Harvard Professor Concerned about Grade Inflation

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>It is unlikely that, within the past 50 years, Harvard has ever had hundreds of legacy students with mediocre high school grades. (Maybe it has had dozens of recruited athletes with mediocre high school grades, but that’s about it.) It is certainly true, however, that historically Toronto has had a policy of having a very low admissions barrier coupled to a high failure rate, especially in entry-level courses. The theory being that everyone should have a fair chance to prove himself in college, but that the students who fail to prove themselves should not be given a degree. </p>

<p>It is also the case that Toronto has excellent faculty and, as probably the leading university in Canada, plenty of students who could compete head-to-head with the students at Harvard (and plenty who couldn’t, too).</p>

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<p>I also think the 20% receiving failing grade is inaccurate. What she meant, probably, is that the 20% of students receive failing marks had to drop the course or transfer out of the major they want. </p>

<p>Toronto may have a low admission barrier, but the quality of students is very high. Around the time the letter was written, the average entering grade was 86%, 90% of students entered the school with 1st class honours, and 92% graduated within 5 years.</p>

<p>Is it because Canadian high schools are easy? Not according to PISA. At the 95th and 90th percentile range, we rank at the top 15 in math, top 10 in reading, and top 15 in science, significantly better than the US. I am sure the difference is even greater at the 50th and the 25th percentile range, but that is irrelevant to the topic at hand.</p>

<p>So we are back to square one. How do we know the true quality of a student? Based on my experience, I would look at the major first, and check the reputation of the college for confirmation.</p>

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<p>Canuckguy: I have a close relative who has taught at Toronto for 40 years, and held administrative posts, too. She told me – a number of years ago, to be sure, but not as many as 10 – that 20-30% of each entering class generally dropped out for academic reasons, mainly in or after the first year, and that it was Toronto’s policy (as compared to McGill, or to U.S. universities) to admit students with relatively marginal credentials and to let them succeed or fail. I think that was probably no longer quite true at the time, but I believe she was describing something historically true about the university, and that may very well have reflected the experience of someone who was already an alumnus of some vintage in 2002. My source was not being critical of that – she thought it was a reasonable approach for a public university with heavily subsidized tuition, and superior to the high selectivity of American elite universities.</p>

<p>She has been a visiting professor, by the way, at a number of high-prestige colleges in the U.S., and her own undergraduate degree is from an Ivy. She firmly believes that upper-level undergraduates at Toronto are academic equals of any undergraduates she has taught here (and more diverse socioeconomically).</p>

<p>Edited to add: Some of Canuckguy’s numbers are dead wrong. As of 2007, the 6-year graduation rate for the past decade hovered around 74%, although the first year retention rate was 92-95%. <a href=“http://www.utoronto.ca/__shared/assets/22_UG_retention_CSRDE4138.pdf[/url]”>http://www.utoronto.ca/__shared/assets/22_UG_retention_CSRDE4138.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>JHS, I don’t have time to check through the validity of the data, but my information comes from MacLean’s Magazine of November 17, 2003. It is an annual university edition, akin to the US News. On page 58, they have Toronto tied for 6th in average entering grade at 86.1%. </p>

<p>On page 59, they showed grade distribution for all Canadian universities. For Toronto, they have 1.2 % of students with high school grades between 70 to 74.9%, 8.9% between 75 to 79.9%. The rest all have grades of 80% and higher.</p>

<p>On page 60, they showed Toronto in 3rd place for the “percentage of full-time undergraduates who completed their degree within one year of the expected graduation date” at 91.9%.</p>

<p>Any idea for the discrepancy?</p>

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<p>Luckily not all schools adhere to this policy. Fordham takes the opposite route and actually believes in grade deflation. It isn’t great if your child wants to apply to graduate school or med school without a straight 4.0, but I do think it makes them better in the long run. Plus a lot of high schools don’t agree with grade inflation either.</p>

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<p>This is why no one in the real world cares about your high school or college grades. I see a LOT of resumes, and most now do not include college GPA. Everyone knows that private colleges inflate grades to prevent dropouts and loss of tuition money. Public schools are going that direction, given the high cost of getting Freshmen in and oriented. </p>

