Suggestions to incoming 2014, re: Grade Deflation

PtonGrad2000
Sat, 30 Jan 2010 12:46:03 +0000

Randombetch:

I suppose if a school gave every student a 3.0, then a 3.0 would be “enough” to get those students into medical school?



For a school of Princeton’s caliber, I would say, yes, assuming that these students were still scoring at the highest levels on the MCATs and did well in their interviews. (As I’ve pointed out in the analysis above, successful Princeton medical school applicants are receiving the same average MCAT scores as their fellow students at schools where there is a great deal more grade inflation.)

Think of it this way. According to reported statistics, students at CalTech have the highest average SAT scores in the nation by a large margin. This is widely known by graduate school admission committees. Were CalTech suddenly to decide, as university policy, that all of its students would henceforth have their GPA’s uniformly lowered to 3.0 would it make any difference in how graduate school admissions committees would view them? Would those students suddenly be ‘dumber’? Those admissions committees would now see that every undergraduate coming from CalTech had a 3.0 but still had high GRE scores and great recommendations from professors. The graduate school admission committees would simply ignore the GPA and look at other factors.

I think what is often missing here is a discussion of the philosophical underpinnings of grading systems. I would suggest that even professors have different opinions and I believe that many (including you, Random) believe that grades represent a judgment against some universal standard. In other words, some feel that there is something that can be identified as “A” work, “B” work and “C” work without reference to the work of any other student in a particular class. Now if this were the sole theory of grading then, since most Princeton students were “A” level students in high school, they should all be “A” level students in college. This seems to be the theory that is used to justify grade inflation at many schools across the country where the claim is made that the ‘quality’ of the enrolling students has increased in recent years thus explaining the rise in average GPA. The problem with this theory, however, is that, if followed to its extreme, it eviscerates the other important functions of grading systems. If all students receive “A’s” then there is no way of assessing one’s performance in comparison to one’s peers and those who are not self-motivated to do their best work, will not. Those judging the performance of students coming from such a school will not be able to use grades as a measure of relative abilities. This is the same problem that undergraduate admissions offices have with high schools that do not report grades. In the absence of grades, they simply look more closely at class rank and standardized test scores.

There is, however, another way to view grading systems and this is to see them not as systems of comparison to some universal standard but systems that attempt to compare your work to the work of your peers. Compared to the work of a student at a community college with very low academic expectations, yes, you might be doing “A” level work in your organic chemistry class. But the world will not judge you on this standard. Instead, you will be judged within the academic peer group to which you belong. Is a “C” in an organic chemistry class at Princeton indication of greater mastery of the material than a “B” in a similar class at the community college with low academic performance? Absolutely. Is that “C” an indication that, in comparison to your fellow students who received “A’s” in that Princeton class, you have not achieved the same level of understanding? Absolutely.

Like it or not, the world will always judge you in comparison to those it thinks are your peers. Witness the criticism of Brett Favre as a ‘poor’ quarterback because he threw the interception that cost the Vikings the game last week. The American public graded him a “B” in comparison to Colts quarterback Peyton Manning, who, based on his performance in the other game that weekend, has a 4.0! Do any of the “armchair quarterbacks” who criticized Favre for his decision to throw that pass think that they could have done better? Probably not (other than the very dull-witted ones). Brett Favre is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history but this year, he wasn’t as good as his football ‘peers’ and that’s the way his performance was assessed.



Randombetch:

Of course a school with an average GPA of 3.28 is going to have an average medical school acceptance GPA less than that of a school with an average GPA of 3.51.



I think you’re making the argument for me here. The point of my previous analysis was to show just that. Princeton applicants with lower GPA’s (but apparently the same MCAT scores) are getting accepted to the same medical schools as applicants from schools with much more grade inflation. Again, I would turn this observation on its head and point out that if you have a 3.5 GPA from a school with significantly more grade inflation you will be at a disadvantage in medical school admissions compared to a Princeton applicant with a 3.5 GPA coming from an environment where there is much less grade inflation.



Randombetch:



3.53 is 0.25 higher than Princeton’s average of 3.28
3.71 is 0.20 higher than Yale’s average of 3.51

If anything, students accepted to medical school from Yale had to be less “better-than-average” than Princeton students did.





I hope we’d all agree that this distinction (i.e. a difference of .05 on a 4.0 grading scale) is just a little too small to be very worrisome and the gathering of the Yale statistics is suspect since the school does not report them officially and that number comes from surveys taken by the student newspaper. My point was simply to show that the evidence suggests that admissions committees are admitting Princeton students to the same schools as their peers despite the lower GPAs. Exact measurements are admittedly impossible.

quote=Randombetch




Fair criticism.



Randombetch:

PPS, thanks for the statistics! I’m very happy to know that the average GPA of a Princeton student who got into a top 5 med school is 3.76, since that’s right around what my GPA looks like.



I’m sure you’re on the right track here and it’s clear that you’re working hard. That’s a terrific GPA from Princeton. I have no doubt but that this will be reflected in your MCAT scores as well and that you’ll end up at a fine medical school! Furthermore, I think this is what Princeton wants, that is, students who will be motivated to work hard to learn and to challenge themselves, not simply to assume that they ‘deserve’ the highest grades because they did so well in high school. Keep it up.