<p>
[quote]
mini jests. and don't call him shirley.
[/quote]
I was wondering if someone would pick up the allusion to the movie :D</p>
<p>With all the stuff in the news today, it sure was a bad day to quit smoking ...</p>
<p>They simply paid for it "in advance". :)</p>
<p>Grade inflation helps everyone feel "SPESHIL", and it is a good segueway to a boring career (soon to be outsourced), multiple divorces, drug-addicted children, and mortgage one can no longer afford. ;)</p>
<p>... and to posting endlessly on CC ? ;)</p>
<p>That too! (;) (It's a slow day...)</p>
<p>I have no problem with grade deflation as long as there are also correspondingly deflated standards for maintaining academic standing and scholarships.</p>
<p>"They simply paid for it "in advance"."</p>
<p>how do you figure that?</p>
<p>The Princeton transcript has a disclaimer stapled to the front of it which you have to lift to see the grades. In other words you can't miss it. </p>
<p>Cookieson has not looked to take easier classes because of grade deflation, nor has he had the experience of students avoiding a class because there's outstanding students in it. In fact it is the opposite. Students seek out the best students in their classes to help them understand the material.</p>
<p>For those interested in some data, brace yourselves. Here's a link to some of Rojstaczer's research, which names names:</p>
<p><a href="http://gradeinflation.com/%5B/url%5D">http://gradeinflation.com/</a></p>
<p>A lot of kids at Amherst are getting used to B's (B-, too) when they had never had one in their lives! Perhaps one might think that B centered is inflated, but when so many of the kids are so stellar that they never even came close to one, that's deflation. Talk about deflation - my dad told me he once had a prof in Europe who said only God knows everything so He deserves an A, and the prof knew next to God, so he deserved a B, and the kids would never know as much as he did, so they couldn't hope for more than a C! (And he meant it and stuck to it). Can you imaginge the screaming today?????????</p>
<p>Originaloog, GPA averages should not correspond to curves since very few (if any) humanities classes are curved. My sister was speaking about math and science courses which are normally graded on a curve. My econ classes this year have all had slightly more Fs than As for the first exams, though by the end many of the students with Fs have dropped the course, and the grade distribution is a bit higher (that professor doesn't curve grades, coincidently). That is one reason I do not think that looking at average GPAs is all that helpful: students adjust. All average GPAs have risen over time, so have SAT scores. I do not think that average student GPAs are the best measurement for how a school grades. They show that grades have risen over time, universally, but they do not provide enough information, I don't think, to be able to see and judge the particular grading at a particular school. (By the way, I wasn't trying at all to "show off" about my school or anything of the sort if that's what it sounded like. I would guess that my school does grade harder than most schools based almost solely on the amount of work required for a certain grade at my school versus the amount of work my friends report for similar grades at their schools. That's not my point, though.)</p>
<p>I don't think it's inflation. Rather, I think it's that most of these colleges finally started accepting better students (women).</p>