Grade Inflation

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by John Bear, Feb 19, 2001.

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  1. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    This topic arises from time to time: the fact that some (perhaps most) major universities rarely award grades of C or lower, and often have more than 50% (sometimes more than 80%) of grades of A.

    An intriguing new approach is that of Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield, who regards the fact that more than 50% of Harvard grades are A's as "scandalous."

    Mansfield is now giving each student two grades: the one he thinks they deserve (and he's not known as "C-minus Mansfield" for nothing, and the inflated one he believes that most Harvard professors would have given. The latter is the one that goes on the transcript.

    He says he is "trying to undermine the Harvard system of grade inflation by exposing it as the laughable mistake it is."
     
  2. Sam

    Sam New Member

    In the 1960s, it was extremely difficult to gain admission into a Clinical Psychology doctoral program in the U.S. even with a straight A index. GRE scores of 1500 would not assure you admission. Boy has the situation changed!

    I attended an orientation session given by the California Schools of Professional Psychology several years ago and met several of their doctoral student representatives in Clinical, Organizational and Forensic Psych. It was quite clear that in no way did they meet the standard for these areas of specialization based on their intellectualand verbal presentation. When I was subsequently asked what my grade point average was I was informed that a 3.3 based on a 4 scale was not sufficient. I countered that my grade point index was obtained in the 60's when grades were earned not escalated.There was no doubt as to the degree standards declined in the past thirty years since i obtained my undergraduate degree.

    [/B][/QUOTE]
     
  3. Roger Habeck

    Roger Habeck New Member

    This is a subject that I got into pretty deeply a few years ago when my daughter was an undergraduate at William & Mary College. (Also known as the Marine boot camp of education.) William and Mary has the unalterable policy of grading on a hard curve. A's are as infrequent as F's, B's =D's and a C is respectable. I had advised my daughter that she could go to any college she wished but I would only pay for UVa or William and Mary. This did not make for a happy camper. During her senior year she applied to grad school. She wanted to pursue a career in land use and planning. There were only about 4 or 5 top drawer programs and all were small programs at VERY competive schools. She advised me that because I had demanded she go to W&M and she only had a 2.87 GPA she was doomed and would only be able to get into a third rate program at an unknown school. I suggested that she apply to the schools she wanted anyway and promised to pay the fees. She applied to the top tier programs, and one not too selective "fall back" program. After not hearing by the expected time, she called one of the top tier schools and spoke to the Chair of the department. His response went something like this. "Young lady, we only have 31 positions and over 150 applications which we have just started going through. We are only considering 4.0 GPA's of which we have over 70. What was your GPA and where did you go?" She answered, "2.87 and W&M." Whereupon he said "What was your name again?... Just a minute." He then came back with "You are in, you made the first cut." She said "But you sai.." He interrupted her with "We always add 1 to the GPA of any student from W&M, but really, we always accept all of them anyway because they always finish the program." In the end she was accepted by every program she applied to and went to UVa because they offered the best deal. The point here is that puffed up GPA's don't fool anybody.
    Another thought along this line is that at one time, say 40 years or so ago. The selectivity of the top drawer schools was social rather than academic. There wasn't much difference academiclly between the Ivys and the big land grant schools. Now the schools are so stratified by demanding selection criteria that there is no corrolation between the work required to get a particular grade at say a University of Virginia and a Virginia Commonwalth University. Exception for individual professors and a few special programs noted.
     
  4. triggersoft

    triggersoft New Member

    Hi all.

    I´d have a general question about this topic also: is it so that grades at US universities are really that good?

    For example, I´ve been reading on the Internet site of one university that you need to have a "B" or higher in EVERY course to pass the MBA degree !

    IN EVERY COURSE ???

    Gosh, that is totally IMPOSSIBLE in a German university. I´m studying Business at the University of Cologne, which has the biggest Economics & Business School in whole Europe (10000 students just in business), and in a class of 300 (like Marketing, e.g.), just about 10 persons will get an "A", maybe 40 or 50 a "B", and the rest shares "C" and "D", no kidding.

