<p>Penn</a> mulls grade inflation after leaks - The Daily Princetonian</p>
<p>By Randolph Brown
Staff Writer </p>
<p>Published: Tuesday, February 15th, 2011 </p>
<p>After the document leak at Columbia University that indicated that one out of 12 students at Columbia received at least a 4.0 grade point average last semester, fellow Ivy League school the University of Pennsylvania has begun to evaluate its grading policy.
The discovery at Columbia has reignited the question of whether Penn should institute grading policies to combat the rise in GPAs.</p>
<p>According to the Columbia Daily Spectator, 482 students in Columbia College and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science were listed in a spreadsheet as having earned perfect grade point averages. One student in Columbia College and one student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science earned GPAs of 4.33.</p>
<p>The largest number of 4.0-earning students were in the economics department, a fact that the department head Susan Elmes attributed to the economics departments being the largest major in Columbia College.</p>
<p>Columbia Colleges Dean of Academic Affairs Kathryn Yatrakis told the Spectator that approximately 52 percent of grades given in the 2005-06 school year were A-minuses or higher, compared to a total of 47 percent in 2000.</p>
<p>Although the Deputy Dean for Education in the Engineering School Vijay Kumar said that Penn does not inflate grades, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that As and A-minuses accounted for about half of the grades given in Penns School of Engineering and Applied Science.</p>
<p>Any student with a 4.0 is considered exceptional, Kumar said to The Daily Pennsylvanian. I dont believe that I have met more than one or two engineering students with a 4.0 GPA in my 20 or so years at Penn.</p>
<p>Penn SEAS professor Dawn Bonnell was similarly doubtful of grade inflations existence in the engineering school because there are algorithms in the class that determine grading.</p>
<p>The Daily Pennsylvanian reported that there are currently no attempts to shift the grading policies of Penns SEAS program in either direction.</p>
<p>These statements contrast with the grading policy implemented at Princeton in 2006 by Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel, which tries to limit undergraduate courses to only 35 percent A-range grades across a department.</p>
<p>Malkiel said in an e-mail that she would be happy to see other schools implement a policy system similar to ours or one of their own invention that accomplishes the same purposes.</p>
<p>Malkiel also stated that she know[s] of a third Ivy that is engaged in serious conversations on this subject.</p>
<p>She explained that instituting a grade policy at other schools would have two main benefits: It gives students clearer information about the difference between their most outstanding and their ordinarily good work, [and it ensures] that students are treated even-handedly across departments, which means that we are being fairer to our students.</p>
<p>Princeton students, however, have not been satisfied with being the only Ivy League students affected by grade deflation.</p>
<p>Andrew Morrison 14 said that the idea that Princeton is the only Ivy League school to have such a grading policy negatively affects all students at the University. Morrison added he would be in favor of schools adjusting grading standards.</p>
<p>Just look at how Penn and Columbia have kids with 50 percent of kids with As and we only have 35 percent, said Morrison, adding that there needs to be some way to distinguish students who attend different schools.</p>
<p>It doesnt really matter what the grading policy is as long as all schools switch at the same time, or very close to each other, or else one school just becomes an unfortunate guinea pig, Morrison said.
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