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<p>Education is neither a game nor a competition.</p>
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It depends on whether those humanities courses were guts or not–and History of Urban America sure sounds like it might be. I was an English major, and several of my English courses were much more challenging than the Logic course I took to satisfy a math requirement, because that course was (at that time) a gut. However, the calculus course I took freshman year–not a gut–was very difficult for me.</p>
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People keep saying this, but what is it about schools like Dartmouth that you don’t get? The students who get in there do so because, in fact, they did get As in all of their classes in high school in the most challenging curricula offered in those schools, and they got very high scores on standardized tests as well. Most of them did this while also performing at high levels in extracurricular activities. They thrive on challenge.</p>
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<p>I understand this. I am a top level high school student who will be attending MIT in the fall, so I definitely understand thriving on challenge. But a high school honors/AP class should not be at the same level as a Dartmouth class. Students who breezed through high school should be newly challenged at top-level colleges, but an A median doesn’t indicate that to me.</p>
<p>And of course, a student can be challenged by a class and rise to that challenge to pull out a hard-earned A, but is it likely that ~100 students did that in a single class? Even at Dartmouth, I’d argue no.</p>
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What would your argument be based on, exactly? Why, exactly, do you think that challenge should be reflected in lower grades?</p>
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<p>One reason would be so that employers and grad schools could differentiate between a run of the mill Dartmouth grad, and a top of the class Dartmouth grad in a relatively transparent way. At the moment, because everybody has A’s, they need to resort to letters and ‘relationships’ and undergraduate research.</p>
<p>The research that shows that students these days spend far less time studying than they did a few decades ago is quite striking. Though I know some people question whether students really were burning quite so much midnight oil in the 70s.</p>
<p>The “the internet saves so much time!” response is a red herring; most of the drop in reported hours came in the early 1980s. And if the internet really were saving students that much time, then universities should have put in more course material to take advantage of the efficiency.</p>
<p>I think that it’s incredibly unlikely that the majority of a large class will voluntarily dedicate many hours to focused studying and preparation in order to achieve an A. Some will not have to; if someone is exceptionally gifted in math, an A in calculus will be easy. But that is not the case for everyone, even at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Students at all schools, including the top schools, have weak spots. Students at all schools procrastinate, and far more students put in less than the maximum amount of effort into most classes (note that I think maximum, or at least very very high, effort should equate to a student getting an A). Not all students, certainly, but they are existent (in a significant proportion) at all schools including Dartmouth, MIT, Caltech, all the Ivies, etc. But these grades indicate that everyone at Dartmouth excels in every subject. That seems unlikely to me.</p>
<p>I think the challenge should be reflected in lower grades so that a student can be fairly viewed in the context of their class. I think that truly gifted students in certain areas – like the exceptional math student I made up – should stand out from their peers via exceptional grades. That’s not possible when everyone is getting A’s. I don’t think someone struggling should automatically get an F, but I do think that a B or B+ would be a better indication of a) their mastery of the material and preparation for future classes, and b) their level of ability in that subject.</p>
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<p>It is not a game, but it is something of a competition. It is used to determine the distribution of positional goods.</p>
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And are they complaining that they can’t distinguish among Dartmouth grads? I haven’t heard of it.</p>
<p>luisarose, I just think you are underestimating highly motivated students at highly selective schools. I think you will observe at MIT that things are quite different at a place where virtually all the students are both highly able and highly motivated.</p>
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<p>I certainly agree that things will be very different there. But at MIT, people fail classes often because the classes are challenging, even for top-level students. That’s my issue with Dartmouth’s median grades – if the courses are something that all Dartmouth students can ace, then they are failing to challenge their best students and giving a leg up to the students who may not be academically on par with their very brightest.</p>
<p>EDIT: I will fail classes at MIT. But I will be happy to accept an F that I have earned. At this point in my life, I have not found any academic subject that challenged me, and I’m looking forward to discovering my limits at MIT. I feel that Dartmouth’s high median grades indicate that those students – who are all as intelligent and driven as I am, in all likelihood – still are not being pushed. I personally see that as a failing on Dartmouth’s part, although I understand that not everyone sees it that way.</p>
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<p>But the fact is employers and grad/professional schools don’t care. If they don’t care, why do others on this thread?</p>
<p>btw: a really easy way to differentiate, if they so chose, is by class rank. :)</p>
