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<p>I accept it because it corresponded with what I saw with some classmates at my own LAC, a couple of Ivies, and dozens of friends who TA/teach college courses at institutions ranging from elite universities to community colleges. </p>
<p>Most of the average-worst students we’ve seen/taught come in with such abysmal academic preparation that we sometimes wonder how they managed to graduate HS…much less make it into college.</p>
<p>Oh, Bel, here is a thought. Perhaps you could run a correlation between the decrease of studying with the decrease of the teaching standards at our schools. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, have you ever thought about the differences in writing a research paper today and the ancient times when students had to rely on microfilms and a helpful librarian? How long did it take most parents to research a paper in the 70s and 80s and … get it typed on that Remington or IBM Selectric . Today, the world of information is at the fingertips of almost everyone. And plenty of help too.</p>
<p>PS I played with the above machines at my grandmother. Plenty of correcting tape needed!</p>
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Putting aside other doubts I have about that research, I don’t think that should be the default assumption for schools like Dartmouth, which has a more able and accomplished student body now than it did in prior decades.</p>
<p>My anecdotal observation is based on attending Yale more than 30 years ago, and having two kids who go there now. I see no evidence at all that the students of today work less than we did–most of the curriculum is very similar, the amount of reading is the same, and the number of papers is the same. The biggest difference I see is the level of preparation of the students. Unlike 30 years ago, virtually all of the students have taken calculus already, most have multiple AP or IB courses, and they’ve typically done a lot more writing in high school. They are, on average, more ready for college than we were.</p>
<p>I agree with xiggi that technology has changed the way students work now, increasing efficiency in some areas. I’ll bet a five-page paper takes at least an hour or two less now just to produce than it did when were were typing them.</p>
<p>Why should Dartmouth kids be disadvantaged from getting into Med and law schools because of their GPA?</p>
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<p>More technology and the “world of information” also brings greater distractions, shorter attention spans which greatly impair the ability to tackle 200 or much more pages of assigned reading per week for each class efficiently, arguments over what constitutes plagiarism, and the need for students to figure out how to deal with info overload and to filter out good from bad info. </p>
<p>I’ve seen all of that back in the '90s when the internet for the public was still in its infancy and say all of that despite working in the IT field and enjoying computing technology myself.</p>
<p>Cobrat, it never ceases to amaze me that you have experience with practically every topic on this forum, or “know” people who do.</p>
<p>My Dartmouth student worked his butt off as an economics major. When he went for training prior to starting his first job after graduation, he found his preparation at Dartmouth to be superior to that of the other new hires from other schools. In fact, the instructor conducting the training commented on it.</p>
<p>I cannot speak for all Dartmouth grads and wouldn’t pretend to be as savvy as the other posters on this board who know about grade inflation, etc. But both in my current company as well as others I have hired for, I have never had an issue or gotten feedback about a Dartmouth grad that wasn’t highly complimentary about the rigor of their undergraduate education.</p>
<p>If a Dartmouth education were a scam, you would quickly find recruiters unwilling to shlep there to recruit. If you are a bank in NYC it is surely easier to head up to Fordham or NYU to find “business majors” than it is to hike to Hanover – especially in January when many of the events take place. And considering that you are not hiring “business majors” at Dartmouth- but rather econ, applied math, anthropology, history, literature majors- the school’s success at keeping major employers happy is a tribute to the rigor of the curriculum.</p>
<p>There are plenty of local colleges to visit- no recruiting team in NY or LA or Chicago or SF or Charlotte needs the hassle of Hanover unless it were worth it in terms of the quality of the student body.</p>
<p>back to our regularly scheduled broadcasting, aka “the Ivy League is a total scam and the people who go there are prestige-^&*('s.”</p>
<p>Unless I am mistaken, Dartmouth was the first school to offer the MBA degree in the US --or its predecessor at the Tuck School of Business. </p>
<p>One might assume that the school knows a thing of two about what the financial sector seeks from its graduates.</p>