<p>I would prefer a system where you are expected to have a level of mastery in each course taken. The level set is publicly available. If you have that set, you pass. If not, you don’t. Treat college like you will be treated in the real world. Similar systems are set up in early education to help identify kids with learning disabilities. Why do we stop there?</p>

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<p>“It is unlikely that, within the past 50 years, Harvard has ever had hundreds of legacy students with mediocre high school grades.”</p>

<p>Don’ know about Harvard, but some years ago the Wall Street Journal ran a series of articles about ‘prestigious’ schools, Brown and Duke were listed, who targeted children of celebrities and visible public figures. Admission standards were lowered significantly for that set, as their parents would give to the schools lavishly to take their less-than-stellar student. Several examples of Hollywood celebs were given. There was a big PR fallout from the article, so the policy may not still be in force at those two schools, but no doubt is at other schools. </p>

<p>About Harvard, read up on Ted Kennedy’s illustrious Harvard career. Thrown out for cheating, but re-instated when his old man threatened to pull out all of his money from Harvard and give it to another college. Money talks, even at the Ivys.</p>

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<p>That WSJ series did not involve legacies, but what you would call “developmental” admits – children of celebrities or the megarich (or both). Guess what? Every college does that, at least if it can. (Maybe not Caltech.) Neither Brown, nor Duke, nor for that matter Harvard or Yale, was ever admitting hundreds, or even dozens, of such students. It was, at most, 4-5 a year. It was good for institutional PR, it was good for the endowment, and I have not heard about anyone at Brown who objected to being Emma Watson’s classmate. Or, for that matter, Princetonians of the mid-80s who minded having Brooke Shields in their classes, notwithstanding her marginal SAT scores.</p>

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<p>^^I think I got it. The data you posted mentioned 3 year degrees (excluded) and students continuing on to undergraduate professional programs (included), with the graduating rate based at the end of the 6th year.</p>

<p>Look at what MacLean 2009 has to say (under “Additional Information”, third paragraph from the bottom):</p>

<p>[Our</a> 19th Annual Rankings ? - Maclean’s On Campus](<a href=“http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2009/11/05/our-19th-annual-rankings/4/]Our”>http://oncampus.macleans.ca/education/2009/11/05/our-19th-annual-rankings/4/)</p>

<p>So MacLean’s graduation rate includes 3 year degrees. They also included” those in such second-entry programs as medicine, law and education.” Are these the same as the “undergraduate” professional programs mentioned in the U of T data? I really don’t know, but I do agree “the number of these programs at any given university can affect the overall graduation rate”. </p>

<p>In the 2003 edition, which I cannot find online, graduation rate was defined as “the %tage of full-time undergrad students in their second year who go on to graduate from the institution within one year of the expected time period”. Not the 7 years they used in 09, or the 6 years we see in the U of T data. All in all, we are not comparing apples and apples. MacLean’s must have normed the data so all the different institutions can be compared. MacLean’s would not put the data onto the web, because they want you to buy the hardcopy for the good stuff. Too bad for us, but I do understand.</p>

<p>Toronto accepting “relatively” marginal students is a good way to look at it. The data from MacLean’s is very clear on this: Toronto do not have many students with less than 2nd class honours, if any at all. I don’t consider Canadian 2nd class honours students to be marginal; Toronto may think differently though.</p>

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<p>Canuck: The core courses must give 20% or greater C grades (and electives 10%), this is actually harsh compared to most US privates who would rarely give any C’s outside of the sciences and engineering. And upwards to 35%-40% can get A’s. Many don’t give that much though. However, even if they did, this is still less than most social sciences and humanities at most elite privates. </p>

<p>As for the article: I can probably use my Google and the Harvard course websites and find U of T analogs to show that Harvard is actually tougher content wise in at least natural sciences. Many Emory natural science courses are as well. Does that make the grading scheme justified, not really…And I also imagine that, again, US private schools are perhaps far too lenient in the social sciences and humanities courses. Maybe that’s where the difference comes from. Standards may be higher in other countries’ selective schools for those areas.</p>

