<p>Princeton’s two-year-old grade deflation policy remains overwhelmingly unpopular among the student body, with nearly 75 percent of students believing it has had a negative effect on the University’s academic environment and over a third saying it has influenced their course selections, according to the results of a USG survey being released today.</p>
<pre><code>Though most students indicated that the policy has not affected their choice of major, an even larger majority said they would prefer a revised system, one in which professors are encouraged to grade rigorously while imposing no quotas.
A total of 2183 students 657 from the Class of 2008, 653 from the Class of 2009, 535 from the Class of 2007 and 338 from the Class of 2006 responded to the 22-question survey, which was conducted by the USG this past summer between mid-June and late August.
USG president Alex Lenahan '07 stressed that the survey is a necessary first step in spurring dialogue about the controversial policy. “Hopefully we’ll start a discussion on campus,” he said. “Ultimately the professors decide, and we want to try to begin a conversation between professors and students. I really believe that if it wasn’t in the best interest of Princeton, they would be interested in seeing it change at some point.”
“The reason behind the survey is that there hasn’t been any info that has been put out yet that really shows what all students think about the policy,” Lenahan added. “It’s much better to have quantitative information on where students stand…”
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<p>Unfortunately, a lot of the Ivy League has gotten bad flack in the last few years over this problem, especially Harvard. I think Princeton is taking steps that should be temporary but are necessary. While I understand the complaints that professors shouldn’t grade using a set quota, I think it severally degrades the quality of the degree when over 50% of your graduates leave with honors. </p>
<p>IMHO, honors should be reserved for at most the top 30%, with 5% recieving summa and the top 15% magna. Believe me, graduate schools know which universities inflate grades and which ones do not, and it will affect your admission either positively or negatively.</p>
<p>RenMan, I’m sure an undergraduate will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the current policy states that no more than 35% of a particular class can recieve an A. I’m not sure how the rest of the distribuition falls. I think it’s a fair policy, and the way grading is supposed to work. Then again, as a graduate student grades are secondary to learning for me, so I suppose I might feel different about it if I was an undergrad.</p>
<p>The problem is the implementation of the policy. Midsemester professors are announcing that they are curving grades down because students unexpectedly outperformed last year’s class. Also, some professors are announcing that they are going to better the policy by only giving 20% A-range grades and in some cases fewer than that. This is not after an assessment of the class, but up front. Personally, I don’t think this enhances the students’ learning experience. To me, despite having produced various statistical analyses of the situation and proclaiming these promising, the dean comes across as very self-satisfied about the new policy while being out of touch with the way it is being communicated and implemented on the grassroots level. She is also ignoring the fact that although she stated when the policy came up for a vote that the other Ivies would follow in her footsteps on this, their representatives have made it clear that they have no intentions of doing so. If you are a prospective student, know that if you work hard you can do very well at Princeton. The policy, however, needs work.</p>
<p>There is a major difference between honor’s inflation and grade inflation. They really have nothing to do with eachother and an institution can easily limit honors at graduation without limiting GPA’s (Yale for instance).</p>
<p>Here are some more articles from the Prince in their continuing coverage:</p>
<p>I don’t know about Princeton, but they ranked us at Notre Dame. We didn’t get to know what they were, but our class honors were completely based on it.</p>
<p>Most schools keep internal records of rank, as quite a few graudate schools will ask for it as part of the application. At least this was my experience.</p>
<p>A student’s quintile is kept confidential and is not noted on the transcript. Honors are based on departmental GPA, including independent work and comps.</p>