<p>blossom, some people never let reality get in the way of their prejudices. :)</p>
<p>This caricature</p>
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<p>bears no relation to what I wrote:</p>
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<p>It is possible to be an informed critic of the Ivy league and of American higher education in general.</p>
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<p>One anecdotal observation deserves another.</p>
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<p>[The</a> American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - William Deresiewicz](<a href=“http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/]The”>The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - <a href='https://theamericanscholar.org/author/william-deresiewicz/'>William Deresiewicz</a>)</p>
<p>Oh yes, the article by the idiot who can’t talk to a plumber. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Bel, if you weren’t always so delighted with yourself I’d think you were an earnest observer and critic of higher education.</p>
<p>Anna’s Dad, welcome back! How’s the family?</p>
<p>Hey, at least they all know how to read Wikipedia.</p>
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<p>I bet not, Hunt. Back when you had to compose as you typed and afterwards discovered a poor turn of phrase or extra detail that you left out, it wasn’t worth the effort to revise it. Now revisions and revisions of revisions and endless tweaks are easy. The submitted papers today may come much closer to the writer’s idealized version, but I doubt that they are completed any faster: Parkinson’s Law in effect.</p>
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<p>What prompted this snide attack? To write in such a manner suggests that you have a pretty high opinion of yourself.</p>
<p>Hunt asked why anyone should care about grade inflation. I can see some possible reasons for caring about grade inflation if it is not uniform within a university.</p>
<p>The Dartmouth data aside, in my experience, grading standards often differ from department to department within a university, and from professor to professor within a department. If hard-won grades of B+ are interpreted as the new “poor,” because it is assumed that an A- is the default grade, then I think that students who receive “genuine” grades of B+ from a prof who regards C- or even D as the default grade are being short-changed.</p>
<p>In practice, I have no evidence that people actually reviewing the transcripts can’t interpret them reasonably. However, some of the posters on this forum seem to be assuming that it’s quite easy to get a “gentleman’s A-.” I think this is actually not true, based on what I have seen–not commenting about Dartmouth specifically, but about another Ivy.</p>
<p>Beliavsky, why not also critique the grade inflation at state universities? This constant attack on the Ivies gets really old. Mediocre students from our high school who couldn’t handle AP classes, nevertheless go to our flagship and are suddenly “A” students on the dean’s list. Makes me wonder.</p>
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<p>Took us a semester to figure that out at Cajun State in the 1980’s… What determines the A’s and B’s is more often than not an ‘easier’ prof rather than the class IQ…</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen of my students (and granted, this is only my second year teaching), I would say that most of these students are skilled enough and hard enough workers that they probably deserve at least B range grades. The problem is that too often, those "B"s become "A"s.</p>
<p>The fact that they may go on to do very well in a variety of professions doesn’t really refute claims of inflation. In the vast majority of fields, a person who is bright, motivated, and has adequate writing skills isn’t going to be held back by the inability to write elegant prose or craft a substantive analysis of a complex work of literature. The latter skills should be needed, however, to get an A grade in a literature class at an elite college.</p>
<p>And yes, I think there are students hurt by inflation. For one thing, in a lot of schools there’s a considerable disparity between the kinds of grades given out in the hard sciences and engineering, where assessments are more objective, and those in humanities and social sciences. If that B - engineering student goes into the engineering field, that shouldn’t be a problem, but if he doesn’t, and has to compete with people who are going to be showing much better GPAs, that could be a problem. </p>
<p>Inflation also hurts the truly excellent student. Of my 30 students last semester, 4 of them were genuinely outstanding, superior writers. But in a class where the average grade is an A -, their “A” isn’t going to look all that impressive. For the record, had I been able to grade as I wished, the average would probably have been B/B+, so it isn’t as if I’m talking about flunking students. I just want to be honest with them. A B-range grade in a good school should not be regarded as a bad grade.</p>