What? @collegebobollege : That information is available in the Greeklife websites for example where they compare each org’s GPA vs. the whole school and on grade inflation.com.
Course websites like these are also representative of their grading patterns in say, intro. and intermediate STEM courses. http://as.vanderbilt.edu/chemistry/Rizzo/Chem220b/chem220b_S15.html
http://as.vanderbilt.edu/chemistry/Rizzo/Chem220b/Distribution.html
Wow, what a surprise! Their average ended up being about a B-. I would have never guessed…Really typical at elites and non (actually non-elites allow their means to sit lower). If you go through, notice how he gave one exam to essentially lower the average toward it. I have seen this tactic so many times and have also taken many instructors that have low means and then set the curve at C+/B-. This instructor is your standard intermediate/intro. STEM instructor at an elite (especially one in the south). Grades were much more generous in my friends econ. classes (the standard B+ curves- I believed him because I have experienced and observed those grading patterns at my school so it made sense to me and did not sound exceptionally low or high. The distribution published on my alma mater’s econ. website would result in a mean between like 3.15 and 3.3).
I can look at the materials and grading distributions. My friend also tells me what the curves/grades are like that(if they exist) in his other STEM (again, consistent with other course websites and the like) and econ/non-STEM courses (he took the engineering physics section and it was one of those with low mean and a recentered average to B-. He took Singleton for biology who does the same thing and old course websites of his confirm it. His 60-70 averages were centered to B -). They seem consistent with what others (including myself) experience at most other elite schools so I get annoyed when those at one school claim to be exceptional in areas like grading when there is evidence to the contrary. The only schools I’ve heard of (and perhaps data is available on) with truly low grading or deflation among top research privates are MIT and Princeton (and Hopkins I guess) and one is a STEM school and the other had an actual policy that was public.
Inflation in STEM is really only common at certain schools and many know who they are. The so called deflation at Vanderbilt and Berkeley is essentially the norm and is known to be partially responsible for higher than expected attrition in sciences at elite schools. Nothing is new or particularly exceptional. Even at the relatively inflated schools, it has a notorious effect (look up papers that discuss how intro. chemistry courses at both Berkeley and Stanford of all places discourage women and URMs from pursuing science and the things they attempted to do to mitigate those issues).