<p>A study by Andrew Abbott at an elite university showed an almost negligible income difference after 5 years (may have been longer) between those undergrads earning a 2.8 GPA and those who earned a 3.8. I remember him saying that all that work required for the 3.8 isn’t really justified for the slight difference in eventual income (if career and income is the motivation).</p>
<p>Again, I am not sure what schools were considered, but an instructor told me that at places like the University of Phoenix, one of the criteria they measure an instructor is if the students continue on in the school or drop out. So being a tough grader may work against the instructors as that might affect how many classes they are asked to teach in the future. Again, I realize that the audience for University of Phoenix is different and do not frequent CC, but I just want to point out that privates range from Harvard’s to …</p>
<p>divergent - tending to move apart in different directions</p>
<p>Didn’t want you to assume I misused a word :)</p>
<p>Prior to the 1965 with the initiation of the Higher Education Act the student populations at state and private schools were more comparable. Low income students didn’t have access to either publics or privates. With the exception of the GI bill benefits, college was only available to those of means. Thus the pool of applicants to private and public schools were at least middle class and more similar in terms of cultural capital available, literacy level of parents, etc. Additionally, most community colleges were typically technical training programs and did not become feeder programs for state universities until the 1970’s. The fact that the private and public schools began to draw from more distinctly different pools of applicants could effect the GPA’s. Kids coming from less academic backgrounds will initially struggle in a college, earn poorer grades but be on par with their more privileged peers by junior year. </p>
<p>If you examine percentage of students receiving Pell at Flagships and top privates, there is a big difference. Looking at lower tier privates versus lower tier publics is a different story. The difference in percentage of aid recipients is not as great Lower tier schools often have poor endowments, are fighting to stay alive and actively recruit low income students with Pell or disability money in order to stay afloat.</p>
<p>These are some of the variables that I think weaken the assumptions of the article.</p>
<p>Well stated, hornet.</p>
<p>The colleges whose data were analyzed for this report are listed at the end of the document under giddey_up’s link. Not clear how those colleges were selected (perhaps because they were the only ones with the necessary data?), but this list seems to reflect some of the biases noted in this thread. Only a small number of engineering schools were included in the analysis, which increases the likelihood of bias in those results, too.</p>
<p>Link to Pell grant data: <a href=“http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/pellgrant.pdf</a></p>
<p>And for the curious, a more elaborate data base: <a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/quicktables/[/url]”>http://nces.ed.gov/quicktables/</a></p>
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<p>I really have to wonder if anybody is reading the study, or just fighting fiercely against it for some reason.</p>
<p>We are not talking about comparing poor academic quality entering students to high achievers. The authors looked at students of equal academic ability. They developed two formulas, one based on the high school performance of the student, and one based on the SAT of the students. They found it didn’t make a difference, they had to add a compensating factor for the public verses private across the board. </p>
<p>Average GPA = 2.8 +0.005<em>SEL + (if school is private add 0.2)
Average GPA = 2.8 + 0.001</em>(SATMV-850) + (if school is private add 0.1)</p>
<p>“SEL is a selectivity measure that represents the average of the percentage of students with high school GPAs above 3.75, the percentage of students who graduated in the upper 10% of their high school class, and the percentage of student applicants rejected.”</p>
<p>I have absolutely no idea what the Pell Grant data has to do with anything. If you are implying poorer students are less academically prepared, maybe so. But this study accounts for that possibility with the equations above. Rather than using Pell Grants as a proxy, it looks at the incoming student’s high school achievement.</p>
<p>The only argument I have heard that makes sense to me in disputing this is that kids work harder when they have to pay more. But the financial burden of a public is not always less than that of a private. It depends on the school and the finances of the family. I wouldn’t mind seeing a study on this.</p>
<p>“We are not talking about comparing poor academic quality entering students to high achievers.”</p>
<p>Why not? I am arguing that the article is misleading because it does not sufficiently cover potential confounds. Income level and prior preparation are two possibilities.</p>
<p>I don’t plan to respond to this thread again. Too much hostility!</p>
<p>^^^
I am arguing a point of view. I don’t see what’s hostile about that. Too bad you aren’t responding or you could show me where I’ve been hostile. </p>
<p>When I say I don’t think people have read the study, I say that because people keep talking about the article rather than the study. Then they mention things that are already confronted and discussed in the study. I at least like to debate from a common point of origin.</p>
