Grade Inflation – The New Normal at US Universities
“Students aren’t getting smarter," said Stuart
Rojstaczer, a writer and former science professor who calls himself the
country’s “grade inflation czar.” “They aren’t studying more. When they
graduate they are less literate. There’s no indication that the increase of
grades nationwide is related to any increase in performance or achievement”. …
“If you give everybody an A, either people are not
going to take it seriously or those who do take it seriously might get the
wrong impression,” Healy said. “When students receive grades, they’re receiving
feedback on how well they did in their courses, if they put in an equal amount
of effort [in] each one. And [if] they receive higher grades in some subjects,
they logically come to the conclusion that they are good at certain things. It
wouldn’t normally occur to them that they happened to receive a grade that was
out of line”. …
Meanwhile, student evaluations could incentivize
instructors to give their pupils higher grades than they deserve in an effort
to “buy” higher evaluation scores, the study says.”
The above noted article mentions the following 2013 study
published in Applied Economics:
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As Ivy Leagues (and most other universities) keep
inflating grades, one of the most important functions of tertiary educational
institutions – that of signaling the true quality of college graduates – is
falling by the wayside:
According to the above post:
“Companies are
wising up to inflated GPAs. The Council for Aid to Education, a nonprofit, is
rolling out a standardized test for college seniors that aims to show
prospective employers whether a student is equipped for professional life.”
A very entertaining and funny piece by Nathaniel Stein
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A SIMPLE FIX
A straightforward approach to reducing grade inflation:
report average class GPA each term next to individual grades on official transcripts. If
you get an A- in a course where the average grade is a C (class GPA around
2.00), then it is a more impressive accomplishment than getting an A- in a
course where the average grade itself is A- (class GPA around 3.50).
This is analogous to paying attention to percentile
scores (paying more attention to scores in the 95th percentile or higher, for
instance) on GREs and GMATs.