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<p>Source, please?</p>
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<p>Grad schools definitely care about how good a student is (at least medical, law, or other rigorous grad programs care). If every student from a school gets a 3.5, then that 3.5 doesn’t say much about that student’s aptitude/skill, and grad schools definitely, absolutely care about the aptitude of students that they admit, fund, and support.</p>
<p>And class rank also means much less when grades are so inflated. A pretty-good student and an excellent student could both have 4.0s. How do you know which is which?</p>
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<p>Give me a few minutes to find one. But it happens to literally almost every single MIT student – go to MIT’s forum on CC and ask any one of the MIT representatives.</p>
<p>EDIT: Doesn’t seem like MIT publishes median grades or GPAs, but various anecdotal sources say things like average of C+/3.0 GPA upon graduation. In fact, among students and prospective students, grade deflation is considered widespread at MIT.</p>
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Even with grade inflation, not that many people have 4.0s at Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>I suppose one of the pleasures of attending MIT is grousing about how much easier students have it at other schools.</p>
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<p>Well, I don’t attend there yet! But it certainly seems like it’d be easier to get A’s at a school where most people usually get A’s (and the students are of similar caliber).</p>
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<p>Oh, and I am sure that plenty of “fuzzies” would be embarrassed by the poor spelling and incoherent arguments presented by STEM majors. </p>
<p>It is a fools’ errand to attempt to compare advanced STEM classes to a Intro in XXX course, in the same way one would not compare Introduction to Statistical Analyses to an advanced class in Russian Lit. The same classes are harder to some and easier to others. Most students are pretty good in various subjects, but it would be obnoxious and pedant to pretend that STEM majors waltz through their humanities’ requirements. Just as it would for “humanities majors” to pretend that STEM classes could be a walk in the park, if they cared enough about the classes. There are plenty of really hard classes in every major.</p>
<p>My bottom line remains the same. People who think that there are plenty of easy As and Gentlemen Bs to be had without much effort are simply oblivious to the reality of education at highly selective schools.</p>
<p>I think it’s fair to say that students at MIT probably work harder than students at other schools, partly because the requirements are tough. But I don’t think the grading philosophy necessarily says anything about how hard people work, or what they learn. I’m not persuaded that there is any significant difference among Harvard, Yale, and Princeton in this respect, even though Princeton has deflated grades.</p>
<p>@Hunt I agree, I don’t think the grading says much about how hard people work. But I do feel that ideally in a college grading system, A = excellent, B = good, C = average, and so on. In a system where most students are ranked as excellent, it is difficult to make any sort of comparisons between very different students. I know all Dartmouth students are excellent, but it doesn’t make sense for them all to be excellent at Dartmouth. I would like to see a greater spread. It seems fair to me, but then again, we simply have different ideas of what is fair in college grading. I have to go now, but I’ve enjoyed our discussion! Despite my one-sided arguments, know that I definitely have a more open idea of grade inflation now :)</p>
<p>PS: I will not be surprised if my side on this discussion switches once I’ve got some F’s under my belt ;)</p>
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<p>I’m guessing that you haven’t applied to professional school yet? :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Let me help you with that (for some old data):</p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/MIT.html]MIT[/url”>MIT]MIT[/url</a>]</p>
<p>And then compare the same time period with Dartmouth, which as slightly over 3.3.</p>
<p>The top schools all have course shopping periods during which students can assess course difficulty, and also grace periods during which one can withdraw without penalty, or can pull out with a withdraw-passing designation. I’d contend that this is what helps keep many students in the B or A grade range. They can opt out of a class they foresee they won’t be able to handle, or if it’s a requirement they may opt to take it at another time when their load is easier, or at the state school back home in the summer (D has friends from Cornell and Berkeley who did precisely that last summer.) And the perfectionistic type of kid who attends a school like D might simply decide that a particular major is too hard for him early in the game before he ever gets too many C’s and D’s. Finally, these are really driven, hard-working kids who learned the formula for academic success years ago. They are certainly smart enough and motivated enough to make their way to the tutoring center too.</p>
<p>In 1976 (the second last year for which that site has data for both colleges), the average Dartmouth GPA was 3.06, and MIT was 3.27. In 1999 (the last year with data for both), MIT was at 3.26, and Dartmouth at 3.31, a big .05 higher than MIT. Then Dartmouth GPAs increased another .1 over the ensuing decade, and we don’t know about MIT. That’s why Dartmouth shows up as having a lot of grade inflation – the average GPA increased 44% over 30 years – but it started out really low, and the increase only brought it into the middle of the pack in terms of average GPAs. Even after that massive increase, Dartmouth was .2 behind the acknowledged grade-inflation champion, Brown.</p>
<p>Seems like all the brainy people coming out of MIT peaked in 1974 and its been downhill ever since.</p>
<p>I also thought MIT scale is 5.0. Is this adjusted to 4.0?</p>