<p>Want a Lower GPA? Go to Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Want a higher GPA? Go to Stanford (average GPA = 3.55), Yale (average GPA = 3.51), Harvard (average GPA = 3.45), or Duke (average GPA = 3.44), among the highest anywhere. Do these schools have smart, hard-working students? Sure. Do they deserve As? Sure, why not? Would they also get a lot of As at any state school? Of course. But the point is, they get a heck of a lot of As at their elite private schools not only becuase they’re smart and hard-working, but because the professors at those schools dispense As pretty freely, and are far less likely to grade on a curve (with only a fixed fraction of the class earning As, or the class median grade set at a fixed figure or within a fixed range) than at public universities. Or, if the professors at the privates DO grade on a curve, that curve is set at a much higher level.</p>
<p>I think there’s ample empirical evidence that GRADE INFLATION has been higher at private schools, including most elite privates, than at publics. In the early part of the 20th century, the average GPA at Harvard was around 2.5, roughly the same as at other privates and publics as a whole. By the 1960s the average GPA at Harvard was around 3.0. By the 1980s it was up around 3.25; the 1990s, 3.35; and the mid-2000s, 3.45. There’s been significant grade inflation at a lot of publics, too, but if you look at the charts there’s been a pronounced separation, with average grades rising much more rapidly (and ultimately higher) at privates as a whole than at publics as a whole, and highest of all at some of the aforementioned elite privates. I’m not saying the kids at the elite privates don’t earn or deserve those high grades. But a 3.5 GPA from Harvard isn’t the same today as a 3.5 from Harvard in 1910, or even 1965, because a 3.5 today means you’re pretty much an average Harvard student, whereas in the past it meant you were a standout. Which may nonetheless mean you’re very good indeed as measured against college graduates generally, but you’re not at the top of your class; not even close.</p>
<p>I’m not sure this subject can be fairly decided unless we can look at the undergraduate profiles of admitted students to elite graduate programs, but I’m finding it hard to google the info.</p>
<p>I will add that many state universities–whatever their undergraduate rankings–have departments with elite graduate school rankings. I find it hard to believe that the University of California, Santa Barbara, for example, which is ranked 10th as a graduate physics department, ahead of Ivies such as Yale, Columbia, and Penn is a weak undergraduate program.</p>
<p>POIH- The fact that a 3 gets you credit at UCB doesn’t prove anything. The 3 = credit is somewhat of a statewide policy. I don’t know anything about EECS, but I would guarantee that most anyone that could survive math/science at Berkeley got 5s on their APs and will still need to work hard. I think its wrong to generalize publics v. privates, especially since Berkeley is one of the toughest and I’m guessing has tougher grading than at least 95% of privates (maybe not Cornell or MIT- they have their own reputations). Those who get 3s will likely not last, as a third to a half don’t in many of the science programs. My son is turning down UCB science/engineering to go to a top tier LAC where he can get an excellent education and a shot at a decent GPA. He has 5s on his math and science APs but he doesn’t need ulcers.</p>
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Simple proof that ParentofIvyHope doesn’t know what he/she is talking about:
<a href=“http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/Undergraduate%20Handbook%202009-10.pdf[/url]”>http://coe.berkeley.edu/students/Undergraduate%20Handbook%202009-10.pdf</a>
(page 8)</p>
<p>You need a 5 on Physics AP (Mechanics C) exam to have the Physics 7A requirement waived for engineers. You need a 5 on the Math AP (BC Exam) to waive the Math 1A and 1B requirement.</p>
<p>Make an effort to do some fact checking before you post and make outrageous statements. Thank you.</p>
<p>Yes, there is grade inflation at private schools. That isn’t exactly news. Whether or not the classes are harder, whether or not the students work harder is irrelevant. Students are not graded against all other students who are taking the same class at any college, they are graded against the other students at their school taking the same class. The idea that the classes are harder and the students work harder is how the private colleges justify grade inflation, but it doesn’t change the fact that grade inflation exists at private college. Graduate programs know this and they factor it into their decisions about admissions.</p>
<p>I’ve taken classes at both public and private schools. I think it depends on the course. Maybe public school’s have lower overall GPA’s, because there are a larger percentage of students in programs, such as engineering, where the grading is more difficult, due to subject matter moreso than the type of school.</p>
<p>I really don’t see how there can be any comparison, because private college students by definition are more “self-selecting” in terms of motivation and academic focus. People don’t sign on to pay private tuitions unless they are pretty serious about their education – and if a kid slacks off at a private college, I think the parent is far more likely to pull them out. </p>
<p>So when you talk about an average or median GPA, you’ve simply got a larger percentage of potential slackers at a public institution. Beyond that, the financial barriers mean you also probably have more students at the public institution who are attending part time while working – or even full time while working – meaning that even among the hard workers, many cannot devote full time to studies. So you are looking at an entirely different demographic. </p>
<p>Normalizing for SAT scores doesn’t help, because SAT scores are only marginally predictive of first year grades – they have very little long term predictive value. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter where on the scale of selectivity the college is. It makes very little sense for a person at a third tier private to keep on paying tuition to earn C’s – if they can transfer to a public school and at least save some money. So I really think that the <em>tuition</em> being charged at a private school is going to have a strong influence on the attitude that students and their parents have to grades, and how hard the students will work for those grades.</p>
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Is this new? Are students paying tuitions at private schools only recently more focused on academics? Because the whole point of the study is the trend. The disparity in grades has grown over the years. So these private schools attracted slackers in the past and only now attract serious students? Is that what you’re saying? Private tuitions may have grown, but they have always been a significant burden. </p>
<p>It’s just as likely that the less sought after private schools give higher grades to keep the kids from transferring out to keep a higher GPA. THe schools have just as much of a financial motivation as the students. But there’s no evidence for that either. </p>
<p>If this were only elite privates I might say the quality of student is much superior. But remember, this is public and privates across all levels of selectivity. Therefore, since other studies have shown that selectivity has actually gone down or remained the same at lower rated privates and publics I don’t think that is it.</p>
