<p>Gah, I tried to post something but I lost everything. Four main thoughts:</p>
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<li><p>This has been an interesting thread, thanks everyone. It’s too bad TrueBear/etc. haven’t been able to put up a good argument. I basically agree with sakky on diagnosis, but am ambivalent about prescription. (Part of me wants to agree totally, but another part is uncomfortable with establishing a policy of grade inflation.)</p></li>
<li><p>Devil’s advocate: The California Higher Ed system viewed as a whole does a pretty good job of giving students second chances. A Cal CoE dropout can eventually make his way through CCC/CSU/UC, graduate, and end up fine. Also, super-prestigious awards like Marhsall/Rhodes scholarships and the like aren’t a good metric because the a lot of of this discussion is about the students who are sort of in the middle–the best of the best will do well enough in any program to qualify, and if not, will do great things later on in life anyway. </p></li>
<li><p>Devil’s advocate: Keeping all the grades on a transcript is a moral imperative. Cal may not be doing things in its own best interests, but is still doing the right thing. (Also, it gives employers that are more like sakky a leg up over those that are more like TrueBear; transcripts that hide bad grades also hide “gumption” [love the word] along with hiding failure.)</p></li>
<li><p>Cal’s average GPA actually seems to be pretty high, the highest in UC, so maybe the argument that students who can’t hack it at Cal (average GPA 3.28) could hack it at Davis (average GPA 2.91) is wrong. You can see the data and breakdowns by college and department at [url=<a href=“http://www.campusbuddy.com/]CampusBuddy.com[/url”>http://www.campusbuddy.com/]CampusBuddy.com[/url</a>] (free login needed). It appears that the site includes grad student grades in this since the GPAs for all technical departments other than math seem a bit high, so technical vs. nontechnical comparisons will be hard. However, assuming that grad-undergrad ratios are the same at different schools, comparisons between campuses should be doable.</p></li>
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<p>And finally, a thought about grade inflation and PhD programs: I would expect that Cal students would do pretty well in getting into PhD programs because it seems like student work ethic and knowledge matter more for PhD program quality than they do for medical and law school program quality. (I.e. mediocre med students have less of an effect on med school program quality than mediocre research assistants have on PhD program quality.) Can anyone say whether PhD programs give more compensation for hard programs than med/law schools do?</p>
<p>Oh and another thought: what have Chicago’s and Cornell’s experiences with (comparative) grade deflation been, and how might they teach us about Cal? In particular, Cornell seems like the private school most similar to Cal.</p>
<p>“Oh and another thought: what have Chicago’s and Cornell’s experiences with (comparative) grade deflation been, and how might they teach us about Cal? In particular, Cornell seems like the private school most similar to Cal.”</p>
<p>Knowing Cornell students, trust me, they complain about the same thing. It’s the fact that the deflation of grades just doesn’t seem to correlate with higher rewards upon getting out of college than if they’d gone to an easier graded school. </p>
<p>“(Part of me wants to agree totally, but another part is uncomfortable with establishing a policy of grade inflation.)”</p>
<p>Like I say, a good option is perhaps that of Harvey Mudd, Caltech, MIT etc…tough schools for technical subjects, which basically give part of [if not the whole] first year as a non-letter-graded experience. This avoids inflation, but all the same gives a cushion which other top schools seem to be giving, so as to allow for a test run with tough subjects, i.e. encourage risk-taking.</p>
<p>“he California Higher Ed system viewed as a whole does a pretty good job of giving students second chances. A Cal CoE dropout can eventually make his way through CCC/CSU/UC, graduate, and end up fine.”</p>
<p>Well, I think the main concern of mine [and a lot of this thread] isn’t to prevent COE students from dropping out, it’s just to let students have a test run with the COE before committing. I.e. before their GPA is smeared. </p>
<p>“Can anyone say whether PhD programs give more compensation for hard programs than med/law schools do?”</p>
