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More like effect, but exactly. Nothing seems to have changed, it’s all relative. GPA increased, so the average increased. The labels are just overly positive or humanistic, and everyone wants to be the best.</p>
<p>Descartesz: I completely agree. Admissions standards and competition for spots at top schools have never been higher than they are now, which is why a study that only takes into consideration grades without any context is hardly evidence of a uniform decrease in academic standards across our colleges and universities. </p>
<p>Roger_Dooley: What a glib, anti-intellectual, and unbelievably stupid thing to say about the liberal arts (not least because math and many of the sciences are, by definition, liberal arts). Frankly, your attitude is as silly and ignorant as that of humanities majors who complain about having to take science/math requirements. I’m really tired of these pis*ing contests between majors, especially because well-roundedness and consummate intellect are so foundational to learning and academia. Just read about some of the great scientific and mathematical minds of history. So many of them were polymaths and equally at home in philosophy, politics, and the arts as they were in their own specific fields (no pun intended).</p>
<p>To those advocating government intervention or similarly silly and arbitrary rules to combat grade inflation fail to realize two important points:</p>
<p>1) Graduate schools get common data sets from students so that their GPA is placed in context and understood for what it is.</p>
<p>2) To “normalize” distribution to a C average among a population at say Princeton (or any top school) would be at best illogical and at worst unfair, as the population is anything but normal with regard to academic competence.</p>
<p>In any case, back to the article. I won’t argue with an increasing culture of entitlement in this country and others, but to associate it with grade inflation while ignoring the reality that matriculating freshmen at top schools have never been more productive, smarter, or better prepared for college than they are now is misleading at best. Clearly, both are contributing to the trend and need to be better understood for any meaningful conclusion to be drawn from the data.</p>
<p>There isn’t a huge amount of evidence that we are that much better prepared. We just test better (and that’s possibly because the college admissions tests got easier. Also, some researchers have proposed recentering current scores on the ACT/SAT would yield lower scores at some schools than the past. Also access to test prep. is probably much higher). High schools apparently also have grade inflation. I’m not sure I could say that we are significantly more competent than back then. Again, the workloads at top schools may also be less demanding than they used to. I won’t ignore that we are better in some senses (“numerically” we “appear” to be), but that doesn’t explain all of it and often doesn’t even explain 1/2. People here w/high stats. (lets say our 75%) and high high school GPAs have struggled in particularly demanding courses. I’d have to wonder what the result would be if more enrolled in such courses (what if our gen. physics courses became the same rigor as some public engineering schools? I bet we would do just as poorly, and the average would be curved/recentered to a higher level). The average certainly would not be a B+ or greater simply because we did awesome in HS. It seems that many people act as if our performance at a top college should be exactly the same as in high school. This implies that the difficulty or environment is relatively similar. The question is, should it be? Should people w/great HS stats. be able to essentially coast through a top university w/Bs and As (and not much effort for the B grades at all). As awesome as I (and we) were in HS, it shouldn’t be as easy to get a B as they make it, never mind an A. This isn’t HS, ideally, we should be able to sharpen skills not simply apply what we learned in HS. Honestly, I went to an innercity"ish" public HS w/a great AP/honors program and my teachers in social sciences had stricter standards for writing than many did here, some of the stuff I get B+s for here would be at most a B- (it would probably be a C grade. Our teachers willingly gave C/D/Fs. Here it seems the grade brackets for such classes are governed by “politics” that are less of a concern in my HS). Also, their tests were much more intense than many of the courses. They were not simple: “recall what you read or heard me say”. They may require you to make some vague comparison of world leaders (leadership style for example, not only that, but specific aspects). Given that, standards could afford to be a bit higher across the board, not w/just a handful of classes and profs. When I put out crappy work, I should get a crappy grade like I did at my HS (I’ve actually heard that top publics and private HSs are less inclined to grade like this, and grade more like the colleges. My friend told me it was rare for a teacher to give below B+ on a writing assignment at the excellent private school he attended), and the crappy grade should not necessarily be a B. The only courses that met expectations standards wise are the science courses that “I” took and maybe a couple of humanities/social science courses. I even had to cherry-pick the science courses. Surprisingly, even many of those are watered down. Many profs. still give multiple choice only exams for example. This didn’t happen in HS. And then they employ heavy curves whereas our teachers just applied a normal grading scale even if no one had an A or a B for that matter. We would simply have to suck it up and try much harder on the next exam. Didn’t know what a curve was till I got to college.</p>