<p>There’s actually a lot of pressure on faculty at the elite private schools to grade on a generous curve. (I can’t really speak about those further down the pecking order as I’m less familiar with them). Mostly that pressure comes from the students, but some may come subtly and indirectly from the administration. The students know that GPAs DO matter for admission to highly competitive professional schools (law, medicine, and business, principally), in combination with LSAT/ MCAT/GMAT scores. Even at the very best professional schools, undergraudate GPA and standardized test scores are the primary criteria by which admissions decisions are made. Undoubtedly, the kid with a 3.2 GPA from Harvard will get the nod over the kid with a 3.2 from Podunk State if their test scores and other credentials are substantially the same. But that’s small consolation to the kid with a 3.2 from Harvard who’s competing with kids with 3.8s and 3.9s from Podunk State, since other things equal the 3.8-3.9s will beat out the 3.2s in the professional school admissions game almost every time, regardless of the nameplate on the undergraduate degree. After all, the professional schools have their own US News rankings to keep up, and that means those at the top end can’t admit too many applicants with 3.2 GPAs if they want to stay at the top.</p>
<p>Knowing all this, the students at the elite privates say: “Look, I’ve been admitted to an elite private school and I’m surrounded by really smart classmates; I’m doing OK, around the middle of a very smart pack, but I shouldn’t be penalized in the professional school admissions process by being graded on a normal curve as against all these superior students. I should be graded on a more generous curve that reflects the superior quality of my class. Otherwise, I’d have to question whether it’s even worth attending this expensive private school, if being here only makes it more difficult for me to get into the professional school I want.” </p>
<p>Faculty at the top privates have more or less bought that logic and for the most part grade on a much more generous curve than they (or their predecessors) did in the past. Whether that’s normatively a good thing or a bad thing, I’ll leave it to you to judge. But I think it’s just a widely recognized fact within academia that this accounts for much of the grade inflation at the high-end privates. The pressures toward grade inflation are not nearly so great at public universities where most of the students are not contemplating admission to the nation’s top law, medical, and business schools, and those that are will likely be at the high end of the GPA curve anyway.</p>
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<p>I wanted to say that but I didn’t know how. You’re right, bovertine, I haven’t read the study, just the article. I’ll take a look at the study this evening.</p>
<p>Interesting read from the link posted in #80</p>
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<p>I read that also POIH. Once again, since I think this is something everyone knows I don’t think it has any impact. When I was in school everyone knew that grades in the sciences tended to be lower than grades in non-science fields. It didn’t mean people didn’t major in sciences, it meant they could expect it to be harder to get higher grades. It made it more meaningful when someone got As in their science classes.</p>
<p>It doesn’t affect acceptance to graduate level programs because it is true across the board so all students are in the same boat.</p>
<p>The article also does not take into account that in public Universities there are students in the classroom with lower stats (both HS GPA and SAT’s) with high achieving students. The classwork must reflect the abilities of the average student in the class or state U’s would not be graduating a large percentage of their student body. As a result of this wide range of abilities it is clear that the level of work will be different as well as the GPA’s.</p>
<p>Very interesting question, but I also think the method is apples to oranges, leading to useless results.</p>
<p>I would be more interested in trends in the LAC GPA distribution over the years. Or whether LAC GPA’s are trending towards lower grad/law/med school qualifying exam results.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that follows at all, except possibly in some introductory-level classes. In upper-level classes, students at state universities tend to cluster into different tiers based on ability. The more advanced students tend to take more advanced and generally harder classes sooner and with greater frequency than their less-well-credentialed peers. By their junior and senior years the top students in many academic majors are taking graduate-level classes alongside other stellar undergrads and highly qualified grad students, and they may be interacting with “average” undergraduates little, if at all, in the classroom. Those advanced undergrad and graduate-level classes may be every bit as challenging, and populated by students every bit as well credentialed, as the undergrad courses at top private institutions; but often they’re not graded on as generous a curve as you tend to see at the privates. I’m not saying the top undergrads at state universities necessarily have it tougher than similarly-credentialed undergrads at highly selective private colleges; but to assume they’re not doing as challenging work, or somehow benefiting from an easier grading curve, is simply unwarranted.</p>
<p>Remember the graduate level courses will be graded on a graduate level curve, which means As and Bs.</p>
<p>When my son took graduate level engineering courses as an undergrad at a state school, he showed me the grade distribution. Pretty brutal, with lots of C’s and D’s and a couple failing grades. So, I guess it would depend on the school.</p>
<p>@ frazzled – that sucks. I probably depends on the department also.</p>
<p>I’m curious if class curves have ever been surveyed. I know my son’s recent P Chem class’s mid-term grade at our local 3rd tier flagship was a median of 64 before the curve, and I’m pretty sure that 6 - 10 points were given to everybody, suggesting that the ‘curve’ was designed to bump up the class median/average to about ~ 70, or the minimum passing grade of a C-.</p>
<p>Even after the curve, 1/2 the class failed …</p>
<p>I should clarify, I am interested in what curve method people are encountering</p>