<p>I hear that they do take it into account. My friend spoke with his adviser, who is on the admissions committee for Berkeley’s Ph.D. [perhaps in an EE or CS area], and they for instance view a high Stanford GPA differently from a high GPA elsewhere. Nevertheless, most people aren’t headed for top grad schools like Berkeley, and I’d argue that the top Stanford GPA’s are going to be exceptional in many ways anyway, and the fact that their GPA may not be as tough to come by as one from a more competition-intensive school likely won’t correlate with less grad admissions success. However, yes, if two students are close by in GPA, and a school with harsher grading sends a student’s application with slightly lower GPA I’m sure it’ll be taken into consideration at least to an extent…this isn’t law school! Nevertheless…I think it’s crucial to have insanely high grades for Ph.D. programs <em>anyway</em>. </p>
<p>Grad school isn’t really the biggest problem though…I don’t think Cal students are really at a disadvantage there. Because I really think if you’re aiming for schools like Stanford, Berkeley and MIT for a Ph.D., you should be able to get a pretty darn up-scale GPA even in Cal engineering in the first place!! Cal has exceptional faculty + a very good department, and that’s most important for grad school. Not every admissions process, though, CARES about Cal’s departments. Certainly not the ones which are number-based and just look at GPA. </p>
<p>“Cal’s average GPA actually seems to be pretty high, the highest in UC, so maybe the argument that students who can’t hack it at Cal (average GPA 3.28) could hack it at Davis (average GPA 2.91) is wrong.”</p>
<p>Maybe. Keep in mind that Berkeley engineering students generally had preeettty high stats coming in, and a lot of them are just plainly great students. Don’t know about other majors. We’re mainly discussing the evil ones though =]</p>
<p>“Well, I think the main concern of mine [and a lot of this thread] isn’t to prevent COE students from dropping out, it’s just to let students have a test run with the COE before committing. I.e. before their GPA is smeared.”</p>
<p>I’m not heartless. I just think it’s a PRETTY good bet that you’ll figure out how good of a fit engineering really is for you if you try some classes early on. Take EE20, EE40, etc early on, and you’ll get a picture. Lots of upper div classes are much harder, but I mean, if you’re getting a B or above in the above, I THINK you could survive the upper div.</p>
<p>The real problem is that the grade inflation is concentrated within certain majors, namely the humanities and social sciences; the physical sciences and engineering have comparatively little grade inflation. </p>
<p>The only difference is that there is no actual official “policy” regarding grade inflation. But I don’t see why that matters as grade inflation is happening anyway, policy or not, but just within a subset of majors. All I am proposing is that Berkeley acknowledge and transparently manage a phenomenon that already exists. Shutting one’s eyes and ears is not going to change the reality that some majors at Berkeley are graded easier than others. </p>
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<p>But why should have to go down that road? After all, the CoE is the most selective college within Berkeley, and of course Berkeley is the top UC, which means that anybody who was good enough to get into the CoE was clearly one of the very best high school students in the state. Why can’t such a person just be “readmitted” back to Berkeley, but within L&S, on just the strength of his high school transcript, with his old engineering record wiped? Or go to some other top UC such as UCLA? Why does he have to be relegated to a community college? Just because you perform poorly in engineering at Berkeley, your old high school record is obviated? </p>
<p>After all, just think about what that means. A person who went to the CoE and flunked out would have been better off had he not even gone to college at all - i.e. had simply entered the workforce right out of high school - for by doing so, he could still apply to college with a ‘pristine’ high school academic record. Even if he had a terrible career - i.e. got repeatedly fired for laziness or poor performance - his academic record would still be unblemished. So he could still probably apply to and get into a top UC. But if he goes to the CoE and performs similarly poorly, he is relegated to a community college? I ask you - where is the justice in that? </p>
<p>The bottom line is that people should not be harmed by trying out engineering; they should be no worse off than somebody who didn’t even go to college at all. As I discussed previously, Jennifer Granholm’s academic career was not harmed just because she tried and failed to become a Hollywood actress after high school. She was admitted to Berkeley at age 21 and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and then went on to Harvard Law, where she graduated cum laude. Nobody seemed to care that she was a “failed” actress. What’s the difference between that and a “failed” engineer? </p>
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<p>Both MIT and Caltech have policies that hide certain grades from outside parties. Are you saying that both MIT and Caltech are not doing the right thing?</p>