<p>Also, I don’t think grades should be “normalized” by forcing the average to a C. That’s unneccessary. Besides, most top privates employ +/- where the center of the scale falls at C+/B-. Schools w/strict A,B,C,D, F has a center that lies on a C, so curving to a C makes sense in such environments. I will admit that I think many courses at top schools should be difficult enough so that the average is between B- (maybe C+ in the sciences for tougher courses) and B+ and not too much high. Like seeing 3.5, 3.7, 4.0 as mean/median grades for a course is strange.<br>
I think the problem is that we aren’t necessarily earning these grades on a strict scale, say, one where 93= A, 90-92=A-, 87-89=B+, continue pattern. In some classes, performance falls much below these standards and then grades are scaled to arbitrary levels kind of how I mentioned. For example, at a top school, are students really so special that doing poorly in class as a whole. Say the average in some science class is a 56-60, this actually happens at places like us, Harvard, MIT, etc., do Harvard or Yale students deserve this area to be curved to a solid B, while MIT has it curved to maybe a C+, us a C+/B, and public schools, C/C+ simply because Harvard and Yale’s admit rate is below 10%? Do Brown students deserve significantly more generous grading and curves than peer schools (including Harvard, their average is a 3.6) that have similar incoming stats? Are Brown students significantly more equipped after high school than the Student at WashU, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Duke, MIT, Emory, Princeton, etc? Hell no! We have to just face it, most schools clearly have grade inflation or easy grading, and some have more of it than others.<br>
It would be easy to claim that certain schools will naturally have students w/higher grades than others IF comparable classes were assessed and then it specifically showed that students in the Brown counterpart are outperforming students in say, the Duke counterpart (as in averages are higher in comparable science classes or quality of writing in a particular class is higher), but often this isn’t the case. Often the difficulty of and performances w/in courses of similar difficulty are very similar across top schools but the curve is set differently according to the prof. and even the school (for example, Harvey Mansfield of Harvard says he actually assigns 2 grades and that the one going on the transcript reflects the Harvard UG average. The one he would give them if only going off of quality is generally lower) itself.</p>
<p>Seems that much higher grades results from seemingly “better” qualifications of students plus lower demands reinforcing each other</p>
<p>I totally agree with POST #6.</p>
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<p>From what I know of several friends who taught for decades/TAed at some elite universities…including a few Ivies, they’d all be ROTFLOLing at the above. If anything, all of the Profs among them tend to rant about how current undergrads on average are actually less well-prepared for college than those from just 10-20 years before and yet…feel more entitled to excellent grades regardless of the quality of work turned in.</p>
<p>Even as a student I roll on the floor laughing when I hear arguments like this. I TA and lead problem solving sessions for organic chemistry and I know that if it weren’t for some huge curve, about 1/2 of the class would make a C grade. Yes, I am still referring to that one w/the 50 averages. There is an even easier prof. that curves the same way w/the exact same averages. Average to a B-/B. With a generous but not overcompensating curve, an average this low would get a C/C+). Mind you these are actually good lecturers.<br>
Many of these students simply didn’t do any of the work, never studied, and didn’t show up to any of the problem sessions offered (and that’s among the 3 of us doing it for the class, each on different days at different times, thus it wasn’t because they didn’t have time). In the easier of the two, many students would even skip (as in no excuse)exams only to be told that “oh, let me know when you can make it up.” There was also an incident where one student was granted 45 minutes more than the rest of the class (not special needs, just the "student comes first policy of the prof. The co-instructor, my former orgo. prof granted the wish against his own will. This professor runs his own section in a very tough fashion is another really tough, beloved prof.) and then told the prof’s. secretary (he was out of time) to: “Tell Dr. Liotta that I didn’t get enough time to take the exam” (Ironically the co-instructor actually walked in the sec’s office as it was being said. Awkward huh)
Basically the prof. was too nice, made some openings, and students began walking all over him/them.<br>
Also, these students claimed that “this class is so much easier than X’s class that I don’t really need to do the p-sets”. They then proceed, the night before the exam, to all e-mail me asking for the answer keys I made for the p-sets (someone leaked that I was making them for those who attended) after never attending one session. Needless to say, they’d fail and then say about the professor: “He better curve me up”.
