<p>Good one mini - (it deserves to be posted twice)...</p>
<p>"I would have been a doctor," he said, scratching his flea bites, adjusting his bottle-green glasses that were missing one lens, and shrugging his shoulders, "Instead I went to Harvey Mudd. You know, grade deflation...."</p>
<p>"I know how it is," said his friend, his speech slurred, picking at his scabs, and blowing his nose on a page torn out of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, "I went to Reed."</p>
<p>Mini--you are ripping tonight!</p>
<p>A few years ago I came across one of those secret guide to selective college admissions books ( I can't remember the exact name) and it's author claimed that many grad schools used a multiplier to even out grades from different schools based on some agreed upon scale of relative grad inflation.As I recall they used a 1 for a theoretical average school with a high multiplier value of 1.3 for Cornell and U chicago and a .7 or so for schools that were considered inflated at the time such as Stanford. Does anyone know if this practice actualy exists?</p>
<p>^^I doubt it. The thing to remember about grad school (but not professional school) admissions is that it is largely done by the individual academic departments, not the central grad admissions office. The admissions office only compiles the applicants' files and forwards them to the appropriate department -- where the actual admission decsions may come down to a small committee, or the whims of the chairman, or even individual profs. Some of them may have an informal weighting system for comparing grades, but I've never seen it work in an organized and comprehensive way.</p>
<p>In my grad school the way it worked was the central admissions compiled all the apps that met the miminum requirements for the school and sent them to the departments. The department looked them over and decided which ones met the departmental minimum requirements and then forwarded them to all the profs. The profs were basically being asked: Do you see anybody here that you are interested in and whose research you are willing to support? Fortunately for me a prof said yes. I'm not sure where if anywhere in there any grade-weighting might have occurred.</p>
<p>I'm glad to see somebody else employing the graduate versus professional school distinction.</p>
<p>I asked my husband how they do admissions - (grad students not med students at a med school.) He weight GRE much more than grades and recommendations and experience are way up there too.</p>
<p>I was under the impression that law schools (and possibly med schools, but not graduate schools) adjusted an applicant's GPA depending on where they went to college. The idea was to level the playing field so applicants would not be punished for going to a college with rigorous grading. Perhaps this was done years ago but isn't done now, but I join ShermanBus83 in wondering if this practice exists.</p>
<p>Few people really know if the process exists. many claim it does, or say, "don't worry, schools know we have hard grading, come here anyway!" The only actual documentaion I'm aware of is Boalt (Berkeley's law school) employing an adjustement of points based on GPA and the LSAT.</p>
<p>I just saw this on the Harvard website:</p>
<p>
[quote]
According to Faculty legislation, the total number of degrees awarded Summa Cum Laude in a Field and Magna Cum Laude in a Field, upon the recommendation of the student's concentration, will represent not more than 20 percent of all June degree candidates. In addition, the total number of degrees awarded Summa Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, and Cum Laude in field will represent not more than 50 percent of all June degree candidates.</p>
<p>Students not recommended for honors in a concentration may be recommended by the Faculty for the degree Cum Laude on the basis of an overall grade point average that meets the minimum GPA established for Magna Cum Laude honors. The total number of degrees awarded Cum Laude on the basis of the overall grade point average will represent not more than 10 percent of all June degree candidates.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>To add to Coureur's post #124, I had abysmal GREs (I had never taken American-style standardized tests and my English was still shaky). But there was a prof who was interested in working with me, and voil</p>
<p>As to whether law schools adjust an applicant's GPA depending on where they went to college, I think the answer is yes and no. In Grutter v Bollinger, the trial court set forth the admissions standards for UMich Law School. The first step in the admissions decision was to calculate the student's index score, a combination of the student's LSAT and GPA. The court also discussed the admissions committee's next step - a consideration of the following variables:</p>
<p>"When the differences in index scores are small, we believe it is important to weigh as best we can not just the index but also such file characteristics as the enthusiasm of recommenders, the quality of the undergraduate institution, the quality of the applicant's essay, and the areas and difficulty of undergraduate course selection."</p>
<p>Here's a link to the trial court decision: <a href="http://vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/grutter/gru-op.html%5B/url%5D">http://vpcomm.umich.edu/admissions/legal/grutter/gru-op.html</a>. The quote is from pages 6-7 of the opinion. Since the Supreme Court approved the UMich Law School admissions on appeal of this case, I assume UMich Law School still follows this format and I suspect that other Law Schools have adopted similar admissions since then.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I assume UMich Law School still follows this format and I suspect that other Law Schools have adopted similar admissions since then.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not sure of the logic here. The assumption in this thread is that some institutions are known to have grade deflation. By and large, these institutions are top schools and are mostly majority population.</p>
