Interesting but unsurprising article from the NYT. Link should be gifted. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/yale-grade-inflation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Dk0.dvA7.ZpbUizwPq6o-&hpgrp=k-abar&smid=url-share
A piece by a current student on the topic. SINGH: The Real Value of an "A" - Yale Daily News
Not surprising. There is grade inflation everywhere. “A” is the new norm.
I have wondered whether A+ is the new A.
But then, some universities do not give A+ grades (which I think includes Harvard and Yale).
If the GPA is no longer distinctive enough, the SCL / MCL will still inform who are at top of their class.
Right - kids will need to graduate with latin honors (I assume that is what those acronyms are) to denote being at the top of their class.
Even that is subject to different criteria based on the school. Some universities have GPA cut offs for latin honors instead of a percentage of the class.
I attended a graduation for a friend’s daughter where it seemed like 3/4 of the class had latin honors.
My son graduated high school in Quebec. Did his grade 12 in the US. We were shocked at how easy it was to get an A in the US. When he graduated in Quebec, less than 10% of his graduating less finished with a cumulative average of 90%. He found in the US that 90+ mark was not uncommon. His high school in Quebec was a private one so the standards were slightly higher but, still a dramatic difference.
Having said that, grade inflation is happening in Canada as high schools have realized it is necessary for their students to be competitive with non-Canadian applicants both at home and abroad. Early this week, there was a report that Canadian high school grades performance in Math had slipped over the last ten years. This is striking since many high schools launched STEM programs.
This is really tough on any admissions officer in an SAT optional world. And I am not saying that SAT scores are needed. I know more programs (in schools like McGill) are requiring Casper tests.
If Yale’s grade distribution is 58.26% A, 20.71% A-, and 11.27% B+ or lower, the difference in terms of getting latin honors could be as slight as getting 1-2 A- grades in a transcript full of As.
Last year’s cutoffs were supposedly 3.98, 3.94, and 3.89. An astute Yale student could easily stock up on history of science and medicine or women’s studies classes instead of economics or psychology to preserve that pristine average.
How are these miniscule GPA differences meaningful?
My guess is that choice of major is more important than ever. A level grades in engineering mean something when half the class gets them; in women’s studies, they indicate only a pulse as everyone got them.
The images above (post #4) suggest that about 3/4 of engineering grades at Yale are A or A-. Economics and math had the lowest percentage of A or A- grades (a little more than half). The common pre-med subjects (chemistry and biology) were in-between.
Now, would a pre-law Yale student choose lots of history of science and medicine courses to keep the GPA high for law school application purposes?
A Yale pre-law student wouldn’t need to take any of those classes because the average GPA for the entire class is so high that the average Yale student is basically assured of getting into a good law school. However, if that student’s goal is to get into Yale Law School, that’s a different story. A women’s studies major would make a lot of sense.
Yes, already seeing this at another college with which I am familiar. Premed students who are majoring in what is by reputation the easiest major with highest gpa.
It doesn’t really matter if you spread grades evenly between D’s and A’s, or only compress them to between 85-100.
If people have been trying to look at the overall GPA (which an astute student could always manage to some degree, based on the elective classes taken), to figure how “near the top” the student is, then they can use latin honors instead to still see who is in the top 10% or top 20% (or whatever the cut-off is) of the class-total GPA to have obtained summa cum laude, or magna cum laude.
And, they could even consider admittance into academic (or major-specific) honor societies, such as ΦBK.
Looking at overall GPA was never an “absolute” number - it has always been relative to the rest of the class - and still is, just with a finer resolution. A straight-A student never told you anything about that person, other than that they got better grades than B students. A “100 average” person will still only tell you that they got better grades than a “97 average” person.
Back in my day, something over a 3.5 probably qualified for latin honors. There were certainly “gut” classes (follow the football and hockey jackets), but I don’t recall any gut majors. These days you probably need to look at honors within the majors (which Yale still designates) for a more even comparative playing field.
I do think law schools look at rigor of classes and majors. Also the LSAT acts as a check against kids who breezed through college without really exercising critical thinking and writing skills.
The issue here though is different majors have different grade distributions. A 3.9 Hist of Science, Hist of Med major is not comparative to a 3.85 Econ major.
Or, more generically the GRE and/or subject GRE.
Are you saying the law school AO will downgrade the applicant from Yale/Harvard who majored in women’s studies but had superlative LSAT scores because the applicant studied a nonrigorous major?
The other way around.
You can’t hide behind your GPA, if the LSAT, GRE, … tells a different story.
