<p>A reference to Princeton's grade-deflation policy appears in this article.</p>
<p>The</a> Shame And Horror Of The B-Minus Student - Raw Fisher</p>
<p>The stance of TJ's administration is pretty ridiculous in my opinion. I'm fully aware of the argument that students willing to work harder than the kid who was kicked out are more deserving of that spot. The argument is a good one. The problem I have with this whole thing is that it indicates grades are basically a joke. As in, you must be one big screw up if you can't get an A. My friends who went to TJ have said that because grades aren't taken seriously, cheating is rampant. I don't know how much truth there is to this, but it's hardly surprising.</p>
<p>"Any institution can be improved by lopping off the bottom-most rank, but a numerical, mechanized definition of the bottom denies the turbulent, mercurial nature of adolescence. A smarter path would be to eschew numerical cutoffs and dare to look at the whole kid. I don't know Matthew Nuti, but I hope some TJ teachers do, and I'd be far more impressed by a system that let their collective judgment determine who stays and who goes rather than see a 16-year-old's future defined by a fraction of a grade point."</p>
<p>If I had a vote I'd opt for the set system over an arbitrary one that has "collective judgment" determining "who stays and who goes." It's hard enough getting into an elite high school with numerous arbitrary decisions being made in the process. Once you're there you should know concretely what the rules of the road are.</p>
<p>"If you're going to have grades, they ought to mean something. They ought to be a useful guide for teachers, colleges and graduate schools, employers, parents--anyone who might want to figure out how a kid is doing. One way we make such judgments is to compare a student's performance to that of his peers."</p>
<p>Grades should be about the student's progress, period. Grades should not be about competing against other students. In the real world the guy you were competing against in high school/college becomes your co-worker with whom you are expected to collaborate not compete. Your high school/college should be teaching you how to collaborate and reinforcing the practice with its policies. </p>
<p>Setting an arbitrary number of A's, B's, C's, D's and/or F's that Princeton, TJ or your local community college hands out is wrong. If the kid deserves an A based on his work then give it to him. If not then don't. "I'm sorry, son. You did a great job but someone has to get a grade that is lower than they deserve" doesn't pass the smell test. </p>
<p>If a particular school has problems with grade inflation (or deflation) then that should be addressed. But the answer isn't coming up with an arbitrary number. That "solution" only glosses over the real problem(s).</p>
<p>This rule has nothing to do with grade inflation or deflation, only the fact that the school is trying to eliminate those who aren't willing to put in the effort to contribute or benefit from the ACADEMIC community at TJ. TJ is not a private university (which often try to build a community of diverse individuals with varying interests and skills); rather, it is a school of science and technology, and as such, has different priorities than many other high schools. It's not like kicking this kid out of TJ means that he won't have an education, it just means he's attempting to fit in an environment he simply doesn't belong in, mainly because he is apathetic and unwilling to play a role in the academic facet of the school. A gavel at one Model UN Conference is not cause for a noticeable drop in GPA, and while I do agree that playing a sport does take up significant amounts of time, why is it that this kid can't handle both sports and getting decent grades? There are a LOT of kids who play sports and do even more extracurriculars than he did, but who are able to maintain a B average. And if the problem is his time management, well, he's already had two years at the school to get used to the work there.</p>
<p>You're right that the rule doesn't have anything to do with grade inflation; however, the fact the the cutoff was a B- reveals just how rampant grade inflation is at TJ. That's what I found ridiculous.</p>
<p>I agree with Weasel. It's fine that a school like this have certain requirements, but perhaps those requirements should make use of the full grading scale and not just the first two letters.</p>
<p>isnt there a thread on this already?</p>
<p>I'm not sure that the rule being set at 3.0 or above shows TJ has grade inflation. TJ certainly may have grade inflation (my familiarity is primarily with another highly selective Math/Science high school) but the fact that these gifted 4.0 students are getting A's, B's and the occasional C just shows me that, in a tougher environment (like TJ or other), only a few of these former 4.0 students will "struggle" to maintain a 3.0. Most will, and should, do better than 3.0. </p>
