Suggestions to incoming 2014, re: Grade Deflation

randombetch
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:04:48 +0000

Your welcome Raymond, I’m glad I could help! I guess you’re right - if people did worry less, then it would be less of a problem. Perhaps in the future when it’s established that a lower GPA from Princeton means more than a GPA from Harvard or Yale, grade deflation will be less of an issue. I don’t think that has been established yet though.

Many professional schools (all medical schools, not sure about law/biz schools) have grade reporting services compile the grades from the transcripts, and then they view grades in their own format. Because of this, the letter explaining grade deflation that comes with every transcript is never seen by the admissions committee. I still think that a 3.5 from Harvard (their average GPA) is seen as better than a 3.5 from Princeton (0.22 above average).

tjan - those are some of the courses that I think are very grade deflated. In intro to Japanese, my friend worked her @ss off (she said harder than she’s ever worked for any class in her life) and she pulled off a 93% in the class. That was a B+. In the upper level ORF classes, two of the professors admitted just last week that the students are getting screwed by grade deflation despite what Dean Malkiel says about the policies being more like “guidelines.” Department chairs are held accountable for having higher than 35% A’s in their department - they will not be too happy if professors in their department are giving out more than 35% A’s.