    By that, I would not even have the slightest chance to get into any US MBA program, since I reckon the US Universities would not even know that A´s and B´s are quite hard to reach in Germany, and they would just see my GPA and laugh...

    (actually, I´m right now searching for a good MBA program in the States, and I am really scared of that topic, right now).

    So, it it really like that: A´s and B´s are totally common in US Universities?

    Greetings from Cologne,

    Trigger
     
  5. Jeff Walker

    Jeff Walker New Member

    It's very much program dependent at many universities. For example, when I was attending school at Kansas University, the math department had a soft curve for upper level math classes (basically 25% A, 50% B, 25% C unless you REALLY deserved a D or an F). The thinking was that by that point, only the serious, basically qualified students were left in the math program.

    The School of Engineering generally maintained a hard curve throughout all classes. The breakdown ended up being something like 10% A, 25% B, 30% C, 25% D, 10% F. So what was "B" level work in a 200-level class might be "D" level work in an upper-level course since more than half of the students were washed out of the program by that time. For every "A", there had to be an "F" regardless of the class makeup.

    The point is, it's still possible to find tough grading, but it varies significantly by university and even by department within a university so I'm not sure undergraduate GPA means anything outside of the univesity the grade was earned at.
     
  6. Peter Glaeser

    Peter Glaeser New Member

    Sounds like my German law program. About 2% get an A, 9% a B, and 40% fail.

    But don't worry too much about your German grades. Admission officers curve grades and, Roger Habeck explained, take a look at the school you got your degree from. Good letters of recommendations will also make up for the lower grade point average. So don't worry.
     
  7. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Another consideration is the attrition rate of both individual courses and entire programs.

    I have taken courses that grade strictly, giving plenty of low grades. But normally those students pulling in F's and D's, as well as many of the C students, drop out without penalty in the early weeks of the semester after the first examination and assignment results are in.

    So that a course that was standing room only (literally) at the beginning of the semester might only be ten students by the end. And those students receive A's and B's.

    I think that at many schools it is common for students to make multiple attempts to pass difficult courses. That's probably one reason why so many students take longer than four years to graduate. But only their final successful attempt appears in their GPA.

    I'd speculate that grade inflation may be most pronounced at those ivy-leaague type schools that have very low attrition rates combined with very high average grades.
     
  8. Andy Borchers

    Andy Borchers New Member

    John and all - Grade inflation is a serious problem, but you can only look at it in concert with another aspect - admissions selectivity.

    Harvard having a grade inflation problem is not such a big deal - they are terribly selective. Less than 10% of their applicants get in. Ok - they give a lot of good grades. But they have a lot of smart folks.

    At a less selective school - such as many of the on-line programs we talk about here - grade inflation is a bigger issue. If the door is wide open on admissions - grade inflation has to be kept under control. Otherwise the concept of "graduate education" is being abused.

    As for minimum grades to graduate, many grad programs require a minimum GPA of 3.0 and won't accept anything under a 2.0.

    Thanks - Andy
     
  9. Sowak777

    Sowak777 New Member

    I realize I am digging up an old carcass here, but I am interested in the topic.

    Grade Inflation: Devaluing B-Schools' Currency
    http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/content/apr2005/bs20050419_8678_bs001.htm

    Doesn't Anybody Get a C Anymore?
    http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/10/05/doesnt_anybody_get_a_c_anymore/

    Hope Scholarships Transform the University of Georgia
    http://chronicle.com/colloquy/97/inflation/background.htm

    The Cat is Out of the Bag: A Synopsis of the Current Situation
    http://www.endgradeinflation.org/catisout.html

    The Initiative to End Grade Inflation
    http://www.endgradeinflation.org/
     
  10. 03310151

    03310151 Active Member

    I like grade inflation...