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<p>I mean seriously, let’s do this:
For those who understand science, the difference or lackthereof will be clear. I’ll use biology, organic (Harvard no longer has gen. chem), and maybe physics if I can as a benchmark:
Biology:
Toronto: [BIO250</a> Cell and Molecular Biology - University of Toronto](<a href=“http://bio250y.chass.utoronto.ca/]BIO250”>http://bio250y.chass.utoronto.ca/)
Harvard:<a href=“http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~lsci1a/practice21.pdf[/url]”>http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~lsci1a/practice21.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Harvard for the win (this class is likely about the same caliber each year): And that is an advanced course for Toronto whereas Life Sciences 1a is for freshmen (it dubbs as in intro chem/biology course). Does not even compare well to Emory’s equivalent cell biology course here (my course was all short answer/essay. You had to design models to explain findings in research abstracts and then design experiments to test your models. The research abstracts/cases that would appear were not predictable. You had to improvise and be able to think as opposed to apply factual information)</p>

<p>Organic chemistry:
Toronto (similar to 2nd semester in US): [Chemistry</a> 249H Examinations](<a href=“http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/coursenotes/CHM249/CHM249HExaminations.html]Chemistry”>http://www.chem.utoronto.ca/coursenotes/CHM249/CHM249HExaminations.html)
Harvard:[Chemistry</a> 27 Examinations](<a href=“http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chem27/exams/]Chemistry”>http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chem27/exams/)</p>

<p>Harvard for the win (again, pretty consistent each year, often has same teacher, etc): The Harvard course, unlike the Toronto course is not even designed for those who are supposed to take advanced organic courses but is for pre-meds (when classes are split into one for pre-meds and ones for majors in the US, usually the pre-med version is considered less rigorous). It’s not even worth comparing to Harvard’s Chem 30, but I’ll show a website with some of the p-sets (which contain old exam q’s anyway: [Paul</a> Bracher - Teaching Page](<a href=“http://www.paulbracher.com/teaching/]Paul”>Paul Bracher - Teaching Page)</p>

<p>Again, even Emory’s is quite a bit more rigorous (you can go back to previous pages to view them again). </p>

<p>Physics:
Toronto:[PHY131S</a> - Materials](<a href=“http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~jharlow/teaching/phy131s10/materials.htm]PHY131S”>PHY131S - Materials)
Harvard:[Homework</a> Assignments § Physical Sciences 2 (Fall 2013-2014)](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k98494&pageid=icb.page619732]Homework”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k98494&pageid=icb.page619732)</p>

<p>Toronto does a bit better here (both of these are basically for life science and pre-med bound students)</p>

<p>I think Toronto wins slightly on the exams on this case, and Harvard’s problem sets are more thought provoking. However, I think Harvard will have an edge if you compare the electricity and magnetism courses (PS3 for Harvard).</p>

<p>To be fair: I imagine places like Toronto may vary much more instructor, so they may have some instructors teaching at the level of a Harvard professor. But one thing Harvard is good at is having 1 instructor or set of instructors control a particular science course for a long time (usually only has 1 section of each course as well) so you can essentially use those websites I posted as consistent baselines for rigor and level of content. If those Toronto websites were “average” level for each relevant course, then Harvard’s average is a bit higher (again, let’s not bother comparing courses for majors and those intending to go to grad. school in a field. Harvard is VERY tough in these courses). For science, Toronto may be better compared with other elites in the US (such as Emory, where there is a lot of variation in level between instructors), but not Harvard caliber places. Such places have a pretty consistent, high level baseline level for these courses that is hard to match. Also, the amount of students who start in advanced courses is too plentiful to count at these places (tiering of 1st year courses is very heavy at places like HYSPCC. A very significant number of students will start off with freshman designated courses equivalent to advanced coursework at other selective schools. In fact, Harvard still maybe gets 10 people to take math 55 and huge amounts start at some multivariate level such as math 21, 23, or 25) </p>

<p>For some reason, many people want to convince themselves that their institution is more rigorous than places like Harvard (especially those at other selective schools). Often, it simply isn’t true, at least not in the disciplines that typically have the most rigor at all schools. It’s hardly worth comparing social sciences and humanities because U.S. schools in general tend to lack rigorous grading in those disciplines (almost no matter where you attend, you are likely earning at least a B+ in all of the H and SS courses. Mostly A-/A at that. Grading practices are subjective yet predictable). Although, it is often said that U.S. Liberal Arts Colleges tend to assign higher workloads for such courses. I, in general, can see these arguments being true for obvious reasons. However, it’s fairly easy to at least begin to disprove this sentiment, especially when applied to comparing coursework in disciplines known to grade rigorously at all universities.</p>

