<p>I went to Harvard for grad school and got an A in the undergrad class that I cross-registered for. I’d guess that most people in the class did.</p>
<p>It’s Harvard. People there are certainly capable of mastering whatever material is given to them. They got in there because they are smart and hard-working, and those characteristics continue. They earn the As.</p>
<p>To respond to this:</p>
<p>“You need to look at the data and decide for yourself.
Harvard
1889 2.46
1967 3.00
2005 3.45
You are not suggesting today Harvard students are a lot smarter than their predecessors, are you?”</p>
<p>I would certainly state that Harvard students today are a lot smarter than their predecessors.</p>
<p>The Ivies became academically selective only around WWII; before then, they were more like the stereotype: a reserve for wealthy Protestants. (My grandfather went to Harvard for part of his medical school training, and he was bright but would never claim to be a superstar.) Since 1967, the college applicant pool has expanded tremendously, but Harvard’s student body hasn’t expanded proportionately, and admissions rates have declined, so the result is a more talented student body. </p>
<p>I went there in the mid-1990s. I now look at average test scores for incoming classes, and they are certainly higher than when I was there. If the average test score, as a proxy for intelligence, has drifted up in the past 15-20 years, I’d certainly expect that it would have risen significantly over the past 35, 100 or more years.</p>
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<p>Maybe you can distinguish the work of a “typical” student if typical means average. I’ll grant that the average humanities undergrad at Harvard doesn’t write as well or know as much as the average econd year humanities grad student at Harvard. </p>
<p>However, at lots of top colleges, there are classes which are open to both undergrad majors and grad students in that department. In those classes, you won’t find a clear delineation between the grades of undergrad majors and grad students. The BEST student in a seminar in Jane Austen’s novels or the Crimean War may well be an undergrad.</p>
<p>This is about grade inflation, not Harvard.</p>
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<p>However, those concerned about grade inflation would argue adding the +A would only encourage more grade inflation as making the +A available would contribute to the further rise in average GPAs unless it’s use is strictly limited by university or departmental policies(E.g. No more than a low single digit percentage within 5 years).* </p>
<p>It also continues the problem many employers and some Profs have with the curve being so compressed at the high B+ to A range that they perceive it’s harder to figure out who is truly exceptional from the above-average in terms of work ethic or academic acumen. </p>
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<li>This is one common issue those concerned about grade-inflation keep bringing up in their essays in publications like the Chronicle and Inside Higher-Ed.<br></li>
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<p>And most old-school HS teachers/Profs I’ve had, even some not in the humanities/social sciences would regard that as a good thing. </p>
<p>From their perspective, part of a given student’s demonstrated academic performance in a humanities/social science course is precisely in how well they write in organizing their ideas/arguments, marshaling supporting arguments/evidence in support, and putting it all together coherently so the reader can follow the writer’s research/expository essay from introduction to conclusion. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, what they found is if the student’s grade isn’t on the line at some level because “writing isn’t the “point” of the course”, most students won’t bother to put in the work necessary to improve their written communication skills beyond what they learned in high school. </p>
<p>This is precisely the reason why one instructor friend will harshly cut points for grammatical mistakes for courses in his social science field. He felt failing to do so will ultimately be a disservice to his students once they enter the workplace/academia where such mistakes will not only be embarrassing, but also cripple one’s career and professional reputation. </p>
<p>Incidentally, one former supervisor recounted how his entering undergrad engineering class in the early '70s had greater writing and more humanities/social science requirements than previous classes because so many employers of previous graduates called the engineering school dean to complain their written communication skills were poor that the dean and university felt immediate drastic curricular reforms were needed. </p>
<p>After working in engineering/computer technology for nearly 4 decades, he realized the great value those “reform requirements” had throughout his career.</p>
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<p>No, it doesn’t. It expands the scale by including an additional grade. I think it’s easier to convince people to add a higher grade than to add a lower grade. I think if you add a higher grade and make it “special” a la “highest honors” at Yale, you actually convey the info that a student’s work was exceptional. I don’t think you convey that by saying, as Princeton has tried to, that we aim to limit “pure As” to 35% of the grades in a department. Top 35% is not exceptional to me. I’m more impressed by an A+ from Stanford than an A from Princeton because I know the A+ does indicate exceptional work. </p>
<p>I also am not trying to say writing isn’t important. I was simply responding to the argument previously made that :</p>
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<p>I don’t think grades prove that you learned a darn thing. MANY pre-meds for example, purposely “undershoot” in math and science courses. They don’t utilize the possible AP credit to accelerate because they would prefer to take the intro course and excel in it, thus boosting their GPA for med school applications.I even know kids who took Spanish in college, even though they spoke it fluently, because they wanted an easy course to inflate their GPA.</p>