    So all those very smart people who actually "earned" their grades back in the 50's, 60's, and 70's and are now complaining because THEY are infalting grades?

    Isn't that like me complaining how "kids these days" are so disresepctful and then turn around and not teach my boys how to behave?

    You earned your grades, as did these fine ladies and gentlemen:

    http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/101dumbest/dumbest_category_trouble/index.htm

    http://www.forbes.com/2002/07/25/accountingtracker.html

    http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1005086,00.html


    Yeah, some of them did not graduate from college. A lot did.
     
  11. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    I teach for few for-profit online schools and student's expectations is very high in term of grades. You basically have to give As to minimum work otherwise students start complaining and this might mean less work for future. Basically, the only way to fail many of these online courses is if the students don't submit any work.

    The problem is that if most of the students get As, employers won't really take seriously any GPA or even the degree.

    I think that grade inflation is highly linked to the abuse of adjuncts in the education system. As adjuncts, we rely on good evaluations for future work so we tend to inflate grades just to keep our employment. The problem is more evident in online for profit schools that normally only give work based on course evaluations. At some online schools you cannot afford even to upset one or two students as your evaluation average might drop down the minimum required to continue your job as an adjunct.
     
  12. eGuy

    eGuy New Member

    In my experience with working for private online schools in New Brunswick, any professor who consistently grades "too easy" ends up having their faculty position evaluated by the Dean and President of the university. Student satisfaction in regards to the quality of a professor's teaching abilities is one thing, but except in extreme circumstances, it should not come into play when it comes to their final grades. I've seen at least three professors let go over the past eight years because there was some question as to whether or not their grading was up to the standards of a university level program.

    To do it any other way is just plain wrong.
     
  13. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I think that grade inflation is just one aspect of some broader historical trends.

    There's degree inflation. In the past, a bachelors degree was a significant thing, it represented the intellectual and practical foundation of an entire discipline. Now bachelors degrees seem to be devolving into high-school-diplomas with attitude, while masters degrees become first-degrees lite. All this while more and more jobs are requiring college degrees simply to ensure that applicants are minimally literate.

    Science and engineering bachelors degrees do seem to be holding the line better than degrees in many of the 'softer' subjects. That might be one reason why science and engineering are a shrinking percentage of total university enrollments. (Other reasons are the shrinking percentage of males in college and the continuing deindustralization of the West.)

    In the 19'th century, people were very proud of their high-school diplomas. They represented a significant (and unusual) accomplishment, and in that increasingly distant and forgotten world, they were. Today we have people clepping through undergraduate degrees in four weeks and probably emerging more ignorant than a 19'th century high-school graduate. (The more high-powered prep-schools still required their students to learn Greek and Latin. Certainly nobody could pass a literature class without actually reading some literature.)

    In a time in which only a minority of the population ever graduated from high-school, a high-school diploma meant something, it marked out an educated elite, and it was the gateway to white-collar employment. But in a world in which high-school graduation is pretty much legally required, that's evaporated. High-school diplomas don't communicate much of anything about their recipients any longer, since virtually everyone has one, and bachelors degrees have become the differentiators that mark entry into white-collar employment. And now we are starting to enter into a brave new world in which graduate degrees essentially become first-degrees in their subjects.

    And there's a strong sense of personal entitlement as well, something that didn't used to exist. The people running universities today are the baby boomers (like me). When this postwar cohort was in college, they were taught by people who grew up in the depression and who fought in World War II. Teachers were a hardened, no-nonsense crew, and students were typically expected to perform. It was easy to get a C or a D and some effort was required to avoid it. But there's never before in recorded history been a generation as self-indulgent as the boomers, and they're passing on their flaccidness and lack of self-discipline to their successors. Today's undergraduates (and midcareer continuing education DL students as well) believe that they are entitled to whatever they desire, and they squawk their heads off when they don't get it.
     