Doesn’t matter if the average student here has about a 1400+ SAT and a 3.8-3.9 UW GPA.<br>
Anyone completely agreeing w/post 6 is not being honest w/themselves, and are deluding themselves into believing that sense we all did such “awesome” work in HS, we must be doing it now and thus deserve only As and Bs and that none of us are hardly even capable of making a C due to our infinite level of competence stemming from from our HS background which was ever so rigorous, thorough, and comprehensive.
Seriously? Everyone realizes that not even many top secondary schools in the US stack up to those in some other countries. These countries don’t even give multiple choice college admissions tests. An SAT and a high HS GPA in the US means much less than what many think. I know many of us like to make ourselves believe we work extremely hard for the grades we got in HS and college, but a lot more people really need to be honest about it. What we consider as “working hard” is actually setting the bar quite low. Most students at top schools cruised through HS like a ship to the Bahamas on a clear day w/calm waters, which is part of the problem (it trickles upward to the university system that they should indeed be cruising). How else do you think they have a 4.3-4.7 GPA w time for 1 million ECs (even w/weighting APs at my school, students don’t get a 4.0 and cannot get above it)? Academics were so rigorous that they could easily manage a million other things.</p>
<p>Yeah, my experience at this elite institution tells me that we don’t deserve (nor earn them) good grades because of our HS record and admission stats. It has tricked us into believing we do, and the profs. and the school just play along b/c they really just want the money. Given this, I can go on and on with anecdotes that show that these elite, very selective institutions are just as capable of hosting the same type of academic disasters as less selective institutions. We just cover them up w/higher curves and easier grading. You either wouldn’t see it unless someone w/experience tells. With all of this said, we are on the average bright, but just not as much brighter than one would think, and by time college hits, we certainly don’t work as hard as many portray us. In fact, those who went to legit hard HSs view college as a time for a nice break that is not meant to be as intense and is thus more for social development (one may here things like: “I’ve worked hard all throughout high school, and I just want a college that has a more laid back environment, JHU [or"X” elite institution known for keeping relatively high standards] seems too intense for me. Basically people choosing top colleges according to how much grade inflation it has and how much they worked in HS). These students tend to choose easier classes (ones where HS background is more than sufficient to get them a solid grade w/minimal effort) and beef up on participation in various social events and organizations. Many students hardly use elite schools for the “academic challenge” they offer.</p>
<p>I often see a sense that if you work hard, you will get good grades. However, if one student barely works but is right, and another student works very hard but is wrong, we may admire the work ethic of the latter, but the former is the one who should get the good grade. It’s not rewarding “work,” it’s rewarding knowledge, whether that knowledge comes easy or hard.</p>
<p>I still can’t see why grade inflation really matters.</p>
<p>Colleges today are ranked against each other, and most people can say that a GPA at one school carries a different weight than the same GPA at another school. Maybe “most schools clearly have grade inflation or easy grading, and some have more of it than others,” but there’s nothing you could ever do about this, unless you are to give everyone the same professors, the same tests, the same classes, etc… and this is just impossible. If a 4.0 at Harvard is worth more than a 4.0 at Community College, so be it, because clearly one 4.0 has a different value than the other, and job recruiters and grad school admissions know this. The differences in value might be less obvious across schools with similar standings, such as Harvard and Yale, but that’s to be expected.</p>
<p>If someone takes an extremely rigorous schedule and gets a 3.2, while someone in an easy major taking as many electives as allowed gets a 4.0, any recruiter or admissions board should be able to see this difference in the transcript.</p>
<p>So I don’t see why people (Bernie et al) are complaining. People get what they deserve. Society still manages to function as always. Maybe people do have higher GPAs than 20 years ago, but is that somehow bad? GPAs in themselves are poor tools of comparison, but coupled with other information (what school you go to, what classes you took, standardized testing scores, etc…) they’re not that bad. GPA inflation is not inherently good or bad, as certain people seem to be arguing, just an interesting fact to take note of in making comparisons.</p>
<p>^ I agree. The same student I mentioned before went on to ask me “Well how much time should I spend on homework to get full credit?” I responded, “Until all the answers are right.”</p>
<p>Problem is: Many students think that “A for effort” should apply to all college classes and that being average (which can be downright low quality in some cases) should warrant a respectable grade.</p>
<p>There is nothing you can do about it, but we can’t deny it exists (that’s the thing that’s annoying, that people think we simply have high grades because we are awesome in ways that others can’t understand)</p>