<p>Over the weekend I met with a kid who struggled in his last three semesters of mathematics. In his own words he "blew it." He received three straight B's in one of the most rigorous high school BC courses in the country. I expected that "blew it" meant at best a C. In 99.9% of this nation's high schools he would have cruised through their BC program without breaking a sweat. In fact, he, and most of the other kids in his school, would have received A plus, pluses at their former schools if such a grade existed. His overall GPA is well north of 3.0 but he has been challenged by the tough curriculum that his school offers and it shows. </p>
<p>If Admissions does its job correctly (and perhaps TJ didn't in this case) one shouldn't expect too many kids of that high caliber would struggle below a 3.0 (especially given the help that many elite high schools provide). If Admissions at Princeton (or the other elites) does it's job correctly you should see few of their students falling below 3.0 there as well. The curriculum is tough but the students are the best of the best and, for the most part, they are becoming even better as they mature. </p>
<p>Now, non-elite schools have a harder time getting elite students and so there is more frequently pressure to inflate those grades (more B's to inflate, more C's to inflate, etc.). But I don't see TJ's setting the bar at 3.0 as indicative of that given the quality of the student population.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If Admissions at Princeton (or the other elites) does it's job correctly you should see few of their students falling below 3.0 there as well. The curriculum is tough but the students are the best of the best and, for the most part, they are becoming even better as they mature.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You are assuming that grades should be an objective, rather than relative, metric of a student's academic performance. Of course students at top schools will produce high quality work. But it doesn't immediately follow that they should all get above above a 3.0. Princeton believes that grades should differentiate students from their classmates--i.e. my grade conveys some information about how I did relative to my fellow Princetonians. Harvard and Yale, while certainly recognizing that grades must convey information about relative performance, have chosen to put a greater emphasis on the objective quality of students' work, thus keeping grades at those schools higher. TJ is clearly following the approach of Harvard and Yale, but to a much greater extreme. </p>
<p>Whether grades are being inflated depends in large part of your definition of grade inflation. I believe that grades should be used to differentiate students within a school, and I believe that a wider distribution of grades helps accomplish this. So in my book, TJ is inflating grades. I think the comparison to Keillor's Lake Wobegon, where all students are above average, is apt.</p>
<p>"Whether grades are being inflated depends in large part of your definition of grade inflation. I believe that grades should be used to differentiate students within a school, and I believe that a wider distribution of grades helps accomplish this. So in my book, TJ is inflating grades."</p>
<p>That would be true if the rule affected a larger pool of people. As mentioned in the article, only about 5 students (1% of the class) were affected by the rule, meaning 99% of the class already had a cumulative GPA equal to or above 3.0. Sure, there could be inflation in that the range of GPA's is lower and the scale is shifted higher, but this is very, very minimal seeing as only 1% of the class is truly affected.</p>
<p>
[quote]
That would be true if the rule affected a larger pool of people.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If the rule affected a larger number of people, then there would be more students receiving grades below 3.0, thus widening the distribution. How would that be inflating grades?</p>
<p>
[quote]
As mentioned in the article, only about 5 students (1% of the class) were affected by the rule, meaning 99% of the class already had a cumulative GPA equal to or above 3.0.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's precisely my point. I don't see how you can possibly say that the shift in the scale is "very, very minimal" when 99% of the class is essentially being graded on a two letter basis (A's or B's).</p>
<p>"If the rule affected a larger number of people, then there would be more students receiving grades below 3.0, thus widening the distribution. How would that be inflating grades?"</p>