<p>In the case of the Michigan Law school, minority applicants were given extra points on account of their ethnicity. There is no indication, however, that these applicants came from schools known for grade deflation, and that their GPAs were adjusted accordingly.</p>
<p>Nor is there indication that other law schools interpreted the Court's decision as having a bearing on how to interpret GPAs from grade-deflating schools. I do believe that other law schools concluded: that the Supreme Court upheld the value of a diverse legal profession; and that it was okay to consider race as long as the schools did not have a raced-based quota for admission and did not assign a numerical score to the racial/ethnic background of the applicant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm not sure of the logic here. The assumption in this thread is that some institutions are known to have grade deflation. By and large, these institutions are top schools and are mostly majority population.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think that this depends on how you define grade inflation (and what majority population means). By and large, public schools across the country have lower average GPAs than the private schools. I think this could partially be explained, as they also tend to students with lower average GPAs and SAT I or ACT scores, students with lower SAT II scores (if they take them) and I would guess lower incomes (on average).</p>
<p>By majority population, I mean whites. Unless the college is a historically black one, the population of most colleges is white, except for some UCs where there is a plurality of Asians and Asian-Americans (but these are not considered URMs). </p>
<p>Could you tell me where to find information about the lower GPAs at state universities? My understanding is that they do use lower grades to weed out students, but these would not be the ones applying to graduates and professional schools. The weeded-out students are more likely to drop out (hence the lower retention rate than in private schools). But for those who stay and go on to more advanced classes, I have no information about the grades they receive.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com%5B/url%5D">www.gradeinflation.com</a> is one place.</p>
<p>With lots of individual exceptions (and putting engineering programs aside), I'll bet you could draw a chart displaying strong correlations between grade inflation and price.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>Here's my logic:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The Grutter case proves that at least one law school, UMich, did (and probably still does - see #3 below) take into account the quality of the undergraduate institution in making admissions decisions. It seems logical to me that whether the institution has grade inflation or grade deflation is a part of evaluating the undergraduate institution.</p></li>
<li><p>Clearly the Grutter case was about racial diversity, but there is nothing in the court record to suggest that the only reason the admissions committee considered the quality of the undergraduate institution was racially motivated. It seems factors like this were tie-breakers to permit the admissions committee to decide between 2 or more applicants with similar index scores.</p></li>
<li><p>Now that Grutter is the law, UMich has an incentive to keep the same admissions system. The last thing UMich wants is to change its system and risk further legal proceedings. Other law schools have a similar incentive to change to a Grutter-type system and I think several have.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks. It's too late to actually look at the grades themselves, but a cursory reading of the charts suggests that grade inflation is found equally in state universities and private ones.</p>
<p>I would also be interested in learning how many graduates some lower-tier publics send to graduate and professional schools where the GPA matters and whether these graduates are competing with graduates of top private universities. </p>
<p>I also note that the author of the study does not ascribe lesser grade inflation at public schools to different grading practices but to the lesser degree of preparation of certain cohorts of students (admissions policies fluctuated more in the 1970s at public universities than at private ones).</p>
<p>I remain unpersuaded that law schools will take into account the generally lower GPA at a public university when considering an applicant. More likely, they will take into consideration the reputation of the school and, if known, the grading rigor. Graduate programs are known to interpret the grades and the usually less than effusive letters of recommendations from British universities (usually Oxbridge) differently than those of American ones. But I'm not aware that grade deflation at public schools is taken into consideration in order to make AA work.</p>
<p>Sorry, I cross-posted. I'll think about your post #137 tomorrow.</p>
<p>I think number one is where we disagree. While evaluating average GPAs might be a part of determing institutional quality, I don't think U Mich considers Berkeley or MIT better than Harvard or Stanford even though the average GPAs are far lower at the previous two schools. </p>
<p>Mini, maybe you're correct. Even given such charts, though, one would have to calculate costs to students (fin aid and scholarships obviously included) and other things to see things more clearly. If you pay nothing to go to Harvard or Stanford, you still benefit from the grade inflation, just like if you pay full price at MIT . . . I feel your pain.</p>