Saturday, August 9, 2014
Princeton and Wellesley May Re-inflate Grades
Princeton and Wellesley are considering reversing actions they took a decade ago to curb grade inflation: Princeton capped A-range grades at 35%, and Wellesley imposed a mandatory B+ median in introductory (100) level and intermediate (200) level courses with at least 10 students:
Princeton, Report from the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Policies Regarding Assessment and Grading:
Wellesley, The Effects of an Anti-Grade-Inflation Policy at Wellesley College:
- Business Insider, Harvard Students Told College Applicants Not To Go To Princeton Because They Wouldn't Get As Many 'A's'
- Chronicle of Higher Education, 2 Word Clouds That’ll Tell You Nothing About Grade Inflation at Princeton
- Chronicle of Higher Education, Princeton Faculty Group Recommends Axing Policy That Limits A’s
- Daily Princetonian, A-grades Decreased the Most Before Deflation and Have Increased Since, Committee Finds
- Inside Higher Ed, A For Effort
- New York Times, Princeton Is Proposing to End Limit on Giving A’s
- Newsweek, Princeton Looks to Scrap ‘Grade Quotas’
- Quartz, What Happens When an Elite American University Kills Grade Inflation
Update: The Economist, What the Ivies Can Learn From Wellesley
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/08/princeton-and-wellesley-.html
Comments
I have to believe that most students at Princeton, if graded against objective criteria, rather than on a curve, are more than capable and motivated to achieve high grades in all of their courses...I just don't see there being many slackers/under performers, other than the occasional legacy trust fund brat...
Posted by: Anon | Aug 11, 2014 4:58:59 PM
The bar graph would be revealing if it were not so predictable.
Posted by: Mike Petrik | Aug 11, 2014 2:21:24 PM
Did anybody notice that most of the courses with no grade inflation were STEM, and most of the courses with the worst grade inflation were leftie dominated subjects.
Posted by: richard40 | Aug 11, 2014 2:17:16 PM
@richard40 - When did the right embrace the sciences? Could it be that the STEM courses offer more objective grading material? Perhaps a paper discussing the impact of an historic figure is slightly more difficult to assess against other similar but varied papers than say seeing if everyone knows 2 + 2.
Posted by: Daniel | Aug 12, 2014 6:13:09 AM