Can Harvard students deal with an 'adjusted GPA' as a solution to the issue of grade inflation, which has run rampant at that illustrious university? This is a pertinent question given some months earlier they went ballistic when Harvard finally opted to cap A's. ( Wall Street Journal article ('A Harvard Cap On A's Has Students Smarting', p. A3, April 4). Noting:
For years, Harvard has been handing out A's in abundance. Now, a proposed cap would pump the brakes-and students are up in arms. Harvard's faculty is set to vote next week on a proposal to cap the number of A's per course, which now make up more than half of undergraduate grades after years of inflation.
But now, a novel method of controlling the number of A's could be the answer, proposed by WSJ guest columnist Neetu Arnold ('Whip Grade Inflation Now', 6/17, p. A13). We learn:
"There's a way to address the grading system directly while preserving faculty autonomy by adding an inflation adjusted GPA on student transcripts.
A student's transcript would show two overall grade point averages. Next to the traditional GPA will appear a second number which adjusts course grades based on the median grade in each class. A student who earns an A in a course where the median grade is also an A would receive less of a boost than one who earns an A in a tougher course.
If a student filled his schedule with easy A classes, his transcript might show a 'traditional GPA' of 4.0 and an adjusted GPA of 2.7. This large difference communicates that the student's traditional GPA overstates his academic performance."
Of course, there is no way to know whether such a proposal wouldn't also generate howls and cries of "too much paper work, too much complexity" - not to mention; "Hey! I earned that 4.0 I don't want it mucked up by grading on a curve!"
And he or she might be correct if grades were given straight, and not deformed by the fear of student evaluations. But since the latter still dominate at most universities, to judge which professors merit promotion or tenure, we cannot just assume that the grades given aren't based on fear of a poor evaluation.
The fear factor can (or its absence) can either determine giving a solid, no-holds barred mid-term or final exam, OR an easy peasy cakewalk exam. In order to generate mor A's. If an exam is proper for a given level - including a 3rd year Harvard course in astrophysics or economics- it should possess considerable discriminatory power. So, even in a class of 30 Harvard over-achievers it ought to be able to separate out the 10 percent or so who demonstrate peak excellence and really merit As. This as opposed to having such an absurdly easy test that 40 percent or more get A's off it.
Wharton School (Univ. of Pennsylvania) Professor Adam Grant didn’t like this and wrote in one NY Times review piece some years ago:
"The more important argument against grade curves is that
they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one
another. At best, it creates a hyper-competitive culture, and at worst it
sends students the message that the world is a zero sum game."
Pitting students against each other? Didn't that have to occur to show they were Harvard material in the first place? I hate to break this to our Wharton School prof but the world does
operate according to a zero sum game. More to the point as Arnold writes in her WSJ piece:
"The risk of seeing such stark GPA discrepancies on transcripts would make it untenable for students to demand higher grades. Students would know that pressuring professors for grades they don't deserve could backfire. High achieving students would also have an incentive to avoid overly lenient classes - or even encourage professors to grade more rigorously."
Adding:
"An adjusted GPA system would redirect student and institutional pressure on professors away from lenient grading toward rigor. Lenient graders rather than rigorous ones would have to adapt."
What's the big deal? It's because the 'lenient' professors are the ones terrified of bad student evaluations, which then tends to warp the grading standards across the board. To quote one physics professor in an article (Teacher Harassment and Loss of Respect') from the Aug.2020 Physics Today:
One protocol I've always disliked was the written student evaluations of professors. A strong correlation holds between students earning low marks in physics and the ones submitting unfavorable remarks.
On the flip side, students who excel in rigorous, challenging courses will finally get their due, in terms of receiving a boost in their adjusted GPA. As the WSJ writer notes:
"Today their outstanding performance is lost in a sea of A's."
For the sake of educational authenticity as well as making the grading process transparent to employers and graduate admissions officers, we need to reduce that 'sea of A's' to a stream.
See Also:
Excerpt:
Like monetary inflation, runaway A’s in higher education are a collective-action problem. About two-thirds of grades at Harvard College last school year were A’s. That doesn’t count A-minuses, which were another 18 percent, meaning fewer than one in six grades were a B-plus or lower.
You might have guessed grading at Ivy League schools was lenient, though not this lenient.
There’s a thoughtful solution on the table. Unfortunately, amid a student revolt last week, Harvard’s faculty postponed a vote to impose a cap on A’s. Forging ahead with the plan anyway would send a promising signal about merit and competition in American higher education.
Grade inflation — like the inflation of a currency — is a collective action problem. Professors increase the share of A’s they hand out because they know other professors are doing so and breaking from the herd would have costs. Just 35 percent of grades at Harvard were A’s in the 2012-2013 academic year, but the number climbed at a rapid clip and then surged during the covid pandemic.
The result is a collapse in the informational value of grades, especially at the high end. “As GPAs accumulate against the wall of 4.0,” a Harvard faculty committee report noted earlier this year, “the small numerical differences that remain are less reflective of genuine variation in academic performance than random noise in the grading process.”
The proposal under consideration would cap the share of A’s an instructor can give to 20 percent of the class plus four students. That means that in a large introductory course, the share of students who could get A’s — 24 out of 100, for example — would be lower than in smaller courses, which tend to be more advanced. Up to eight A’s would be available in a class of 20.
This effort matters because Harvard has the stature to prompt similar changes across the rest of higher education, where grade inflation has also been rampant. Princeton and Wellesley both tried to respond to grade inflation with caps but abandoned their efforts in 2014 and 2019, respectively.
A major objection from students at Harvard is that going back to grading on a curve will discourage them from participating in extracurricular activities. But the core purpose of campus life is learning, not socializing or networking, and academics have been excessively devalued at Harvard in recent decades. This would help restore the balance.
And:
Thanks To Grade Inflation University 'Cum Laude' Honors Are Now Meaningless
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