, specifically because MIT doesn't publish grade data parsed by courses, the way that Dartmouth has. But I think you have admitted yourself that the Dartmouth physics and chemistry courses seem inflated. I would add, the Dartmouth engineering classes seem inflated also. Most of the engineering classes have median grades of B+ or A-, with the lowest recorded one having a median of a B? I think a lot of MIT and Caltech engineering students would LOVE to be graded in such a manner. </p>

<p>But since the data for MIT doesn't exist publicly, I can propose a solution. We can start a similar thread in the MIT section and present the Dartmouth grading scheme to the people there, and ask them whether they think that Dartmouth is inflated relative to MIT. There are a lot of MIT students and alumni over in that section. Hence, you may be able to get a useful cross-section of opinions.</p>

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<p>MIT possibly is grade deflated. I'll be willing to give you that. However, I think that among the list given by the OP, there is no significant inflation or deflation among those.</p>

<p>So how much is MIT grade deflated?</p>

<p>According to MIT's data, the average GPA applying to law school at senior year was 3.25. For other Ivies, it's 3.5. HOWEVER half of MIT is engineering and a good chunk of the other half is natural sciences. Technical courses naturally have lower GPA, which is why Law school gives a small bonus (.15 - .2, as I've heard) to tech students. So accounting to that, it appears that MIT is only grade deflated by .1</p>