<p>Well, all I would say about that is that you can see for yourself what sort of graduate programs that Berkeley students end up going to on career.berkeley.edu. While some of them do indeed attend top Phd programs, others end up in programs that are, frankly rather mediocre.</p>
<p>Consider chemical engineering. While some Berkeley ChemE’s do end up in top PhD programs at schools such as MIT or Stanford, some also end up in programs such as Louisiana State University - the #55 ranked ChemE PhD program according to the NRC. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many Berkeley students who are champing at the bit to attend the #55 ranked PhD program in their field. </p>
<p>But hey, at least the guy got into a PhD program. Many other Berkeley students can’t even do that. For example, if you have below a 2.5 GPA - and I know plenty of Berkeley engineering students who have that - you’re not going to get into any PhD program at all. Heck, you’re lucky to even be able to finish your bachelor’s degree at all.</p>
<p>“Why can’t such a person just be “readmitted” back to Berkeley, but within L&S, on just the strength of his high school transcript, with his old engineering record wiped? Or go to some other top UC such as UCLA?”</p>
<p>Yeah this is also an important thing. Getting into the COE, and then having to go to some school of no comparable name is really not fair. I’m sure there will be those who’ll argue with a “Life’s not fair” sort of attitude, but how productive is that really…unless I’m much mistaken, a well ranked school is there to maximize chances of success.</p>
<p>“Both MIT and Caltech have policies that hide certain grades from outside parties. Are you saying that both MIT and Caltech are not doing the right thing?”</p>
<p>This is also something I’ve seen people REGULARLY are ignoring. I mean, heading down the road of genuine “forceful boosting of class averages” would be harder to institute. But I can’t imagine why someone would be against the Caltech + MIT system. After all, Caltech is reputed to be <em>on average</em> more difficult than both MIT and Berkeley, even if students at the latter schools can make it as hard for themselves as is possible. </p>
<p>I honestly think the first year really DOES function only as a “get used to college” time anyway. Give me a break, how many of those classes really matter in terms of your ultimate specialized future? They’re just numbers on paper, and having those numbers, which really only reflect how well adjusted you were to college + how well you fit into your major doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.</p>
<p>Erhm, bad wording: “having those numbers, which really only reflect how well adjusted you were to college + how well you fit into your major doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.”</p>
<p>I mean “having those numbers…hurt you doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.”</p>
<p>“But hey, at least the guy got into a PhD program. Many other Berkeley students can’t even do that. For example, if you have below a 2.5 GPA - and I know plenty of Berkeley engineering students who have that - you’re not going to get into any PhD program at all. Heck, you’re lucky to even be able to finish your bachelor’s degree at all.”</p>
<p>Also I’ll admit, I am dangerous to speak to on grad school issues. I guess I would likely forget about Ph.D. programs in my own fields completely if I weren’t admitted to a relatively top one…so I fail to acknowledge others exist. Probably a bad attitude, so I’ll leave it to Sakky to talk of grad school.</p>
Gee, maybe the person moved to Louisiana to work for the oil industry and they got their degree from LSU for other practical purposes. Pulling this info and criticizing it without knowing the circumstances behind it is pretty meaningless.</p>
<p>Maybe a lot of things could have happened. But I think it is quite likely that the guy ended up at LSU simply because he couldn’t get into anywhere better. After all, he could have gone to Texas. He could have gone to Rice. These are schools that are all located around the Gulf Coast petrochemical corridor yet have far higher ranked ChemE PhD programs than does LSU. </p>
<p>Look, it’s perfectly fine to choose a relatively low ranked school (in a particular discipline) for undergrad because it is highly likely that you won’t end up pursuing your major for your career anyway - for example, very few history majors actually become professional historians. But a PhD is quite different; it is a significant commitment to one’s chosen discipline. You would have to have very highly extenuating circumstances to want to intentionally choose a much lower ranked program for your PhD, if you can get into a high ranked one. But of course that presumes that you can actually get into a high ranked PhD program, which is precisely my point.</p>
He could have? How do you know? Maybe he got fully funded and liked the researcher.
