I think often schools are forgetting the end game when they grade inflate - getting kids ready for college or the work force.
The incentive of the school is often stronger to get the students into the next level of school (or employment), rather than get the students ready for the next level of school (or employment).
All it does is defer it until their first year of college and then when they see their GPA drop from high school they get hit with the anxiety and low self-esteem then, and then many drop out.
There was a recent article in the paper in my neck of the woods (Ontario) about the adjustment the University of Waterloo’s engineering department makes to the admission marks of applicants based on their high school/ province/country. It was widely known that they did this, what wasn’t known was what the actual adjustments were. A 2 year court battle over a freedom of information request finally resulted in the list being revealed. What it showed was that on average, students admitted to U Waterloo Engineering (arguably one of the most competitive programs to be admitted to in Canada as they get around 13,000 applications for 1600 spots) from Ontario high schools saw their marks drop 16.3% from grade 12. The list showed those schools that historically have had a greater or lesser than average drop in their marks. Students from those schools have an adjustment factor (still unknown) applied to their application score (Waterloo uses holistic admissions). There are most likely other schools and programs that do something similar, it’s just not as publicly known.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4405495/waterloo-engineering-grade-inflation-list/
Now that’s not to say that on average Ontario high schools over inflate grades by 16% as there are many other factors that go into a student’s success in first year (like adjusting to being away from home for the first time) but it does say something about the assessment methods being used in high school grading, especially since the previous provincial government introduced an initiative to try and boost high school graduation rates which encourages an alternative assessment framework from traditional testing. Alternatives you aren’t going to find for the most part at selective universities, especially in first year STEM programs.
^ I don’t know about Canadian colleges. But U.S. colleges also have grade inflation.
@SculptorDad, the top Canadian colleges have much less grade inflation (if any). They still grade like it’s the '70’s.
@SculptorDad wrote:
“At this age of ultra competitiveness, grade inflation has it’s value. High school students suffer great anxiety and low self-esteem. I have no problem easing that a bit.”
That’s because we’ve conditioned them to think that anything less than an “A” is failing - or at least below average. We now have schools like the one in Lake Wobegon in which every child is above average. No one wants their child to be “average” or “below average” but statistically speaking, half of them are. We need some sort of mindset change to accept that not everyone is going to have the best scores, but that scores don’t define future success.
I took interest in this since I am in NC, but I found one major problem with the report- North Carolina schools were on a 7 point scale until 2016. The study says its on a 10 point scale. On their transcripts prior to 2016- there were no numeric grades, just letters- so how could the study know the difference between the 93- A and the 92- B and the 85-C?
Plus, most high level kids take the EOC in 7th or 8th grade, so its not counted in high school GPA, not sure if their scores were counted in this study.
With that being said, there is grade inflation at school. Most of the time it’s applied across the class- everyone is given one retest a quarter to replace a bad grade or they get back partial credit for doing corrections.
I think the “unexpected” angle in the article is that many think of “grade inflation” in terms of marginal students being pushed along so they don’t drop out, so grad rates (HS) are not negatively impacted, etc.
I also read on CC that GPAs from poorer schools are suspect compared to GPAs from “good” (I read wealthy there usually), schools. There is an idea that an A is easier to earn at an inner city school vs a wealthy suburban school.
I feel like that comes up in discussions of states like Texas where the top some-% from every high school are guaranteed flagship admission and how that weakens the pool, how kids think of moving to poorer resourced districts so they can have a higher rank, etc. There is a competition within the school component, of course, if the top statewide 2% were guaranteed admission that would be different than the top 2% from each school being guaranteed admission.
If it’s actually easier to get an A at a school serving wealthy students, that would have some impact on that strategy.
I know our high school has grade inflation although the school and most of the parents will never admit it. This is an affluent mid-west suburb and a top ranked public school in both the state and the country.
A comment was made above about anything less than an A was failing or below average, this was an argument I constantly had with my “not an A student” son but in looking at the results it appears to be the case. I looked back at the GPA distribution in the latest graduating class that has been reported and the top 50% of the class had a 3.425 meaning a "below average student had a 3.4 GPA. A solid B student should not be below average when the very definition of a C is average. Dropping down to the top 75% of the class the GPA was 2.878. This further exemplifies the inflation as these are, based on their grades, essentially B students (above average by definition). If almost 75% of a graduating class is by definition above average something is going on.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that the top 25% GPA is 3.902 and the school no longer reports class rank. Makes it pretty tough for that 4.0 student to apply to schools and scholarships and having to report they are in the 78% of their class.
@PurpleTitan That’s my point. U.S. colleges have grade inflation. So U.S. high school students will not get a trouble when they enter U.S. colleges later. How the rest of world runs matters little for the most of U.S. high school students.
not sure why this is a surprise. Any parent whose kid attends a large public HS can see the difference from when we attended HS. HS class average which used to be a C/C+ is now a B.
This is why class rank is so important to many colleges. (Yes, I get that most high schools no longer rank, but top decile can generally be deduced from the HS Profile.)
Exactly: strong Frosh math students do well in senior math.’ Well, doh!
This is exactly where I’d expect there to be grade inflation. And it’s also why I think it’s a mistake for colleges not to use the SAT, ACT or other standardized tests when considering students for admission.
C means passing, not average. If C were average, that would mean lots of barely passing (D) and failing (F) students.
However, these days, many see B as barely passing and C as failing.
One reason college admissions offices look at test scores is to offset or compensate for grade inflation or deflation. Our son was never a grade grubber but we told him we expected mostly A’s (4.0’s) because he was smarter than the vast majority of his classmates. The latter showed up in his test scores and in his extracurricular achievements in debate and journalism. I don’t think his GPA (ca. 3.8) hurt him in admissions. And it didn’t matter in the longer run.
“C means passing, not average. If C were average, that would mean lots of barely passing (D) and failing (F) students.”
According to the US Department of Education there are 2 methods of grading with descriptions of the letter grade given. In the “Norm Referenced” system a C is described as average and should be those in the 40% to 70% class rank. D’s and F’s should encompass 40% of students (20% each).
In the “Criterion Referenced” system a C is described as fair which in my mind is a synonym for average.
If the Department of Education is stating a C is average or fair there is no way, without grade inflation, that a school should have roughly 75% of it’s graduates with a 4.0 GPA.
You mean https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/grading.doc ?
Those grading distributions or scales are only examples, not necessarily what every school’s grading distribution or scale should be. Indeed, is it realistic to say that 20% of students overall should be failures (F grades), and that another 20% should be barely passing (D grades)?
Not at my kids’ HS. My DD had a 3.7 weighted GPA…and she was 8th in a class of 187. Top 5%.
No grade inflation there.
I wonder if there is a correlation between the schools with grade inflation and those that no longer report rank? I would think schools like’ @thumper1 would need to disclose rank.
Ouch.
(My D was ~3.8x and top 5%.)