<p>This is disgusting:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.gradeinflation.com/%5B/url%5D">http://www.gradeinflation.com/</a></p>
<p>I am actually prud that my old school (SUNY Oswego) seems to be the toughest grading school studied. Sort of cheapens the value of degrees and I feel the colleges dpong this should seriouslly evaluate what they are allowing in certain "HIGH GPA" majors, such as education, etc! Thoughts?</p>
<p>you do realize that if a bunch of harvard or stanford students went to SUNY Oswego, they would most likely get killer GPAs, right?</p>
<p>I think the fact that the students at the top privates are already so academically well off accounts a big part for their higher gpas. Except when comparing to places like Cal, where everything is graded on a bell curve, grade inflation is really not that much due to the school itself, but rather due to the generally outstanding student body.</p>
<p>Nice attempt, but the rationalization doesn't work. You cannot take the most extreme example and make it the norm. Grade inflation is happening all over the board, it is just more pronounces at the most elite schools. It's funny how the high school standards are slipping all over the country, but the college students who are products of these high schools are doing better and better. Most of the people going to the most selective schools today aren't brighter than the student body 20 or 30 years ago. If you read the article, the author theorizes that the grade inflation is mostly due to the fact that consumers expect good grades for the high price of education. When the average GPA at a school is a 3.0 or above, it simply means that the profs aren't challenging their student body enough. Period. It seems that "Competition" may be the driving force here. Besides, I would bet that if you were to weed some majors out (ie. education), the average GPA would drop off by quite a bit. I commend ANY school with low grade inflation, as it doesn't cheapen the value of their product, the BA/BS degree. I know that when I was in school, the college catalogue defined grades as :</p>
<p>A- Well above Average
B- Above Average
C-Passing/ Average
D-Minimum Passing
E-Failing.</p>
<p>It seems that when a school sets those deffinitions, they SHOULD not deviate without adjusting the very deffinition. In all fairness to the other institutions, I have no idea how they define their grades. Maybe some schools define B+ as "Average". </p>
<p>For what it is worth, a friend of mine transferred from Oswego to Columbia and was bragging about how much easier it was to get "B's" at Columbia than Oswego. Don't be too sure that ALL of the clases are harder just because of name sake.</p>
<p>I don't think the college GPA matters as much as the quality of the instruction and the rigor of what is demanded of students.
Students at Reed- Swarthmore & UChicago for example, that all have been noted for lack of grad inflation, don't have any problem at being admitted to graduate schools.( and have a high percentage of those who eventually recieve a PHd)
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.reed.edu/ir/phd.html</a></p>
<p>Well, as much as that's true, many of the students at the schools aren't hurting too much with regard to GPA, and average GPA is just that, average- some students will get top GPAs. And getting into top graduate programs has a lot to do with letters of rec and writing samples in the humanities and research and letters of rec in the social sciences. The average GPAs from 7 years are still above the current national average. "anywhere else it would have been an A" my foot!</p>
<p><a href="http://gradeinflation.com/swarthmore.html%5B/url%5D">http://gradeinflation.com/swarthmore.html</a></p>
<p><a href="http://gradeinflation.com/chicago.html%5B/url%5D">http://gradeinflation.com/chicago.html</a></p>
<p>it really depends on how you want to frame the 'grade inflation' debate. if you feel that the average gpa at every college across the country should be the same... say, 2.5... then yes, private colleges and universities seem to have more grade inflation. however, the 0.29 point differential in private and public school gpas seems to be more than accounted for when you consider the differential in the quality of students at the schools selected. when framing the debate with quality of student bodies in mind, things become a bit more clear.</p>
<p>public school averages: sat, 1110; top 10%, 34; top 25%, 61; top 50%, 89.