Maybe a spouse works, or has family nearby…or other commitments. We don’t know.</p>
<p>Like I said, a lot of things can happen. Maybe I’ll win the lottery tomorrow. Maybe in the next 5 minutes, the whole world will blow up from a nuclear war.</p>
<p>I’m going to go with what is likely. After all, we’re not just talking about one guy who ended up at a Phd program like LSU. One guy ended up at RPI. One guy even ended up at UCSC. A bunch of guys ended up at UCDavis (and I know those guys personally). I think you have enough examples such that it should be fairly clear that some people ended up in PhD programs that were lower ranked they they would have liked, but they were the only ones they could get into. Heck, the Davis guys that I know have all admitted that they would have far preferred to have gone to a school like Stanford, but they didn’t get in.</p>
<p>“You would have to have very highly extenuating circumstances to want to intentionally choose a much lower ranked program for your PhD, if you can get into a high ranked one. But of course that presumes that you can actually get into a high ranked PhD program, which is precisely my point.”</p>
<p>Honestly it is true that likely, one would choose a high ranked program over low ranked ones. I mean, it is noble and legitimate to go somewhere else if you like the research + faculty in some way, but I don’t think many would choose a lower ranked program because their higher ranked one didn’t have the research they wanted…unless the schools are really comparable.</p>
<p>Plus add on the fact that going to a low-ranked program just because you happen to like the research + faculty is rather dangerous because that can change. For example, the advisor you want to work with might quit to take a job at another university. That’s happened to quite a few people that I know. Heck, in one (sad) case, the advisor actually died. Or the advisor might simply decide that he doesn’t want to work with you, either because he lacks funding, or there is some personality clash, or he simply has too many other commitments, etc. Hence, you have to pay heed to the fact that you may not actually get the advisor that you want, and hence have to determine whether the rest of the school has sufficient resources for you to be successful. </p>
<p>The funding angle also doesn’t seem credible to me, as the top programs tend to have far more available funding than do the lower-ranked programs. Even if the funding comes with a assistantship commitment (as opposed to “full” funding), I hardly see how that is a serious problem, heck, you should actually not mind an assistantship because it will help you build your CV (and if you’re not interested in building your CV, then why exactly are you getting a PhD?) </p>
<p>The inescapable fact is that academia/research is highly elitist. In that line of work, you are going to be judged on where you got your PhD from, whether you like it or not, whether it is fair or not. It is one of the career paths where your alma mater really does matter quite a bit. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I can perhaps understand a moderate drop in ranking, i.e. say, from top 5 to in the 20’s. But all the way to #55? That’s going to take some pretty strong extenuating circumstances.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with going to a non-top graduate program. Surely it’s better to go to grad school than be unemployed. And when I mentioned PhD programs earlier, I probably should have said academic graduate programs of any kind (including MA, MS and MEng programs).</p>
<p>As for transcript completeness, it’s plausible to argue that Caltech and MIT really shouldn’t be hiding any grades at all. Also, I have the impression that MIT will release freshman grades for medical schools at the student’s request (can anyone confirm this?). </p>
<p>The CoE trap really should be changed. From what I have read, the main reason this exists is the politics of L&S not wanting to be seen as taking the “dregs” of CoE. I don’t know why we even have academic divisions between L&S, Engineering, Chemistry, CNR, CED and Haas. It’s not like L&S with 16,000 undergrads is more manageable than a generic undergrad college with 21,000 undergrads would be. The other colleges could just become divisions within L&S the same way Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, and Arts & Humanities have divisions.</p>
<p>One thing I’m uneasy about is that we’re talking about designing policies that are good for “average” students (so, maybe 2.5-3.3 GPA types), but then mainly use examples for students at the extremes–either we talk about students who are in the running for top jobs or grad schools (and I would argue it probably doesn’t matter what undergrad they go to), or who do really badly and are stuck. I understand the idea of taking limiting cases, but conceivably there are effects unique to people in the middle.</p>
<p>“Surely it’s better to go to grad school than be unemployed.”</p>
<p>Sure, by that logic, a student in the COE shouldn’t worry if he’s failing out of school, because some child in Africa probably has it worse. I mean come on…we’re trying to discuss what is best for students, not whether what they have is the worst that could happen! </p>
<p>“As for transcript completeness, it’s plausible to argue that Caltech and MIT really shouldn’t be hiding any grades at all.”</p>