<p>Because more people receiving GPA's lower than 3.0 would be kicked out, resulting in everybody else having GPA's between 3.0 and the maximum. The distribution is not widened because once the pool of affected students is increased and the number of students below 3.0 increases, they are essentially cut from the class. If more students were to have GPA's below 3.0 (and were then kicked out), you could say that the grades are inflated because a student with above a 3.0 GPA would feel cheated out of his work in that his GPA would begin to pale in comparison to the typical GPA of his class, since a larger pool of people with weak GPAs was just kicked out. However, 5 students has hardly an affect on the typical GPA of a class of over 500.</p>
<p>"That's precisely my point. I don't see how you can possibly say that the shift in the scale is "very, very minimal" when 99% of the class is essentially being graded on a two letter basis (A's or B's)."</p>
<p>The other 99% of the class does not experience any shift because they are wholly unaffected by the 3.0 rule. When I say the shift in the scale is very minimal, I mean that taking out 5 students who are below the minimum GPA level has a very small affect on, for example, how the other students look in the eyes of college admissions officers. Furthermore, the grading is not done on only a 2-letter basis because the rule applies to a cumulative GPA. Therefore, any grade goes, and a single bad grade below a B can be balanced out by enough A's and APs.</p>
<p>Sorry for not being clear in my earlier comments. I said:</p>
<p>
[quote]
If the rule affected a larger number of people, then there would be more students receiving grades below 3.0, thus widening the distribution.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What I meant was this: If 99% of students have above a 3.0 before the first time the rule is used to make cuts, then the distribution of grades is skewed heavily towards A's and B's. The last phrase of my quote should have been "thus indicating a wider distribution." While the use of cumulative GPA allows for the possibility of grades other than A or B, such grades are clearly not being used with any frequency. Your point about cuts not widening the distribution was well made. That wasn't what I meant to suggest, but I can see how you interpreted it that way.</p>
<p>Your definition of grade inflation seems to be this: if the percentile rank of a particular GPA decreases over time, then grades are being inflated. Please correct me if I'm misinterpreting what you said. By this definition, the implementation of TJ's rule did not in and of itself inflate grades since as you pointed out, few people were affected. My claim (maybe I didn't make this clear) was not that the new rule was itself inflating grades. It was that the inflation took place before the rule was ever implemented. I based this claim on the fact that the vast majority of grades given are A's and B's.</p>
<p>"Your definition of grade inflation seems to be this: if the percentile rank of a particular GPA decreases over time, then grades are being inflated"</p>
<p>That is correct.</p>
<p>"My claim (maybe I didn't make this clear) was not that the new rule was itself inflating grades. It was that the inflation took place before the rule was ever implemented. I based this claim on the fact that the vast majority of grades given are A's and B's."</p>
<p>Ok, I am glad that was cleared up. I was under the impression that you believed the rule would cause grade inflation in the school, as you mentioned.</p>
<p>However, I do not agree that even without the rule, there was/is grade inflation. Though it is likely true that grades below B are relatively rare, I do not believe this is because of inflation, but rather because the students have enough drive to prevent this from happening. Clearly, teachers do actually give out such grades and are not hesitant or regretful about it, but the reason they give these grades out so rarely is because a vast majority of the students have enough discipline to prevent that from happening. High school is not like college in that there is not necessarily a percent of students who, by nature of doing marginally better than other students, must necessarily get better grades. Therefore, it is much more possible for 80% of a course section in high school, for example, to get A's than in college. As a recent graduate of the school, I know I had to work extremely hard to get a 4.0 weighted, which is nowhere near the highest GPA of the class. 99% of the class having a GPA of 3.0-4.0 is not an indication of grade inflation, in my opinion, but rather one of the drive most kids at TJ have (perhaps not necessarily of being at the top, but of not falling below personal standards).</p>
<p>This basically goes back to what I said in the first paragraph of post #10. I guess I've been brainwashed by the Princeton administration to believe that given a large enough population of students, it makes sense to hand out more C's and fewer A's than TJ is doing so that it's easier to distinguish between students. I can see how high schools would be reluctant to do this for fear of faring poorly in college admissions, but Princeton would be hypocritical to punish schools for this.</p>