private school averages: sat, 1370; top 10%, 73; top 25%, 88; top 50%, 97.</p>
<p>yes, thats right, the students at the private schools, with an average sat score 260 points higher than those at publics, more than twice as many of whom were in the top tenth of their high school classes, managed a 0.29 higher gpa. as such, the apparent answer is NOT to go to an elite private for a good gpa. the answer is to go to a bad state school.</p>
<p>yea but what about a top public and comparable private such as ucla to usc. the gpa at usc is still significantly higher. the students at usc are deffiantly not higher qualified than the students at ucla, yet they attain a higher average gpa while in college. that is simply grade inflation. that has nothing to do with having better students at the private school. clearly, although many privates have a higher quality student than many publics, when you compare top publics to equivalent privates, the privates still dish out substantially higher grades. while i dont agree with everything the poster stated, i agree that clearly attaining a high gpa at most private schools would be easier than attaining it at most top ranked publics (michigan, virginia, unc, berkeley, ucla, ucsd, ect.). of course there are exceptions such as u of chicago which is known to be rigorous.</p>
<p>I agree it can be difficult at some state schools-
for example my neighbor who has a recent computer degree from the UW said that his math tutor was one of a group who took pride in getting students to drop rather than excel.
THe public schools may be more into the weed out mode and the privates more into supporting students.
I have heard it said that the hardest thing about an Ivy is admission, once you are in, they will make sure you graduate. Not that it isn't demanding, but the support is there, the public schools with maybe 5000 students accepted into the freshman class every year, just don't have the kind of resources needed for that kind of support.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I know that when I was in school, the college catalogue defined grades as :</p>
<p>A- Well above Average
B- Above Average
C-Passing/ Average
D-Minimum Passing
E-Failing.</p>
<p>It seems that when a school sets those deffinitions, they SHOULD not deviate without adjusting the very deffinition. In all fairness to the other institutions, I have no idea how they define their grades.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Swarthmore defines its grading system as follows:</p>
<p>
[quote]
At the end of each semester, formal grades are given in each course either under the credit/no credit (CR/NC) system, or under the letter system, by which A means excellent work; B, good work; C, satisfactory work; D, passing but below the average required for graduation; and NC (no credit), uncompleted or unsatisfactory work.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A simplistic comparison of GPAs (not even specified as median or mean) is not really adequate for comparison over time (grade inflation) or across schools. There are too many other contributing factors. </p>
<p>For example, Swarthmore's first semester freshman year is pass/fail (CR/NC). This surely has an impact on average GPA. It probably increases the reported medians, since college grades tend to trend upwards over the four years.</p>
<p>Until 1996, students in Swarthmore's Honors Program did not receive grades at all in their honors coursework. A final designation of Honors, High Honors, or Highest Honors was made by a panel of outside examiners based on oral and written examinations. This meant that a third of Swarthmore's top students were not counted in GPA calculations, making historical comparisons essentially meaningless. Today, the outside examiners still provide the same designations for honors coursework, however the three designations are translated to a numeric grade for transcript purposes.</p>
<p>And finally, Swarthmore requires a C (2.0) average to graduate (and generally B's or better in a department to be accepted as a major at the end of sophmore year). A "C" is required for a course to get credit towards the major.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Grade Average</p>
<p>A C (2.0) average is required in the courses counted for graduation. An average of C is interpreted for this purpose as being a numerical average of at least 2.0 (A+, A = 4.0, A- = 3.67, B+ = 3.33, B = 3.0, B- = 2.67, C+ = 2.33, C = 2.0, C- = 1.67, D+ = 1.33, D = 1.0, and D- = 0.67). Grades of CR/NC and grades on the record for courses not taken at Swarthmore College are not included in computing this average.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Students below these points reach a decision point at the end of freshman or sophmore years as there would be little point in continuing with limited prospects for earning a degree. In effect, these policies mean that there are few juniors and seniors enrolled who have less than a 2.0 cumulative average. Eliminating students with nominally "passing" GPAs below 2.0 has an obvious impact on statistical means and medians.</p>
<p>avg gpa at usc (2002): 3.09