<p>Can I hear a well thought out argument for this? What is the purpose of grades? It’s to give some measure of a student’s success in college. Allowing for a test run in tough schools like Caltech and MIT serves one great purpose, which is to put on the transcript the grades to the classes students take <em>AFTER</em> figuring things out a bit. I really don’t think one can debate that it’s the relatively later stages of a student’s academic career which really reflect how he/she grew and developed. PLUS if test runs are encouraged, we are also encouraging academic risk-taking. It says something that schools assessing academic caliber like grad schools care most [if not ONLY] about the later years for GPA. If GPA in the first year can <em>still</em> have negative impacts for irrational reasons, I don’t think it should be kept. I mean, I think one would have a hard time arguing that the transcripts of Caltech and MIT students who do well in what they study actually don’t reflect well what they have done in college.</p>
<p>For instance…say a student had a rough move into first year. Got like, a 3.3. But later on, figures it out, and averages a 3.8 for soph. year and onward.</p>
<p>Hey, I didn’t say it was bad. In fact, I freely stated that getting into LSU for grad school is better than not even being able to get into grad school (if you want to go to grad school, that is), and certainly no comparison to flunking out of undergrad completely. I know quite a few engineering students who flunked out. </p>
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<p>The only med-school I have ever heard that demands this from MIT premeds is JHU. You can just simply choose not to apply to that med-school. Harvard Med, for example, makes no such demands from MIT premeds. </p>
<p>Regardless, whether it is plausible or not to argue that they should not be hiding grades, the fact remains that they are doing it. Let I don’t think anybody would accuse either school of being soft - in fact, they are arguably the most rigorous and toughest schools in the country. If those schools can do that, I don’t see why it is necessarily so outrageous for Berkeley to do the same. </p>
<p>But of course even all that misses the main point, for there are plenty of other schools (especially the one in Palo Alto) that effectively “hides” bad grades by not even giving them out in the first place. Like I said, it’s practically impossible to flunk out of Stanford. Even Berkeley runs similar grading schemes - but only for certain majors. For example, it is practically impossible to flunk out of American Studies. I’m not saying that you will always get top grades. But you won’t flunk out either. Hence, I think it is an entirely legitimate question to ask why the other majors at Berkeley won’t do the same. </p>
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<p>Yeah, my counterargument to L&S would be that the ‘dregs’ of the CoE are still better than the ‘dregs’ of L&S, yet they still accomodate the latter. If anything, the L&S should be taking in the former and kicking out the latter.</p>
<p>But that still presumes that you actually know who the dregs of L&S are, and like I said, it’s practically impossible to perform poorly in certain L&S majors. You could be an absolutely terrible student in American Studies yet still have a passable GPA. </p>
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<p>First off, I would carefully define what we mean by ‘average students.’ We’re not talking about some overall average school here. We’re talking about Berkeley. Berkeley is the crown jewel of the UC system, which itself by law admits only the top percentile of high school students. Hence, the Berkeley undergrad student body, taken as a whole, is clearly an above-average student body, relative to the average college student. </p>
<p>Given that, I think it is entirely appropriate for these students to expect to be able to garner top jobs, top grad school placements, and top international scholarships. They shouldn’t have to be relegated to be working as baristas at Starbucks after graduation, which is apparently what happened to at least one English graduate. Or the head cashier at Barnes & Nobles (well, at least it was head cashier). Or a lumber puller at Lumber Baron. Or as wait staff. Come on, really, if you were going to end up with jobs like that after graduation, then why even go to Berkeley at all? You could have gotten those jobs right out of high school. Heck, I know people who worked at Starbucks baristas who didn’t even graduate from high school. </p>
<p>Now, of course, some may argue that maybe those people wanted those jobs. Fine, fair enough, maybe they did. But I can also talk about Berkeley students that I know personally who ended up with low-level jobs that they didn’t really want, but was the best they could get. I know one guy who ended up working as a security guard at Safeway. I know another guy who ended up hauling boxes at the Fedex distribution center in Oakland for $12.50 an hour. They freely admit that they don’t really want those jobs. But they couldn’t get anything better. The upshot is that lots of Berkeley students end up with average (or in some cases, below-average) jobs, despite the fact that Berkeley is clearly an above-average school with an above-average student body. The problem seems to be that Berkeley doesn’t seem to be really interested in helping its students get better jobs or better grad-school placements.</p>