Rigor of Rice's Grading system?

zSquared
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 14:01:52 +0000

Admittedly I forgot that an A+ is a 4.33 here–As and A+s coincided in GPA calculations at my old school.

I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, it does feel somewhat like grade inflation, but on the other an A+ generally seems very difficult to get here, so it wouldn’t feel right for it to be the same as an A, just like it wouldn’t feel right for an A- to be the same as an A. More precisely, it’s hard to see the point in actually awarding A+s if these simply translated into As when used for GPA calculations. My old school did this, and most people had developed the attitude that there was no point in ever trying to get an A+ unless the subject just came that naturally to you or you needed to really impress the professor for some reason.