avg gpa at lehigh (1999): 2.9
avg gpa at kenyon (1998): 3.18
avg gpa at colby (1995): 3.01</p>
<p>avg gpa at wisconsin (1998): 3.11
avg gpa at william and mary (2001): 3.18
avg gpa at virginia (1997): 3.18
avg gpa at washington (2001): 3.13
avg gpa at texas (2001): 3.01
avg gpa at north carolina (2001): 2.98
avg gpa at illinois (1999): 3.12
avg gpa at georgia tech (2002): 2.86
avg gpa at florida (2001): 3.19
avg gpa at uc-sb (1999): 2.93
avg gpa at berkeley (1996): 3.10</p>
<p>usc doesnt exactly stick out from its public peers (most of which are considerably less selective)... and 'comparable' privates dont exactly stick out, either. there are, of course, exceptions. wheaton in illinois has an insanely high average gpa... but id trust an average 3.4 from there much more than an average 3.2 from eastern oregon or southwest missouri state. id imagine the average harvard or stanford student would do better than a 3.4 there.</p>
<p>but again, it all still comes down to exactly how you want to define the term. is 'grade inflation' merely having an average gpa higher than an arbitrary number, such as 2.0 or 2.5? if so, even georgia tech at 2.86 is inflated. or is it having an average gpa considerably higher than what one would expect given the abilities of the average student?</p>
<p>purely speaking, one would have to choose the former. but then youd have students failing at harvard for doing work that would be considered to be of fairly high quality at bunker hill community college. and thats a problem. taking a more realistic approach, it becomes difficult to compare 'elite privates' with anything else because there arent any schools with student bodies similar to the most elite schools in america. berkeley certainly has many stanford-quality kids, but person-for-person comes nowhere close.</p>
<p>that doesnt mean berkeley is a worse school. it just cant be compared to an elite private in terms of selectivity, but one of many factors that should go into determining the quality of an education.</p>
<p>Yeah, there are a more concentrated group of smarter people at privates</p>
<p>For example, UC Berk probably has as many smart people as Dartmouth or Brown or Duke (three top privates that are high up on the Grade Inflation scale) but also a much larger number of students that are worse statistically</p>
<p>In order for that argument to be valid, the GPS's for all of the high GPA schools should not be trending, they should have ALWAYS been high as the students have always been better than the norm.</p>
<p>Deflation likely has a great deal to do with the major as well. Average berkeley GPA > average berkeley engineering GPA. Same applies for most schools...ivy leagues included (Cornell comes to mind;)).</p>
<p>Look, just this year I was accepted as a presidents scholar at georgia tech. People who win this honor were students who most likely also got into at least one of the HYPSM and a couple of ivies. Guess what the average gpa for the president scholars at georgia tech are. Something like 3.6, with something like a quarter getting semester 4.0s every semester. </p>
<p>These president scholars take the exact same classes as the others and the professors have no way of knowing who is a scholar and who isnt so there can't be biased there. I think this at least somewhat proves that gpa is largely the responsibility of the student, not the institution.</p>
<p>"Most of the people going to the most selective schools today aren't brighter than the student body 20 or 30 years ago. "</p>
<p>ummm... no?</p>
<p>the schools have gotten much more selective... more selective = more consistantly top students... more consistantly top students = higher average grades.</p>
<p>Different schools report SATs and GPAs differently. Notably, the entire UC system takes the best single combined sitting, unlike most private chools which seem to allow mixing and matching. ericatbucknell, for this reason (and probably others), the calculation is questionble.</p>
<p>Interesteddad, if the honors program students got grades, how high do you imagine the average Swarthmore GPA would be?</p>
<p>admittedly, the calculations are far from perfect. but look at the two lists of schools used in the comparison... nearly every private is among the most selective schools in the nation. there are a few good publics... and some quite mediocre ones, too. 260 points may only be 230. but its still A LOT. and class rank is class rank.</p>
<p>either way, i cant imagine comparing the two groups of schools as 'equals' with a straight face.</p>
<p>What is the list of schools? </p>
<p>Also, why should we deal with publics vs privates as a whole, and not say, equally difficult to get into publics vs privates or something?</p>
<p>Alabama, California-Irvine, Carleton, Duke, Florida, Georgia Tech, Hampden-Sydney, Harvard, Harvey Mudd, Nebraska-Kearney, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, North Carolina-Greensboro, Northern Michigan, Pomona, Princeton, Purdue, Texas, University of Washington, Utah, Wheaton (Illinois), Winthrop, and Wisconsin-La Crosse</p>
<p>Who decided that these are representative?</p>