August 11, 2014--A for Effort

Nowadays when kids get trophies and certificates for just participating--as opposed to winning or coming in first--is it any wonder that students at highly selective colleges such as Princeton feel entitled to straight A's.

This is an old debate. For decades, since at least the 1960s, academic traditionalists (count me in on this issue) have felt that grade inflation (where everyone does in fact get A's or minimally A-'s) distorts any attempts to draw distinctions between outstanding work, good work, barely acceptable performance, and inadequate (D or F) work. We/I feel that C's are acceptable even in the Ivy League and there are situations where students actually earn D's and even F's.

The counter argument is that it's fiercely competitive out there, especially when it comes to getting into graduate and professional schools, and since places such as Princeton admit only the very best high school graduates, where even those at the bottom of their academic barrel are much better than even the highest-rated students at, which place to mention, say, Acorn State how fair it is to give "authentic" grades at Dartmouth which will result in someone graduating from there not, by comparison, appearing to be academically distinguished, even though he or she is much the better student than an Acorn's 4.0 GPA grad?

But, Yale students and their families say, if the Dean of Admission at Harvard Medical School sees an application from a Bulldog grad who has a 3.20 GPA and another from a Wayne State graduate whose GPA is 3.90, won't the latter be admitted and the one from Yale rejected? All right, be placed on the waiting list.

Absolutely not.

Medical school admissions people look at much more than GPAs. They care about letters of recommendation and especially about applicants' scores on the MCATs. And when it comes to GPAs they know more than you or I about the differences between Ivy League and less-selective college students. They would know, even if grades were given more honestly, that a B from Harvard is at least the equal of an A from Drexel. In fact, they have formula that enable them to make those comparisons.

Having said this, in an era of over-praising, where kids from privileged backgrounds from a very early age hear nothing but how wonderful they are--from their potty behavior to how they perform at age three at dance recitals--getting anything but A's is more than they can handle. Ironically, their self-esteem, because of over-praising and receiving awards for every little thing, is fragile, not what one might expect of children who are so hovered-over and cuddled. These children are smart and know on some level that even they can't be this perfect!

This is not an abstract conversation. The New York Times reported that the Princeton faculty recently voted to overturn a policy they set in 2004 to limit the total number of A's awarded to 35 percent. They did this as grades had inflated to the point that about 50 percent of grades were A's and nearly two-thirds of Princeton students at graduation were earning Latin honors.

The new policy will allow departments to set their own standards. And, it is assumed, since students have been moaning about the 35-percent rule since it was imposed, calling that grading policy their least-favorite thing about the Princeton experience, A grades will again proliferate.

Some are claiming that students have been sabotaging each other's work, refusing to work collaboratively, because there is so little room at the top of the grading curve.

According to Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber, the old numerical targets "add an element of stress to students' lives, making them feel they are competing for a limited resource."

Indeed, they are.

And one might wonder, isn't this what life is all about and don't grades help prepare one for that reality? Not everyone has an A-career, an A-family, an A-bank account, A-health, or A-happiness. Some of us wind up in life with a lot of B's and C's, no matter where we went to college nor the grades we received.