<p>Amnesia:</p>
<p>Are you paying $200k for your college education or are your parents?</p>
<p>As the one who's paying $200k, <em>I</em> have every right to discuss grades and grading practices. I'm sure other parents feel exactly the same.</p>
<p>I have to admit that I find grade inflation at best puzzling and at worst absurd. To me, if 75% of students in a given class are getting A's, that's an indication that the grading criteria being used aren't rigorous enough.</p>
<p>Even if a school's students are quite gifted intellectually, shouldn't the school teach them that there's always more to know and discover? One thing I've always secretly appreciated about MIT's grading is that it teaches us a little bit of humility -- even if you are very bright, that doesn't mean you're going to be the best scientist or engineer ever, so you'd better start learning to work with other people and to deal with difficulty.</p>
<p>Not to mention that it just feels so much better to get an A when you know that it was particularly difficult to obtain one.</p>
<p>Mollie:</p>
<p>I do not believe that 75% of students anywhere are getting As. It is indeed ridiculous. Just look at the list of Phi Beta Kappas published in today's Crimson. It's not anywhere near 75% of the graduating class. In the last several decades, perhaps in the whole history of Harvard, only 2 people graduated with straight As. They were brother and sister, graduating a couple of years apart.</p>
<p>Any Government concentrator at Harvard who has endured Harvey Mansfield's mandatory Gov-97a Sophomore Tutorial knows how exaggerated grade inflation really is. I agree with Roger that Harvard may be grade inflated, but it is hardly the paragon of grade inflation the media make it out to be.</p>
<p>If we believe Harvard's (and other elite school's) own statements that they could make up an equivalent class from those rejected (not so subtly implying a good deal of arbitrariness in admissions!), then justifications of their high average grades makes even less sense. There is little indication that I'm aware of that shows that H students (or its near rivals) are any more intellectually gifted than attendees at schools just slightly down the prestige curve. Even H admits that it chooses students based on factors broader than academic promise.</p>
<p>This same argument could be used regarding many other selective schools, and I agree with emerald's comment regarding state schools with relatively relaxed admissions standards. That's most of them except U. Cal (maybe one or two others?)</p>
<p>Anyway, keep in mind that some of these schools play to broad audiences. Johnny goes to Dartmouth, and he's getting A's? Honey, let's grab the checkbook for that fundraiser...</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not believe that 75% of students anywhere are getting As.
[/quote]
Oh, I was just throwing out a number. </p>
<p>And I certainly don't mean to single out Harvard -- grade inflation is a problem that's a lot wider than just one school.</p>
<p>Mollie:</p>
<p>The percentage of 75% was first used by Originaloog. Other posters, including you and me, just picked it up. :)</p>
<p>The solution to grade inflation. :-)</p>
<p>mathmom--now that was funny!</p>
<p>Since this thread has morphed into a discussion of Harvard grade inflation, I can add this insight from Harvard prof writing in the LA Times:</p>
<p>The piece mostly deals with a different topic but also says this about grade inflation:</p>
<p>"This year, however, examining has been a positive pleasure. This has been my first semester of teaching Harvard undergraduates, and I now understand why so many of them get A's. It's not all due to "grade inflation" by overgenerous professors, as critics have sometimes alleged. So many of these papers are outstanding that it's hard to impose a rigid distribution, imposing C's or worse on the lower third."</p>
<p>Grade deflation sounds like a good thing until it happens to you. Would you really want to be in the bottom half of the class struggling to get C's? What happens when you want to take a course in an area where you do not have strengths? What happens when you send in your C/B average in with graduate school applications? Maybe somewhere along the way you would decide that going to State U and getting A's would make more sense than going to Elite U and fighting for low grades. It seems that there should be some balance and it might be expected that there are more A's at elite schools than at third tier State schools where many of the students are as dumb as bricks and half don't study or show up for classes.</p>
<p>eh, a person with a 3.0 from hyp can get a job at a fortunate 500 company. so now that i think about it, it doesn't matter at the top. at a state school, i'd have to keep like a 3.8 or something</p>
<p>Eadad, it depends.</p>
<p>Grade inflation, IMHO, rewards, heck even encourages, slackers. They know they'll get an OK grade and may even slip into the A range. The kids that are hurt by this are the better students, as they lose the ability to be sorted by the fruits of their efforts.</p>
<p>Eadad, since when does a kid in the bottom portion of the distribution (that C/B kid you talk about) deserve a serious shot at grad school? To carry your argument to its extreme, you sound like you are advocating doing away with grades. Isn't that the impact of H like inflation anyway? Grades there have lost their signalling role.</p>
<p>Mathmom:</p>
<p>Thanks! very funny, indeed!</p>
<p>The kid with the 1400 SAT would be pretty close to the bottom at HYPS and might stuggle for the C/B grades. They would be very solid at any number of very good colleges and right at the top for almost any State U. If that kid does not deserve a shot at grad school then you need to eliminate almost all the candidates from State U's.</p>
<p>Do any posters have an idea if schools known to be either inflating or deflating grades are taken into consideration during admission to some grad schools - i.e. if it's known that school A inflates and school B deflates, will the grad school accept a lower GPA from school B (similar to difficulty rankings colleges use for the various high schools)? I'm talking about inflation/deflation within the same tier of schools.</p>
<p>As a student of Princeton University, I am very happy that my school has recently undergone a grade deflation policy. </p>
<p>I would say for the majority of overachievers, grades DO matter, they serve as an indication of how thoroughly we know the material, and I personally know that i will constantly be pushed to achieve a higher grade. This doesn't mean that I'm a grade-grubbing lunatic who only cares about perserving a high GPA, on the contrary, I absolutely love learning, but there were too many times in high school where I could half-ass a paper and achieve an A. I'm glad that at all times my university will be pushing me to test my limits. </p>
<p>Also, the attitude at Princeton is "don't be surprised if they take the 3.2 at Princeton over the 3.8 at Harvard." The university has made every attempt to inform academic institutions and potential employers of the policy changes, and the majority are confident the new grading policy will not hurt anyone.</p>
<p>Princeton students truly work for their grades, it's one of the reasons I chose the school over other very enticing offers. I knew I would be pushed to reach my full potential, and while it's true there will be a good portion of the Harvard class who will work equally hard either way, there will also be a significant portion that has the ability to slack off because of the university's grade inflation.</p>
<p>graduate admissions is by departments rather than by a central admissions office, so it really depends on how one department views other departments. However, GPAs is less important than grades in the major, GRE, recommendations, writing sample and application essay. For someone wanting to study anthropology, for example, profs on the selection committee will discount grades in science and math courses, but will look more closely at grades in courses that are more likely to be of use for an anthropologist: languages, history, sociology, psychology, etc... GREs are also interpreted differently according to the discipline. GRE verbal and analytic will count for more in anthropology, history and literature, GRE math will count for more in sciences, economics, political science, sociology, psychology, etc...</p>
<p>eadad,</p>
<p>a kid with a 1400 SAT would struggle at HYPS? Where did you get that from? methinks you are giving waaaaay more credit to the SAT than it deserves.</p>
<p>Rather, I suspect, but have no data (any more than you?) that most kids with your 1400 SAT do quite well at HYPS or anywhere else.</p>
<p>DS is a senior at BU. He says he works VERY hard for all of his grades. He is a music major. Even within the music department, the grades are not "gimmes". His GPA is 3.54, and he hopes he can continue that for the next two semesters and graduate magna cum laude. That may or may not happen...his courses are hard, and as a music major, he has a ton of them each semester. On the plus side, the grading has really made him work diligently and there is nothing wrong with that.</p>