<p>It matters a little less to me post-grad wise because I’m planning on applying to grad. school (which may value rigor and research), but issue is w/professional schools, they really don’t seem to care about the rigor of the schedule and have no way of telling which courses and profs. are challenging or not. Fortunately, there is a thing called the MCAT (ironically things like the LSAT don’t reflect the knowledge you acquire from courses, so there is really not much incentive to challenge yourself in this case. One should just maintain their GPA w/simple courses that perhaps enhance writing and then have LSAT prep/tutorial)!</p>
<p>On another scale, I have a right to complain because it dramatically sours the atmosphere of supposedly challenging courses as the others are constantly complaining merely about their grades. Grade inflation takes many forms: One can notice certain profs.(with less backbone) water their material and teaching down as the course progresses. This makes for huge disappointment if you were expecting intellectual stimulation or some type of challenge. It basically makes a “learning” environment biased towards those who merely seek a good grade (let’s say B+ or higher). I’m not merely annoyed because of post-grad specs., I can honestly care less (though it does have implications). It does the academic environment (though one could argue it improves the social environment, however, there should be balanced, and often the scale is tipped toward socialization) a lot of harm too as many profs. are not simply just making overcompensating curves for courses they want to keep tough content-wise, they are instead watering it down so that no one panics in the first place as I notice that people actually still remain in fear when a prof. mentions that a curve will be applied (as that indicates that it may actually demand that they keep up and a more challenging than normal environment). It would be nice if all profs. could stick to the “keep the content tough/stimulating, give grades generously” motto instead of “I’ll just stay out of their way and that’ll keep them all happy” (they then proceed to make it easy, and still curve). As a person that likes learning at a high level the standards of coursework do and should matter. It would be nice if I, or students like me, didn’t have to cherry-pick as hard. It was also be nice if pre-prof. students could perhaps take challenging courses w/o worrying about their grade as much.</p>
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<p>Interestingly enough, I was a mediocre high school student who attended a NYC area Specialized High school with grades that are the stuff of CC parent nightmares. </p>
<p>However, once I left high school, I found courses at my respectable LAC, a few Ivies, and even a couple of grad courses at an Ivy to be much more reasonably paced and manageable than the ones at my high school. I also noticed that some work which would have received a D or F with some of my high school teachers were routinely getting -B to B grades when classmates asked me to look over their papers for tutoring help. Even the math courses were easier in comparison if my college grades were any indication (As and B+s)…and I was a horrid math student in HS.</p>
<p>More importantly, one’s high school grades/SAT scores does not predestine one to undergraduate greatness or ruin at the most elite institutions. Knew plenty of formerly C/D students from my high school and even regular publics who “transferred up” and graduated with Honors mostly in STEM majors and plenty of former HS Vals, Sals, and top 5-10% students who crashed and burned or floundered to graduation with sub-2.7 undergrad GPAs in mostly non-STEM majors.</p>
<p>This is exactly what I notice Cobrat. Was basically the point I was trying to make and is essentially how my HS functioned. Once I came to this site, I started wondering: “What type of world was I living in?” And now my Emory friends and peers make it clear that it was one much different from theirs.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s completely an issue of flat out inflation moreso than sketch standards. And again, what is extremely scary, is that elite institutions still have higher standards than many/most others without them having to necessarily be particularly high (if the other schools had high standards, then being only marginally higher would be okay). Overall, the culture is, however, about the same as it is at the other institutions (perhaps more grade grubbers, but that’s a natural). I just don’t understand why students who don’t want to be challenged simply don’t some institution that is consistently less rigorous than the elite institution. Isn’t it kind of a waste of money to give yourself almost the same education (say at another 4 year institution that is pretty solid) as someone paying much less (given that it’s Undergrad, if they both do well, the grad-prospects will probably be very similar)? The only reason I’m at Emory is because it’s free. However, I still treat it as if I (my parents) were spending 50k+ a year, for which I better receive the challenge they advertise by some means, and thus come out a better student and person than when I entered. If I enter the job market or grad. school as an even more experienced HS student w/many creampuff courses under my belt, then I did something wrong, and money was wasted on me.</p>