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I would agree with this although there isn’t much else they can use. I don’t really think it matters much anyway, because they are looking at the trend, and using a wide swath of schools.</p>
<p>I don’t see why this study seems to annoy people so much. It’s not any less rigorous than many other academic studies I’ve seen. It doesn’t claim to drill down to a molecular level. It’s a pretty pointless study, because you have to look at schools one by one, rather than across a wide swath for it to have any real importance. But I don’t think it’s invalid for the relatively useless point it is trying to make.</p>
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<p>The study annoyed me because the author went on to conclude that the grade inflation leads to higher placement of these students in graduate programs.</p>
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<p>This is a hugely annoying statement and quite insulting to the admissions officers for graduate programs. Does the author really think that the admissions officers don’t know about grade inflation? Well, they do. Just as a for instance a 3.5 from Princeton means far more than a 3.5 from Harvard. Princeton is notorious for not inflating grades and Harvard has significant grade inflation.</p>
<p>The students from private schools are more represented in graduate programs because that is the kind of students they are, motivated and high achievers.</p>
<p>^^^
Yes, that’s a stupid conclusion by the authors, without further evidence (which I doubt they have). I don’t think it invalidates everything else.</p>
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I think this is also an unsupported and insulting conclusion. I’m sure there are plenty of students from Berkeley, UVA, UMCP or any number of public schools that are just as motivated and high achieving as students from private schools. Especially private schools that are not elite.<br>
If this is the attitude in the general public, which thankfully I don’t think it is, no wonder everybody on this website is obsessed with getting their kid into some high priced private school. All the people on here who tell kids to consider flagships with merit aid and things like that must be extremely misguided, or purposefully trying to mislead students if this is true.</p>
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So has the discrepancy in tuitions.</p>
<p>Maybe it would be an interesting exercise to chart GPA’s against tuition rates, and see what correlations exist there as well. Keep in mind that the article noted rising GPA’s at public schools as well, but a faster rise at private schools – so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the GPA’s track tuition growth very closely.</p>
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<p>I didn’t mean to insult anyone. The author made a claim that students from private colleges are over represented in graduate programs. I assumed the author could back up that claim, they probably can’t. I was just offering another explanation for why this might be the case if it is, higher grades certainly isn’t the only explanation.</p>
<p>I agree, a good education can be gotten anywhere, there are bright motivated kids all over the place. I apologize if I offended anyone.</p>
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<p>Yes, but nobody has done that. So your conclusion is just speculation. And again, rising tuitions is also motivation for the schools to inflate their grades to keep students to get the big money.</p>
<p>I think that’s far more likely than a kid worrying frantically about finances. </p>
<p>But I’m just speculating too.</p>
<p>By the way, the author of the study is a professor at Duke who,in an article that launched this study, claims that if he hasn’t given a C in a couple years, and doesn’t really know of anybody who has.</p>
<p>It bears remembering that the author isn’t uncovering anything the schools are trying to hide. All schools report their median GPAs, that’s why the existence of grade inflation can’t really be disputed.</p>
<p>Perhaps people could come up with a more valid way to do this study.</p>
<p>How about this.</p>
<p>First, take a cohort of students with similar HS class rank and test scores, half going to public schools and half going to private schools. Again, take this across all levels of selectivity, except maybe the very elite schools, don’t use them in the study - they are sort of outliers.</p>
<p>Then, after taking into account all merit aid, etc, compare the grades of students, taking into account the burden the tuition would place on their family as a possible motivating factor. Because remember, just because a tuition is higher doesn’t mean it places a similar burden on every student attending that school. Some have full aid, and some come from wealthy families. </p>
<p>If you could do this, I’ll admit the study would be much more valid.</p>
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<p>bovertine stated:
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<p>bovertine, did you not find the following equally as unsupported and insulting?</p>
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<p>I am left speechless by posts like the above.</p>
<p>I do completely agree with sentiments you expressed below, bovertine.</p>
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<p>My DD was accepted into several elite privates. Ultimately, she chose to go OOS to a wonderful public university. I can assure you that she, and a significantly large percentage of her fellow students, are very academically talented, motivated, quite serious about their education, and don’t believe that their lower tuition would mitigate any degree of “slacking off.” As a parent, I wouldn’t tolerate slacking off even if my DD was getting a free ride with no minimum gpa requirement!</p>
<p>I seem to have missed the point of the study.</p>
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I don’t know that there is really a point to the study, just an observation by a professor who seems to bemoan the fact that his grades don’t mean as much anymore. I was just looking at it from an analytical view point more than anything else.</p>
<p>I don’t think people mean to insult anyone, but an attitude does seem to exist in some quarters that private is always better than public, etc. And I can see how that gets reflected here unintentionally sometimes, and how people can take offense. And it’s almost always directed toward public schools (what do people call it, Directional State U or something like that).</p>
<p>This is all academic for me. My own kid will go to a community college (if I’m lucky and he graduates). I went to a good UC school that gave what I consider a good education. But I’m not chauvinistic about public schools. I applied to a private school (yes, that one), but I didn’t get in, even 30 years ago when it was easy. 
Things worked out fine for me.</p>
<p>“I don’t know that there is really a point to the study, just an observation by a professor who seems to bemoan the fact that his grades don’t mean as much anymore.”</p>
<p>It’s not just the professors who care, of course. As a college student about to graduate, it’s disappointing to know that my GPA is, for the most part, trivial.</p>
<p>Seems to me that these days a bad GPA matters and a good GPA doesn’t.</p>