<p>This is something new for me, but does it really happen? I am starting a master's program and someone told me this is quite prevalent at the Phd level. Is the same true at the master's level?
One of my TA's told me once she had failed a major assignment, but then she told me the grade was either pass or fail.</p>
<p>I'm doing my BS and MSE at the same time. I definitely see grade inflation in the grad classes. The material is harder but the average grade for the class is higher. This can also be seen in the fact that you usually have to keep a 3.0 to stay in a grad program where is is usually more like a 2.0 to stay off of academic probation in undergrad.</p>
<p>In some departments at my university, especially EECS, it is common practice for upperclass undergrad students to take graduate level classes to boost their GPAs. I know people who kept themselves off academic probation this way.</p>
<p>Pfft. At my school you need like a minimum undergrad GPA of 3.5 PLUS department and professor approval to take a grad course. No way would they let anyone near academic probation into one.</p>
<p>Higher grades in grad courses are to be expected, since supposedly people in grad school had at least a 3.0 undergrad GPA to get in, so you would think most of them would maintain their B average.</p>
<p>Lots of schools (I think caltech comes to mind) lets PhD students take courses pass/fail. It makes a lot of sense, because:</p>
<ol>
<li>PhD students usually make straight-A's anyway, with a few A- and maybe one or two B+</li>
<li>Grades in the PhD program don't really matter. Professors don't want their students to be stressing over grades when they should be doing their research. Who cares if they don't really understand one sub-sub-area of their field, as long as they master what their dissertation is on?</li>
</ol>
<p>So I wouldn't really call it grade-inflation in the same way it's usually applied to undergrad and high-school grades and GPA's</p>
<p>Someone who recently graduated with a Masters in Electrical Engineering from UCLA told me that, in grad school, a C is like an undergrad F, a B is a C, and an A is what you better be getting. I've also noticed from resumes that most people's graduate GPAs are higher than their undergrad GPAs.</p>
<p>Most PhD programs are extremely selective, admitting only students who had stellar undergraduate GPAs in rigorous programs. One would thus expect these students, who are generally very intelligent and ambitious individuals, to get nearly all As in their graduate studies. In most cases, these grades aren't "inflated" - they're just good grades received by smart students.</p>
<p>However, this generally tends to the notion that C's and even sometimes low B's in graduate courses are terrible. And since most programs don't admit students who would get grades lower than a B, most professors aren't used to giving out Bs. Thus even if an undergraduate takes one of these courses, the professor might be hesitant to give any low grades because it could look bad in the outside world. This could potentially lead to undergraduates abusing the system; however, at my alma mater I did not see this to be the case. I would imagine it's out there, though.</p>
<p>But grades are usually determined depending on how you do relative to the rest of the class. The same thing you said for selectivity can be said for undergrad as well. At a good university, all the admitted students did extremely well in high school. But the average gpa isn't a 3.8 or 3.9. Grades are a measure of relative performance, so the averages would not go up or down if things were done exactly the same.</p>
<p>I think the grading is easier, because at this point you have no reason to care about grades. Your research is 100x more important than what your grades are. A lot of schools don't even calculate a gpa for grad students. Plus there is a check with departmental exams that ensure that you know the necessary information for your field.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Grades are a measure of relative performance, so the averages would not go up or down if things were done exactly the same.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I disagree. Grades are a measure of how well you know the material, and should not be a measure of relative performance. If everyone in the class masters the material, everyone should be granted an 'A'. This is rarely the case though, there will always be a spread of grades at the undergraduate level due to those skipping classes. </p>
<p>At the graduate level, in my experience, the professor is only making sure that you do well enough in the class to compliment your research. For example, if I take an advanced geophysics class as a metamorphic petrologist, I wouldn't be expected to understand the 4th order partial differential equations that the geophysists are expected to be able to compute. All I'd be required to understand is the concept behind the equations. </p>
<p>UNC has a great system for the graduate school. No graduate students are given formal grades or a GPA. All we are given are grades such as HP (high pass), P, LP (low pass), and F. Most professors give out P's as a default and only HPs or LPs if you either know the material at a highly advanced level beyond the scope of the course or if you really didn't master the basics of the course.</p>
<p>Unfortunately when I start at UW-Madison I'm going to have to get used to a formal grading system again and for the first time be graded w/o +/- grades. It will take some getting to I suppose, but grades really aren't my focus for my PhD program. Potential employers (in my case academia) don't care as much about the grades as they care about how many publications I produce during my PhD tenure.</p>