<p>As already touched on briefly in this thread, I believe that grade inflation begins at an early level. By the time students are in middle school even, they all feel entitled to A’s and maybe just maybe the occasional A-. It’s sickening to see how many people would complain about grades in my honors pre-calculus class. Kids would not do the homework, not put in any effort whatsoever, and then complain about how hard the tests were. Am I missing something here? Since when were honors math classes supposed to just hand out A’s to every student because he feels entitled to a grade? The laziness I see, as well as the sense of entitlement, is sickening. Even worse than this is when parents get involved. It’s one thing if your child has a special need or due to circumstances beyond control… But the mom that complains and complains about her child’s grades just frustrates me. </p>
<p>Now when that kid is sent off to college, no wonder reality is harsh. Teachers that grade easily become “cool” and popular, whereas teachers that try to encourage deeper thinking are generally labeled as jerks because they do not hand out grades on a silver platter. End rant.</p>
<p>The thing is though, that colleges are still a business, and as such, it is up to their customers, the students, to determine how the system works. College has become very popular in recent years for the social aspect, and there is no doubt that colleges have been catering to this in order to increase profits. However, there are people like you and me who do still appreciate the academic environment, and any good college should cater to this as well. Changing the grading scale isn’t going to make the content more challenging. And complaining about how other people don’t deserve what they get doesn’t reflect on one’s character too well. Maybe it isn’t fair, but there is not much that can be done about it.</p>
<p>Again, beef up content, teach well (easier teachers tend not to teach as well here, I don’t get it. When they get out of the way, they get completely out of the way), curve (or in the cases of humanities/social sciences, just grade “for real” and work closely w/students. Better profs. in this arena have done this). Seems like a healthy solution to me. I also wasn’t particularly biased either. I’ve received a couple of grades I didn’t feel like I deserve (in fact, I know I didn’t deserve them) and I sometimes followed the crowd of doing less when I knew the grader was easy (normally how they grade the first paper sets the tone for me). One class where this happened disappointed me (as in I was disappointed in myself here) because this guy genuinely tried to engage us (which we did at times, but he had to format the sessions different to really encourage us) and make it interesting. Unfortunately, he just graded really easy (based upon the logic that it was an intro. special topics history course I guess, though I know for a fact intro. non-special topics are tougher) and, I being the idiot I am, followed the other students and disengaged knowing that I didn’t have to engage or stay aloof to do well (or at least receive a grade that makes it appear that way) after receiving the first paper grade. I would honestly like to do another class w/him before I graduate. His other classes have a more intense syllabus with a tougher assessment format (For example, for the final, there is the option of pulling several cards that have certain key concepts and explaining and answering questions about them. It’s basically turning the class into a thesis topic, and you defending it. This goes on for 15 minutes. You also have the option of a huge research paper on top of the one you are already doing) that ensures you stay on your toes. I just feel the need to redeem myself and give him the level of engagement he attempted to elicit because he’s really good and deserves (especially after the man did everything to make sure our research papers were successful, even by talking 1 on 1 w/us several times, providing great sources to look into, and making extremely detailed commentary and critique on our drafts, including challenging certain points and pointing us in a direction that will prove or refute it). Point is, even a person who values the academic aspect is just as capable of falling into the entitlement or “expectation” crowd b/c it is extremely pervasive.
Point is, seems like we must at least meet half-way for anything real to happen. That probably will not happen for a while for the exact reason you spelled out (and that I already know). Most are more so in the business of keeping us happy and essentially teaching just enough w/o infringing upon our happiness (thus money).</p>
<p>Some top private colleges certainly have grade inflation such as Yale, Stanford, Harvard, or Brown where average GPA are at or above 3.5. Others such as Princeton or MIT or Berkeley have average GPS at 3.2 range.</p>
<p>The whole grade inflation vs. grade deflation thing seems to detract from more pressing concerns, like whether students are actually learning (whether they get an A, B, C, or worse).</p>
<p>Delourous: Some evidence suggests we aren’t learning but so much. Surely inflation/arbitrary grades don’t really help as it disincentivizes actual learning in favor of doing the often little/minimal work associated with the almighty A. So one issue is the standards. Also, the level and types of assessment could use some tweaking. Perhaps several pedagogical approaches could be tested (use 2 methods, give the same tests, with both tests being at a high level). I’d imagine many things can be done to improve learning outcomes w/o having overbearing standards. Then there is also the issue of: What should we be learning or what skill sets should be acquired or enhanced at the post-secondary level. Until this is agreed upon (or does it have to be, can each institution serve different goals/purposes or is there a universal skill set that benefits all college students. For example, acquisition and sharpening of critical thinking skills can be debated as being an important goal. If it is, how do we sharpen it?), it’ll be hard to tackle learning outcomes.</p>
