Princeton wants to cut the number of undergraduates who receive "A-plus," "A" or "A-minus" grades to 35 percent. It got about halfway there last year, when 41 percent of grades were in the "A" range, said the study by the Faculty Committee on Grading.
First thoughts: They're telling teachers what percentage of "A's" they can give out? Isn't that kind of arbitrary? You'd think that a perfesser, especially one at the Ivy league schools, would be able to do his or her own grading.
Second thoughts: Wait a minute, am I showing sympathy for whiny ivy leaguers? Screw that! Somebody sing "Fair Harvard" so I can chuck my name plate at their head.
Third thought: They give out "A-plusses"?
6 comments:
What I've never understood about the student demand for high grades is that it only hurts the students themselves. Back in the day, grades didn't matter at all and merely getting the degree was what counted. You could go a long way with the classic "gentleman's C" approach. Case in point: C-Plus Augustus.
But now that students are demanding high grades, unless you graduate with a triple major and four honors, you're not special. No longer can mediocrity be celebrated at a place like Fair Harvard.
Sounds like a quota system to me...
Teachers at these schools don't provide any real help to the students as most of them will either work for their Daddy's company or for a company that owes their Daddy a favor. See Yale.
Must be a cushy school indeed if the administrators are worried about too many A's. Our big dogs were trying to curb theft, alcohol poisoning, and Friday class skipping.
Inflated grades make it look like students are breezing through school. I knew someone who went to a top school and got almost a 4.0, which means little since almost everyone who goes there has almost a 4.0. "Williams" was all I needed to know. I pity the posh-school graduate who never sees his school on ESPN.
I pity the posh-school graduate who never sees his school on ESPN.
Don't they televise the Mathlete Championship on ESPN 3?
It's not just the posh ivy-leaguers that give out A's to anyone who wants one. A lot of state schools are seriously inflated. Or put it this way, what do you think students who eke out an 'A' at the University of Georgia (UGA) would make at Harvard? At MIT? At Georgia Tech? Students at UGA on average make higher grades than Georgia Tech students. The Dean's List cutoff at UGA is 3.5. At Tech it's 3.0. (At Miami - 3.5; Syracuse - 3.4; Clemson - 3.0; Purdue - 3.0)
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