<p>I also don’t think high grades prove “work ethic.” School comes a lot easier to some folks than others. A long time ago, when we toured UChicago, we had a tour guide who got a full tuition scholarship to UChicago. I asked how much he studied. He tried to evade my question, but I finally got him to answer. He studied about an hour a day and he had a 4.0. Kid was obviously brilliant–which is why Chicago gave him a scholarship. His 4.0 said nothing about his work ethic. </p>
<p>I’m the last person in the world who would argue against the importance of writing, but being able to write well doesn’t prove either that you have a good work ethic and/or that you learned a lot in a particular course.</p>
<p>You’re now arguing that grades measure something else–“academic acumen.” I agree, that’s often what they measure. But that’s something different than having actually learned something and/or having worked hard.</p>
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<p>Princeton does have an A+ grade. One exceptional (literally) student received 14 of them. [Princeton</a> University - Valedictorian capitalizes on time at Princeton](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S18/00/36A09/?section=featured]Princeton”>http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S18/00/36A09/?section=featured) </p>
<p>Today’s A+ is yesterday’s A. Some day there will be a call for an A++ grade. Yale is doing the right thing by discussing a move away from the A-F scale and returning to numerical grades. </p>
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<p>You are missing the point. When a faculty member defends giving out so many A grades because “the students are all excellent,” that is usually a comment on the faculty member’s standards. Yes, there will be years in which you have 10 students who are comparable to the best in previous years. In that case, given them all As. (The Princeton scheme does not prevent that.) In fact, one problem with curves that are used religiously is that in some years the curves may well be too generous. </p>
<p>I should also add that when a class is open to both undergraduates and graduates, there is a selection bias in terms of which undergraduates take the class (see the link above).</p>
<p>Bad news: I got killed by that MCB final
Good news: Professor’s curving it
Bad news: Dumbest kid in the class got into Harvard</p>
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It’s not just that they are smarter (although I think they are), but that they are a different kind of student than their predecessors–most of them are super-achievers with a strong work ethic, lots of personal achievements, and (especially at Harvard) a strong element of competitiveness. I think this explains part of the grade inflation–in my opinion there is less variation than there was in the past in the capabilities of the students. The Yale study cited above refers to grade “compression” as opposed to inflation–and I think it’s likely that there has been compression in the academic ability of students.</p>
<p>When you admit only the best and the birghtest, you should expect to see this kind of result. Doling out grades on a bell curve, or otherwise altering the results, is unfair - whether it be a class of overachievers where an A student receives a punitive lower grade because he is compared to his similarly talented peers, or class at a lesser ranked school, where their highest ranked student is awarded an A, even though he only had a 69% in the class.</p>
<p>Two recent articles in the Crimson taking opposite positions.</p>
<p>For grade inflation: [The</a> A?s Have It | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/4/grade-inflation-harvard/]The”>The A’s Have It | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Against grade inflation: <a href=“A+”>url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/10/23/grade-inflation-harvard/</a>bove but (B-)elow Average | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson</p>
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<p>Completely agree! We talk so much about holistic admissions and then forget the fact that the admissions were holistic when we talk about the academic atmosphere of the school. There is a range of ability and there is uneven ability at every school, including Harvard. I can’t comment whether that justifies an A-F grading scale or something narrower but I do think it’s silly to pretend that everyone studying at Harvard is an A student.</p>
<p>Jonri, I asked the academic dean at my D’s high school about introducing an A+ grade to deal with the issue of grade inflation. He chuckled wryly and said he believed that he’d end up with all the grades being clustered at the A+ level. I’ll grant you, this is high school. I suppose it’s possible to place a mandatory limit on the number of A+s awarded at the college level but my guess is that if there’s any discretion allowed, there would be immediate pressure from students to get that new, highest grade.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure how you ever separate the ability to write from the “point” of the course. Having knowledge is of no use if it’s locked up in your head and you cannot convey it effectively. It’s not necessary to be an eloquent writer but it’s essential to be able to write in an organized and coherent way. I’m also not sure why the ability to write well is less valuable than the ability to, say, do math well. If someone comes into college with better math preparation and prior access to higher level classes in high school, do we argue that his greater achievement in college is due to an unfair advantage?</p>
<p>coase,</p>
<p>I didn’t know that Princeton gave A+ grades. Thank you for the information. I think though that your link proves my point. The fact that this young man got 14 A + grades signals that he is an extraordinary student. To me it does so much better than limiting the number of As given by a department to 35%. I don’t think anything you’ve written refutes that fact.(It is also fairer,IMO, to make someone like this the val than to simply figure out the highest GPA in the class and make that person the val.)</p>
