<p>Last year there were a few threads on the rationing of A's and the stress it was causing for students around exam time. This is the second year of the Princeton policy and I'm wondering if things have settled down a bit. My S did not find finals week that stressful. The have a very long reading period to complete papers (over a week), followed by a long exam period (12 days). The entering freshman already knew about the grading policy before they enrolled and were maybe more realistic about what to expect. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>This is a good question that I also had. Any Princeton student willing to share his/her experience? Thanks</p>
<p>Well, for our S, it's not an issue. The grades distribution was already harsh at Math/Science/Engineering departments, so the new policy did not change anything there. As for the non-major classes he takes, he does not try to shoot for an A there (although sometimes the A may just fall to his laps). Getting a B seems to be attainable without much stress. </p>
<p>I do not believe S did much preparation during the reading period... There was no exam for the Writing Seminar (just the final paper), and two of his exams were take-homes (he chose himself when to take them). No stress at all.</p>
<p>He really does not like having the exam period after the break, but that's a different issue.</p>
<p>"Getting a B seems to be attainable without much stress."</p>
<p>That sums it up. If a student is applying to law or med school, he or she had better not try exploring beyond his or her strengths too much. And again, re the 35 percent A-range grades, I heard from several students that professors stood up and announced that only 20 percent would get A-range grades. Personally, I have no respect for this system. I trust that over time -- and with some full frontal attacks by the USG and the Prince -- a more equitable approach will be devised. The students who are on campus right now are, unfortunately, guinea pigs.</p>
<p>After I posted this we got a call from my S who has begun to pick up his final exams/ papers from last semester. He did say that he's heard a number of students complain about the fact that their final grades were curved down. This does not seem to be the case in math/science classes where the test grades are so low that they still have to curve up.</p>
<p>sorry for asking, but what does "my S" mean?</p>
<p>It means "my son."</p>
<p>Re science courses, cookiemom, not sure which one you mean. Last year my d took a life sciences course that was a known killer. She had been warned by friends to avoid it, but she was excited about the subject and eager to face the challenge. She worked her tail off and was thrilled to be pulling B+ and A- grades. As the course progressed, the profs would announce happily that since their stats showed this year's students had done better than those in previous years on the first couple of tests (same ones given in the past, but as we know, today's Princeton students are supposed to have higher test scores and be more academically focused, so that shouldn't have come as a surprise), they were going to make the next tests harder. And when making the tests harder didn't lower the grades enough -- because these kids were really applying themselves -- the profs started curving down. The profs were not happy until they could demonstrate with graphs that grades were well below those of previous years. In a killer course. Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that one of the course profs was Shirley Tilghman. </p>
<p>What do these shenanigans have to do with education?</p>
<p>I agree with aparent.S has faced similar issues and problems. Professors have asked in his clases what their intended major is-an indication that they know they have to protect the students in their own department .Also, the decisions to take a class for grades or PDF is somewhat based on whether the class has juniors and seniors in their majors . Having said all that, S truly loves the academics, the close relationships with professors that are starting to develop, and the school . Like aparent above, i wish the adminstration was aware of some of the consequences of the launch of these policies .</p>
<p>Techdad, I am also hearing that students are being asked to state their intended major. </p>
<p>The new undergraduate student government president appears to be very willing to address this issue. Here is a letter he wrote to his professors before the vote: <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ejlenahan/Grade%20Inflation%20Letter.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/~jlenahan/Grade%20Inflation%20Letter.htm</a></p>
<p>He is proposing that the issue be revisited: <a href="http://www.princeton.edu/%7Ejlenahan/Grade%20Inflation.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/~jlenahan/Grade%20Inflation.htm</a> </p>
<p>We shall see. If this were truly a matter of 35 percent A-range grades, I would consider such a quota arbitrary but clumsy. However, I am hearing of too many professors who are -- possibly in an effort to protect majors -- going way overboard in outdoing the quota. No one seems to know whether the 35 percent is supposed to be per course or per department, the students have no protection and no recourse, and the randomness of it all has put more emphasis on grades rather than learning than ever before in recent years.</p>
<p>I thought that the being asked what youre intended major was (in precept usually, i;ve never actually been asked in lecture) was just one of those things that the preceptor did to better get to know you. As far as I can tell, it has no effect upon the grades-- i did better in one of my history classes than the junior/senior history majors and at the time I was a biophysics major. </p>
<p>Maybe its naive but I really don;t feel as if the professors are asking for our intended majors as a reason to give higher grades to certain students. </p>
<p>I also know of plenty of classes where there are way more than 35% A-range grades and many classes where the professors have always graded more harshly. The only places where it has really seemed to matter are in the really big lecture classes, like Micro and Macro which used to be easy classes and are now quite difficult to get an A in. MOL 214 has always been hard, and i think the effort to make it harder was more an outgrowth of Princeton's distaste for pre-professional students than it was of the grade deflation scheme.</p>
<p>"MOL 214 has always been hard, and i think the effort to make it harder was more an outgrowth of Princeton's distaste for pre-professional students than it was of the grade deflation scheme."</p>
<p>How does jerking students around with a constantly shifting grading policy keep them focused on the intellectual content of a course? Sorry, as a Brown grad I just come from a completely different planet on this topic.</p>
<p>And if the new Princeton is against elitism, surely it can't afford to have a "distaste" for those who are both intellectually curious and aware that they will need to prepare for the future...Most students don't have a trust fund.</p>
<p>Grade deflation sucks and is probably the worst choice that Princeton has made recently. No one has followed us in that decision, and for that reason, (though the university sends out letters describing the grade deflation policy) grad schools will probably accept fewer Princeton grads. Grad schools (especially the top ones) are obsessed with rankings and are going to go for students with the highest GPAs. However, the grade deflation has not changed the sciences previous grading decisions too much. </p>
<p>It sucks.....but we have to deal with it. I honestly dont see it lasting for much longer, unless harvard and yale tag along too.....which would just be idiotic.</p>