<p>Fair enough.</p>
<p>I took an honors class (intermediate microeconomics) where nobody could get below a B-, but it was also one of the most engaging classes I’ve ever taken, and I really only know one kid in the class who didn’t seem to care. But the teacher had a bit of a different style. At the beginning of class, he jumped into really hard material and warned us every one of the first three lectures that it would be one of the hardest classes we’ve ever taken and should probably switch into a non-honors version if we weren’t ready to handle it, and a few kids did drop it. The material was incredibly challenging and the exam scores were low, and not because people didn’t try (I think the highest score in the class on exam 1 was sub 70%). It actually wasn’t until after the first exam that he announced the grading system to the class. This is probably the worst case of inflation I’ve ever had in a class, but it also happened to be one of the most engaging courses. So I really do think it all depends on the teacher and interest of the class, and less so on general trends in grade inflation, but then again, this is only one very specific instance.</p>
<p>This is getting a bit off topic, so sorry to others.</p>
<p>We have many examples like that at Emory (no honors classes here, just some really hard ones) that do the same thing (again I think this is the way to do it). Organic chemistry w/the two “beloved” come to mind along with my biophysics (labelled physical biology) course. One professor in orgo. gives hard exams w/averages at 65-72 and curves at the end so that these folks get B- as explained. The top and bottom portion of the grades are a bit more arbitrary as he apparently assesses you at the “individual” level (he knows the name of all 180 students between his 2 sections of 90s each and can apparently measure their progress, the other prof. is the same but he teaches the much smaller freshmen section) if you are up there or below the average. The other professor keeps increasing the difficulty and changes the format of exams as the semester goes through (at least in orgo. 1, no handouts in orgo. II w/this one) will start semester w/exams that have the most basic questions and will begin migrating to only difficult application problems. He pumps his grades up by awarding bonus points on exams (as in any points earned in class go toward exam grades) for answering difficult questions correctly (allows students to go down to board and compete), gives bonus point quizzes, and plays them in sports (basketball, flag football, volleyball). This temporarily inflates grades and then he gives a final (where bonus points can’t be used) that suddenly shifts the average from B+/A-(yes at most points in orgo. 1, most will have B+/A- because of bonus points) to B- or lower (it’s really hard). He has a strict 5 point scale, so the course average varies from year to year depending on strength of student body (final is always very hard no matter what their grades are going into it. If the class is doing poorly, that may actually make for a comparably harder final, which is what he did to us. Our mid-terms were easier than the past 2 years, but our final was on par/absolutely crazy w/respect to our performance prior to it. Other years had a smaller gap between the last mid-term and the final. The other prof. does the opposite and makes a final easier than the midterms so that students can redeem themselves). This teacher “pre-inflates” for his impossible final (my poor friend had an A in the class, which is a 95, and then failed that and got a B-). However, I think he does this for a highschool college adjustment (he’s teaching freshmen) because he gives much less bonus points 2nd semester and every exam is pretty hard. The first orgo. II exam may be at the level of the orgo. 1’s 3rd exam (which is pretty hard), so pre-inflation will not save weaker student-bodies in this case. My class was weaker than most so the average was probably C/C+ by the end of orgo. 2 as plenty of people got D/Fs (talking about 20ish% b/c there were about 8-10 of 50 students) when the final was finished w/them. This is something rare at elite private schools and apparently deans complained (don’t see why, the students were really weak and whiney). The teacher has backbone so he hasn’t changed a bit and students who passed generally love him as a prof. (even though the class is significantly harder than sophomore counterparts). The man’s class teaches one that life is unfair and that bad performance and complaining results in punishment lol. </p>
<p>Your class was like my grad. level last semester where everyone loves it, but we all collectively fail the exams. Biophysics was also very similar to your predicament, except that he didn’t announce it was hard, he simply starting presenting the material and all of the pre-meds but 2 physics majors dropped w/in a week lol. We started w/20 and were left w/10. 4 grads and 6 undergrads. Either way, the lowest grade he gave was C+ I believe (my poor friend got it, but he didn’t turn in about 1/2 the assignments so he’s actually very lucky. If this teacher wasn’t new/non-tenured, he would have failed ).<br>
Anyway, your right, it doesn’t matter, as long as the integrity of the class is maintained. In such a case, grades matter less.</p>