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Nearly half of all college grades are A's

Such Irony

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Nearly half of all college grades are A's


Do you think there is too much grade inflation in college? Or do you think the students for the most part earned those grades? Do you think high grades are given out too easily?

If I got an A in a course and found out that nearly half the students also got an A, I admit that I wouldn't be as proud of the achievement then if only a small percent received an A. I do think there is definitely grade inflation going on and I don't think all the students who got an A, necessarily did A-level work.

Part of the problem I think stems from the tenure process for teachers. Receiving tenure depends in part on students' evaluations of teaching. If you are too difficult, students are likely to rate you lower. So I think some teachers feel the pressure to be a little easier grade wise.

On the other hand, I don't believe in grading curves where only a certain percent should get a certain grade. Sometimes you do have a class where the students are particularly bright and motivated or a class where students are particularly dumb or unmotivated. The grade distributions should be different for these classes.

In some graduate school classes, most of the students get an A. I don't necessarily see a problem with this as graduate students are more likely to be highly intelligent and motivated and they probably do deserve the A.
 

prplchknz

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in grad school according to my sister in law a is passing b is failing basically. so you have to make all a's to succeed in grad school
 
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Glycerine

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From the classes I have had, some were definite easy A's but others were classes where the prof prided in themselves that very few got As or A-s but I managed so the link may or may not be exaggerating a bit. My post was referring to undergrad private school..

It's very easy to get Bs but you have to work a bit for the A's I've noticed.
 

Blank

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It's very easy to get Bs but you have to work a bit for the A's I've noticed.

Generally my perception, although some classes were much easier to get A's in.

Although, I will say my peers definitely held back my professors from moving on at times.
 

Randomnity

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They published the averages for my classes in undergrad and it was usually in the 60s. I think they also publish the % who get A/B/etc....I don't remember any class where half the class got an A. Closer to 20-30% from what I remember.

I thought this was weird: "60 percent of college students feel that their intellectual ability is "above average," with the implication that this is a problem. It actually sounds on the low end to me - the below average students don't make it to college. Unless they mean "above the average college student", which they didn't say, and which would also not really be relevant to the point, since I'm positive that more than 50% of people think they're "above average" intelligence.

edit: grad school everyone usually does get an A. But that's different. I don't think it's because the classes are easy, I think it's because grad school specifically targets the group of people who were getting As in undergrad.
 
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Glycerine

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Other things I would like to note is that I think grades are somewhat about how smart you (10%) and how well and willing you are in playing the game (90%). A little is about being able to think for yourself but most of it is about giving what the teacher wants and possibly going a little beyond that in undergrad.
 

rav3n

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Considering the Flynn Effect and the impacts of easy access to knowledge through the Internet, the number of hours spent studying might not be relevant to easy grading. And if you perceive it from this perspective, is it possible that there's a knowledge difference between the southerners and others that account for the appearance of more difficult marking through the NBER study? At present, kids appear to be more canny and focused on their areas of interests at an earlier age.

So then, does this mean that education MUST be made more difficult to accommodate for the increase of knowledge? If so, why is it so important to categorise children into respective cattle call chutes?
 

Eckhart

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I find foreign school systems a bit confusing, so I ask: College = High School, like university?

If so then I think it greatly depends on the courses, at least here, cannot speak for others of course. Some in my university are rather easy to pass, and there are many good grades as a result (although nowhere close to being more than half students getting best grade). However some courses there is only a small minority of students who passed at all, and you are happy when there is even one who has not just passed with a crappy grade. Some majors have probably more easy courses than others.
 

Usehername

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Speaking as a college instructor, the problem is that when everyone in the community has redefined what those letters mean, to give grades according to the old meaning is problematic. It's like saying "gay" only means "happy." It doesn't, and you can't impose that old meaning onto today's standards without knowingly bucking them.

I grade papers old-school but give significant participation/homework grades (which I hate, but it's the lesser of two evils. I'd rather adequately diagnose their performance and then acknowledge effort than inflate the quality of their performance and misrepresent their work's value). This way pre-everythings whose grades do determine their futures have some wiggle room with the new cultural standard but I can still grade according to their performance. When I'm older I'll be more mean but that's the way my department does it and since I'm still learning to teach I'm following their standards.
 

Lark

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Comparisons, comparisons, comparisons.

Everyone is satisfied until they think about the next or the other guy, why bother? If you where pleased with the grade why would knowledge of others having similar grades diminish it?

To be this is, again, one of the down sides to consumer culture, its the academic equivalent of "I wanted it until I found out everyone had one".
 

FunnyDigestion

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I think college is becoming increasingly irrelevant, & decreasingly special... & I think trends like this are indicative of people getting dumber... due to how much is readily available to them. The more that's easily available to you, the less you work, & the less you develop. Nobody becomes a great person by sitting around in a bubble of suspended animation, never having to exert any effort at anything.