  14. basrsu

    basrsu Member

    Bill Dayson, thanks for a well crafted post. I'm sure it will spark some debate, but I want to go on the record as agreeing with every word you write.

    basrsu
     
  15. thatbrian

    thatbrian New Member

    It's "not fair" that the brightest, hardest working student gets an A, while the not so clever and/or lazy student ends up with a C. Lowering grades might lower self esteem and we simply cant have that. Everyone is a winner; everyone gets an award. This process starts in preschool and continues through the entire "educational" cycle. Evidently, it will even get you through Harvard with a 4.0

    Grade inflation seems to bring everyone up to the same level, but actually brings everyone down to the lowest common denominator, because good grades and degrees themselves are losing value.
     
  16. Shawn Ambrose

    Shawn Ambrose New Member

    I would add that this tends to occur in ANY adjunct environment - the school chooses to use the student evaluation as a significant factor in the decision to renew the adjunct's contract.

    Shawn
     
  17. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Yes but at least in my experience, online for profit schools seem to put a lot more emphasis on this. At one online school that I teach, the minimum to keep getting contracts is a score of 3.5/4 which I consider too high. It is obvious that you cannot afford to piss off even one student with a low mark so the grade inflation is evident.

    Student evaluations could be a good instrument if students were mature enough to only look at the quality and leave personal sentiments aside but we all know that it is not the case.

    I teach online courses at state schools and although they expect good course evaluations, they won't only take that into consideration to renew adjunct contracts.
     
  18. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    They have already lost value. At least in Canada, most entry level engineering jobs require tests designed to screen students knowledge. It is obvious that companies don't trust degrees and GPAs otherwise they wouldn't be giving examinations to recent graduates.

    I had to write 4 exams at different companies in order to get my first job, most exams were designed to test basic programming and engineering skills that you should know if you had an undergraduate degree but it just shows that companies just don't trust the paper qualification anymore.
     
  19. JimLane

    JimLane New Member

    Here's the real rub, folks: this problem started back in the 50s or 60s when teachers could no longer fail K-12 students because it would damage the poor student's psyche. It migrating upward.

    We'll not get a real handle on grade inflation until failing a student is the absolute and unassailable right of K-12 teachers. That is a long process -about 12 years. It has to start with every student in every school in a first grade class (or where ever grades are first issued) and follow that class all the way through high school.

    Then students will expect the grades they get because they will know what the standards are.

    The second part of the problem is the idiocy that every student has a right to a four-year degree coupled with colleges accepting less than a 2.0 overall average for admission.

    Then there is the pure-unadulterated BS of a greater than a 4.0 average on a four-oh scale. Evidently the administrators failed math all the way along.


    j.
     
  20. jugador

    jugador New Member

    Generational grade inflation?

    I know this is an old thread, but I'd like to chime in. I'm an old guy, having received my BS in biology with a minor in chemistry in 1971. My undergraduate degree was from a tier 4 college. I was admitted on academic probation to another tier 4 university graduate program with a 2.97 GPA. I BARELY received my MS degree in 1973. My mundane academic performance was not due to a lack of effort -- I worked my butt off.

    Following my retirement after 30 years in science, I decided to apply to a post-baccalaureate certificate of major program in a foreign language program at a quite prestigious tier 1 state university. Admittedly, there were no courses in higher mathematics, physics, or chemistry, but the program did require 30 semester hours of upper division foreign language study -- the same major curriculum required of a degree seeker at the institution. With good grades, such certificate holders can qualify for grad school about as much as regular degree holders.

    I completed the program with a 4.0 GPA, and I even received an unsolicited academic scholarship. I'll concede that we become "older and wiser" with time, but I simply can't believe that my intelligence and work ethic changed that much over the years. In summary, I've "been there and done that" with both generations. Sorry, Generation Xers, but I have to agree with my fellow baby boomers who say that it was more challenging to earn a degree a generation ago.
     

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