<p>If A+ grades have been around a while at Princeton, has there been any movement to add an A++ grade? I know the grade has existed for a long time at Stanford, and I’ve never heard anything about moving towards an A++ grade there. Nor, to best of my knowledge, have they become common there. </p>
<p>Now, I would argue that even if they become common over time they serve a purpose. I recently took a number of grad school courses. I worked very hard at first–not having been in school for decades–and got As. Then I figured out that almost everybody got As. I admit that after that I slacked off a bit–but didn’t as much in the courses with a prof who was a tougher grader than most. I’m human. </p>
<p>If there had been an A+ grade, yeah, I probably would have worked harder. So, if the argument of the anti-grade inflation cohort is that students don’t really strive for excellence when everybody is rewarded with an A, then maybe we should have A+ grades. And if more of them are given out over time, it may not mean that there’s inflation. It may be that more students are working harder to get better grades. And maybe after 50 or 100 years, there’s a need to add an A++ grade. So what? In the interim, wouldn’t having an A+ grade achieve the aims of those who argue for grade deflation? </p>
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<p>You need to get with the times :)! That idea was abandoned already. </p>
<p>Sure there’s self-selection–and sometime prof selection–in which UGs enroll in courses open to both UGs and grad students. At my kid’s alma mater, though, it was just about every upper level seminar in my kid’s areas of interest. And, I’ll let you in on a “secret.” There’s real pressure to inflate grades in those courses. Giving a grad student a B+ is worse than giving an undergrad a C. So, if there are any weak grad students enrolled in the course–and even at H not all first and second year grad students are stars --many are eliminated with a master’s—that makes the lowest possible grade for UGs enrolled in the same class a B+ and in most cases an A-. </p>
<p>If you think UG grade inflation is bad–believe me, it’s NOT in the same league with the level of grade inflation in graduate programs. </p>
<p>33, I’m not arguing at all that writing skills shouldn’t count in the grade you get in humanities courses. (Heck, it’s the only reason my own kid worked on writing in college.)I was just refuting the claim that comparing a H student with a 3.4 GPA with one with a 3.6 GPA allows you to draw draw the logical conclusion that the one with a 3.6 has a better work ethic, has learned more, or has greater knowledge.</p>
<p>And, really, if employers and professional schools are going to base so much on a GPA, is it really so bad to give more students at HYPSMC grades which will allow them to look good in the applicant pool when compared to students at schools where the median SAT is 500 points lower (on the 1600 scale)?</p>
<p>Personally, I think we WAY overemphasize grades. I think the net result of this is that too many current college students duck tough courses and/or tough graders, take lower level courses than they qualify for and engage in other shenanigans to get the highest possible GPAs. The emphasis on grading distorts our whole system of higher education.</p>
<p>I think jonri’s argument, quoted by 3girls3cats above, is fundamentally mistaken, because it misprises what is being graded in any course – not just humanities – and it also misses the mark on what “understanding” and “writing” mean, both in the academic world and the real world.</p>
<p>No one grades students on how hard they work, and whether they have “true understanding”. What gets evaluated is specific work product (which may, but I think usually doesn’t, include some “classroom participation”), which is supposed to demonstrate understanding of the thing being studied, but isn’t exactly the same thing as understanding. So, for example, I may have an innate understanding of math which allows me to solve complex calculation problems in my head and produce a unique, correct answer all the time. I will do fine on any SAT-like multiple choice test designed to see whether I got the correct answer. But I will do terribly on any test that requires me to show my work, because I can’t show my work, I can’t explain how I got from the problem to the answer. </p>
<p>In most fields, we don’t value that sort of savant-type “understanding” highly. That’s especially true in the humanities where there is rarely an accepted unique, correct answer to any question that’s actually interesting to ask. If you can’t explain why you conclude what you have concluded, in a way that others may find coherent and convincing, then you aren’t producing the kind of work that gets valued. That’s true in real life as well as for college assignments and tests.</p>
<p>In my experience, being a graceful, fluent writer is a plus, but it doesn’t substitute at all for the kind of understanding I am talking about above. If you can explain in a coherent, convincing way why you reach the conclusions you have reached, you will get good grades, in college and in real life, even if you couldn’t write an elegant sentence (much less a paragraph) to save your life. And conversely, “beautiful” writing does not solve any problems in analysis or understanding at all. If anything, it tends to expose flaws in logic and understanding. No doubt, a skillful writer who also has a good understanding of what he is doing can use writing tricks to camouflage weak points in an argument, but to get to that stage you have to understand things well enough to know what the weak parts of your argument are.</p>
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<p>JHS–That’s my point!!! I was simply trying to refute arguments in Vladen’s and cobrat’s posts:</p>
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<p>Grading has nada to do with any of that --well except the “whatever.” 
