As reported in the Daily Princetonian, Princeton is proposing a 35% quota of A's on a per department basis (departments will be able to divide up the A's among the courses as desired.) What do you think? Will measures like this curb grade inflation or will the inflationary trend as reported at www.gradeinflation.com continue?
Princeton proposes "A" quotas to curb grade inflation
- Thread starter cquark
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jman19
Lifer
- Nov 3, 2000
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I think he meant grade inflation is why he has no respect for them, even though that isn't what he said.
At least I hope that's what he meant... I have plenty of friends who go to top universities but do little actual work and still end up with 3.8+ GPAs, and I wouldn't exactly consider them geniuses.
dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
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Very bad idea (although many places use it). Lets do some ROUGH math.
Assumptions:
1) Assume there is a rule that 15% must fail each class (quite a generous curve, as I've seen policies where 20% must fail in many curves).
2) Assume that if someone fails a class in his/her major, then he/she drops out of the department.
3) Assume there are 10 semesters (about average now), and assume you take at least one class in your major a semester.
4) Assume students drop out at a 10% per year rate for other reasons (an iffy estimate on my part, adjust the numbers if you wish).
5) Assume that if a student drops out, he/she starts from scratch in a new major.
1st semester: only 85% of people survive.
2nd semester: only 72% of the starting people can pass. So after 1 year you are forcing a 28% dropout rate - not very good.
1st year is done: 10% drop out since college isn't for them. 65% remain.
3rd semester: 55% remain
4th semester: 47% remain
2nd year is done: 10% drop out as college isn't for them. Only 42% of your students are left.
By last semester only 13% of your starting students are allowed to graduate. It doesn't matter if you started with all straight A, perfect SAT, genious students - you still force 87% to drop out. Would you go to a school that forces 87% to fail? That policy is sickening. By your senior year, the weeds should have already been weeded out. You should be left with a strong core of cabable students. Why still force 15% of your most gifted students to fail each semester just because you have a stupid policy?
My policy (will have full control of my first university class in the fall - chemical engineering numerical methods for undergraduates): I will set a few goals that I think students must learn. If they show that they mastered them, then they pass. If not they fail. If I get a bunch of bright students, they'll do great. If not, many will fail. Why should I punish the classes with bright students and reward the classes with not-so-bright students? Don't give me any crap that all classes have the same quality of students. I've TAed enough to know better (plus I've been in bright and in not-bright classes).
Grading on curves is ridiculous to begin with. Grades should be given proportional to the amount learned in relation to the amount of knowledge taught. Failing someone who got 1% less than someone else because of the teacher's poor test making is not right. If everyone is getting As, the testing is too easy and that should be adjusted.This is consistent with curving grades "up" because if an entire class does poorly, it's the professor's fault for having unreasonable expectations for the given students who should be typical of the university. That's how every class I've been in at UT has been. Ivy school priofessors that do the strict curve have this "we are gonna be hardasses" mentality. They have no problem failing every student, and they simply say "You all should have studied harder". It's part of the power trip that goes along with the research and BMWs.
Btw, to the person making the comment about the old universities or whatever... grade inflation or not they are probably still a better education than wherever you go to.
Good point about set curves. I take it from your comments that you disagree with Princeton's quota proposal too?
Ivy League universities offer a good education in most fields, though most aren't exceptional in engineering or computer science (Cornell and Princeton being exceptions) or the physical sciences (Harvard, Princeton, and Cornell being exceptions.) However, it's worth noting that excellent researchers aren't always good or even adequate teachers and may not care much about teaching. If you go to an Ivy League school, you need to understand that what you're buying with your money isn't a much better education than people are getting at other good U.S. universites. What you're buying is the prestige of their name and an opportunity to meet people who are important now or who will be important in the future. Both elements are well worth paying for if you know that's what you're doing though. That said, there are highly reputed universities where you can find professors who do focus on teaching, but they often aren't the "grand old universities" that the previous poster mentioned.
Your system is entirely too rational for any professor to understand. I got an average of 96% on my lab reports and got a B in a class because the professor didnt want to give out too many A's. Seriously, he told me this to my face. He never gave out class averages after reports were graded so you had no idea how you were doing relative to the class. I was getting good grades and never thought twice about it.
I wish someone had told me that when I was deciding on college.
While true, there is no excuse for any college to provide substandard education simply because it has a 'name'.
dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
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It is easier to argue against the failing quota than it is to argue against the A quota (which is why I shifted the subject to an example of failing).
About 15% of my undergraduate classes were honors sections. You had to (1) qualify for the honors program, and (2) be accepted by each departement that you wanted to take an honors class in. Thus most of my peers in those classes were quite talented. I knew some friends who took honors courses and they were graded on a curve with quotas. Luckilly I happened to avoid those cases.
The engineering college at my university gave scholarships to every engineering student with cumulative straight A's. $500 for getting straight A's as a freshman, another $750 for straight A's as freshman and sophmore, and another $1000 if you made it through your first 3 years without a A- or lower. I got the first two and just missed the third scholarship (my only class without an A or A+.) I have accepted the lower grade and the loss of $1000, since it was my fault (misread one word on the final). However, I would have been POed if I lost the scholarship in an honors class with forced quotas.
Thus yes, I'd be against forced quotas on A's.
However, realistically I think Princeton's idea is the only way to change things. Grade inflation is just rampant, especially in ivy league schools. I'd take it as a necessary evil on the way to a better university. Princeton's department quota is better than a per class quota (it could be set up to not have an impact on honor's classes for example). Fundamentally professors need to change the way they score students. Tests need to be more difficult, homework needs to be harder, etc. If just one professor changes, then students learn to avoid that professor and nothing happens (Harvard had an example of this in the news a few years ago). I think a forced department quota is the most realistic way to fix the problem.
True.
After reading this thread and some thought on my own, I agree. This solution does have its downside as your quota example demonstrated, but grade inflation will continue if no structural remedy like this is proposed. Professors who don't have tenure are under some pressure to get good evaluations, and unfortunately there is a strong correlation between grades and evaluation numbers. There's also the problem that many universities make it so easy to drop classes well into the term that students who would receive a low grade end up dropping instead, which should be fixed directly by tightening drop requirements.
Either they'll have to curve people down or their classes are going to be at a PhD level to have only have 35% of the grades to be A's.
While Princeton admits a high caliber of student, so do Caltech and MIT and past experience has taught those schools to make their freshman year pass/fail because of the difficulty.
Hah. All my professors are researchers and they are excellent teachers. Then again they aren't labcoat researchers. One of them collects data in the Alps, Andes, Rockies... Another in the Amazon.. etc etc.
I didn't say that being a researcher made a professor a worse teacher. What I said was that quality of research doesn't imply quality of teaching, and that professors at research universities (6.6% of US universities as defined by the Carnegie Classification System) are chosen and promoted for their quality of research, not their quality of teaching. I was advised many times in the course of completing my PhD to devote only the minimal time required to do an adequate job at teaching, and to focus primarily on doing an excellent job at research. It's good advice if you want a job and tenure at a research university.
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