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<p>Excellent work. This is the kind of stuff that brings me back to CC again and again. I personally doubt Sarah Brown of New York was in STEM though.;)</p>

<p>Harvard’s top 25% scores even higher than CalTech’s, so it would be foolish for anyone to say they are not the best of the best. Their bottom quartile, otoh, is significantly weaker than CalTech’s. (I am willing to bet there would be little classroom interaction between these two groups of students, as they are likely to be in entirely different majors).</p>

<p>In Canada, university admission is not difficult. Get a good first class honours and you are in just about anywhere. My children could have attended McGill, e.g., but they never even bothered to apply. How do I know? Because McGill is open about what kind of marks you need to get in. Why did they not apply? Because for their area of interest, there are better options. In short, those in the know apply to specific programs, and the university is a secondary consideration if at all.</p>

<p>While Toronto is considered probably Canada’s strongest university, with strength across just about all fields of study, they are best known for engineering science, where their best students congregate. For Queen’s, the best students are in engineering physics, but commerce is their most prestigious program (see BusinessWeek). For Western, it has to be the Ivey School, where students are accepted after two years of college into a business program that is all case studies, all two years. For Waterloo, we are looking at computer engineering and systems design engineering. IMO, they are probably the strongest students in all of Canada. For admission, they need to have grades in the high 90s, and excel in Waterloo’s math competition that is available across the country.</p>

<p>Considering your interest, I would suggest you do an analysis of McMaster’s Life Science program. I believe this is where the best life science students in all of Ontario, at the very least, come for their pre-med education. Not Toronto.</p>

<p>Got to go.</p>

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<p>A small correction: it is McMaster’s Health Sciences program, not Life Science program.</p>

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<p>I think my E and M teacher came from McMaster university and one of the tougher general chemistry teachers went McMaster for UG and McGill for Ph.D (ironically her last name is McGill lol). I picture these schools as overall perhaps overall more rigorous than many US selective institutions (including my own. When a course comes up as more rigorous or of comparable rigor to Harvard, other super elite US universities, or even the Canadian Universities, I’m sure it’s an instructor oriented thing and is thus likely an exception. Though, for some reason, chemistry courses are unusually difficult at Emory, especially since the selectivity is quite a bit lower than similarly ranked US schools with easier programs), just not the very top schools. Do they grade more rigorously? I can buy it. I’ve just learned not to conflate grading practices with expectations or content. If a class curves to B-/B and the bar is high, that’s different from a class that grades the same or a little lower where the bar is kind of “in the middle”.</p>

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<p>There are other examples of conflation, although yours is a good one.</p>

<p>In Queen’s University, the commerce program for a long time is known as the program with the “most competitive admissions standards in the country”. IOW, it has the lowest admissions rate. The lowest admissions rate, however, does not mean they have the best students in the country, not by a long shot. Within the school itself, engineering physics would beat them hands down. Engineering physics does not have as low an admissions rate because most students in their right mind would not want to challenge a curriculum that is as difficult as physics with the workload of engineering.</p>

<p>I believe conflation is one of the ways that the elites protect their lesser students. By inflating the grades and slipping them into easy majors, they can make them appear better than they really are. The re-centering of the SAT plays a role as well. At a time when applications are sky-rocketing, why are they dumbing down the math score? Far too many applicants are topping out on it. If anything, the stuff should be made harder, so it can show a similar distribution to the verbal score. My suspicion is that there are people they are trying to protect.</p>

<p>Perhaps a way out is to take the GPA and multiply it to a degree of difficulty (of the major) as they do in diving competition, but that still does not account for the fact that different schools, or that departments within the same school can grade differently, as you are alluding to with Emory and chemistry. How many employers or people unfamiliar with Emory would know this?</p>

<p>All and all, I would probably use the GRE as an exit exam if I were an employer, ignoring the school and the major all together or use them as tie-breakers, unless and until they decide to re-center the GRE as well, that is.</p>