I suspect you agree. </p>
<p>As I wrote upthread:</p>
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<p>Back when I was in college, a friend of mine took a tough intro course. She dilligently did all of the reading and went to every class. Another one of the girls in our group skipped every class the second half of the course and did none of the reading. The night before the final she asked the girl who had gone to class to borrow her notes, which she photocopied and studied for a few hours.</p>
<p>The girl who had gone to every class and done all of the reading got a B+ on the final. The one who read her notes the night before got an A- . (This was back in the day when the overall average for all students was about a B-.) </p>
<p>It’s laughable to think that the one who got an A- had a better work ethic.</p>
<p>You go on to say :</p>
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<p>Now, there I don’t quite agree…I think a good writer can use writing tricks to camouflage the fact that they are whole areas of the topic (s)he knows nothing about. This is even more the case in class discussions, which count for a lot at most LACs and many universities. </p>
<p>In any event, though, I don’t think we disagree that much.</p>
<p>Most students in Harvard got into Harvard because they worked hard on academics… With the same work ethic, they might most frequently get “A”. If that’s what they earned, I don’t see any problem with that. It actually wouldn’t make sense to give “C” just for sake of “grade distribution”, if most students work very hard and achieve a lot in the courses.</p>
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<p>The second girl was either smart, but lazy or lucky, but dense. Those are possibilities accounted for by my past employers. </p>
<p>As for that specific scenario, I don’t know, but most folks…including myself who experienced the same scenario of the slacker student missing most/all classes and coming to ask for notes wouldn’t bother giving such a student our notes and feel such a student should take his/her chances with the academic winds. Especially if said request was made at the very last minute like the night before the final.* </p>
<p>While this is very unlike the spirit of my undergrad LAC’s culture, it would be my standard reaction….unless said classmate’s willing to pony up an absurdly large amount of cash for those notes**…with the amount being made so absurdly large it’ll serve as a definitive no. </p>
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<li>I’ll admit to having a soft spot for some of the serious stoners at my LAC. However, considering how stoned they were most of the time and their demonstrated academic level in past classes when they bothered to turn in any work, they’d be ecstatic to make a C+/-B…and their fellow stoner friends would be shocked at such a “high grade” even if they had an exceedingly hippie-ish attitude towards grades.<br></li>
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<p>** E.g. A multiple of 4 years worth of full-sticker undergrad tuition at our private LAC.</p>
<p>Of course the students at the most elite schools are smart and capable of doing “A” work. But when everyone has nearly identical grades, the distinction between them becomes meaningless. If I’m a hiring manager, does that 0.2 GPA difference between two students signify that the higher one is a higher achiever? Or is the small difference due to luck of the draw in courses and profs?</p>
<p>And even though kids at Harvard are mostly very smart, it’s not correct that they are more or less academic equals. The really smart ones know who the “dumb” ones are. (Of course, those “dumb” ones would likely be in the top decile at their state university.)</p>
<p>I attended a selective engineering school (many years ago) and there was no thinking that “you are smarter than the kids at lesser schools, so we’ll give you all a GPA boost.” Instead, we got a bleak warning that a third of us wouldn’t be able to cut it and would not be around to graduate. (There were no retention-based rankings then, and a battery of weed-out courses early on ensured that weaker students didn’t take up space for too long.)</p>
<p>One perverse effect of everyone having similar grades is that it may discourage better students from taking any course where an A isn’t almost automatic. A couple of bad grades could have a disproportionate effect on one’s GPA compared to classmates, even less smart ones, who avoid those courses. </p>
<p>But, as long as there are outcomes that look only at the numeric GPA (jobs, professional schools, etc.) there will be a strong incentive for everyone to inflate grades.</p>
<p>The fairest way to deal with this , which incidentally was the way grading was handled in college 30 years go, is to institute a curve and preferably a modified bell curve. Thus, only 10-15% of the people get A’s and 20-25% of the student get "B’s.</p>
<p>What grad schools and professional schools did 30 years ago was to add a few tenths to the final gpa in order to accommodate for the toughness of admission among various schools. Essentially, it resulted in a weighted GPA.</p>