I find college absurd & ridiculous for the most part... but I know that for some people it's a good thing.
 

lunalum

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I see the study only includes 4-year colleges and universities. It's a whole different world in the community colleges here, which are a lot more C-majority. Like [MENTION=5109]Glycerine[/MENTION], there are also the professors here who will say that they don't even give As (but of course a couple of students get As anyway). But then it sort of makes sense that the students who got the grades in high school to be admitted to university would continue to get better grades than those who didn't, and this especially extends to graduate students who must have got spectacular grades in college. It's all pretty arbitrary though.... as long as there is some variance in the student's scores and the awards given/future employers adjust to the grade inflation then go ahead and let more students feel the satisfaction of the little letter A (and maybe bring back the A+ to let those who did ridiculously well still feel all superior ;) )


I find foreign school systems a bit confusing, so I ask: College = High School, like university?

"College" is nearly the same as university in the U.S., both are postsecondary (after high school, which is for everyone). It is a confusing system though...
 

xisnotx

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I go to a large state school. There is, I think, a standard by which they judge how many A's are acceptable. Whenever I've looked into the matter..it's always seemed like it's been
15% A's
25% B's
The rest; C's, D's, F's,incompletes, withdrawals, and "change to audit".

I think the mean GPA is 3.1 ish...and that's taking into account all the upper level classes where they all get A's and B's. That means there are definitely a significant amount of people who are getting B's and C's.

It doesn't even matter anymore..like someone said...what a grade means for one school, can mean a different thing altogether for another. Even among teachers...you can probably, overall, boost your grade up a couple points simply by choosing the right teachers..and doing the same amount/caliber work.
 

Haight

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Everyone is satisfied until they think about the next or the other guy, why bother? If you where pleased with the grade why would knowledge of others having similar grades diminish it?
Dude, what are you talking about? The value of a particular grade is relative to the overall grade distribution.

I like my B a lot better if no one received an A. Conversely, I don't like my B if everyone else received an A grade. Therefore, I am never satisfied until I know what the grade distribution was and where I fell on the scale.

Either way, grade inflation is a fact of life. B is the new C, etc., etc.
 

Lark

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Dude, what are you talking about? The value of a particular grade is relative to the overall grade distribution.

I like my B a lot better if no one received an A. Conversely, I don't like my B if everyone else received an A grade. Therefore, I am never satisfied until I know what the grade distribution was and where I fell on the scale.

Either way, grade inflation is a fact of life. B is the new C, etc., etc.

I dont see it that way, the same way that I dont think that accreditation or qualifications should be a sign post to privilege or guarantee of employment, studies are studies and should be about an individual's acquisition of knowledge.

A lot of the time when I hear people complain about grade inflation it is about pulling up the ladder once they have secured their position, like all the new labour politicians who rushed to abolish tax funded university tuition fees and subsistance grants and associated benefits for students when they had benefited from them themselves.

The more I hear about stuff like this the more I think that Ivan Illich will be vindicated in the end.
 

MacGuffin

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Some classes are definitely easier than others. I would take classes in other people's majors (like poli sci) for fun and a much easier grade. No one outside the engineering school ever seemed to take my chem or engineering classes for the same reasons.
 

Xenon

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Some classes are definitely easier than others. I would take classes in other people's majors (like poli sci) for fun and a much easier grade.

Yeah, I did the same. Majored in molecular bio; took a few psychology and sociology classes for fun/interest/easy A. Even with these courses, I don't think the marks were half As. It might be different here in Canada. In most of my classes, the average was in the low 70s (considered a low B).

If everyone's grades are getting inflated, I don't think it really matters. Students will still compare their grades to the class averages; entry into grad schools and post-degree programs will still depend on getting high marks relative to your peers, etc. Only way I can see it being unfair is if there isn't consistency between schools or programs, and students from one school or program have an advantage over others because they have an easier time getting high marks.
 

Beargryllz

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Here is how I would want grades done in a perfect world:

I always figured that, for a proper assessment of the student's abilities, there should be as many A's as there are F's. These are outliers, of course, but it would be the most fair way to assess academic prowess. You would know exactly who is excelling and who is doing the opposite of excelling. I mean, if nearly half of the grades are A, then how many Bs are there. Add the two together. These are good students. They are significantly better than the average students. Average students should be the majority. But average isn't good enough. It is degrading and we have enormous egos. So everyone gets A instead.
 

Green_Pine

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I think that, as a matter of policy things seem to get hairy.

On one hand, if everyone get's A's, who is truly the best? I think they ALL are then the best, and then academics should not be a deciding factor on what have you.

Now, I understand upper levels only have so many spots....for this, I have to defer to professors actually dealing with it.

To be honest, I do not feel that any class I earned a B in, I truly mastered. Not all A earned classes, were mastered either...but were darn close.
 
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