I’m sure more lenient pass-fail policies would obviously improve GPA’s relative to without lenient pass-fail policies, all else being equal, but (in general, not in the case of Davidson specifically), I can’t imagine the positive effect of lenient pass-fail policies would outweigh the negative effect of the pandemic (on grades). While students at Amherst had the option of converting any and as much grades as desired to pass/fail after the fact in Spring 2020 (up until a few weeks after the spring semester) without it counting towards the limit of pass/fail courses, students were strongly discouraged from doing so (and in some cases, not even allowed to) in classes counting towards their major or classes relevant to their prospective career/graduate school program for any grade at or above a “B-”. Also, the increase in GPAs from 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021 are similar to the GPA increases from 2018 to 2019 and 2017 to 2018, so I do not believe COVID was a factor in Davidson’s grade inflation. Multiple surveys suggest that the average academic performance of college students decreased throughout the pandemic.
Do you have any data to support the notion that Davidson’s peers are experiencing similar rates of grade inflation? The data I have seen concerning other elite colleges on gradeinflation.com , a website that tracks grade inflation trends at numerous institutions, suggests that an increase of this magnitude (more than a quarter of a point) in median GPA in such a short period of time (7 years) is unprecedented.