For Noor

Grade Inflation Works for Today's Students By Bill Coplin Published in the USAtoday.com Editiorial/ Opinion section on 4/21/2004

1. The crusade on college campuses against grade inflation has escalated. Princeton may soon implement a policy that no department can have more than 35% A's. At Harvard, the university's undergraduate program has capped at 60% the number of students who can graduate with honors.

2. Grade inflation has been discussed on most college campuses at various levels of intensity for years. But now that two alpha monkeys have taken action, the others are sure to follow suit.

3. As with all crusades, this one is driven by a belief that few dare question: Grade inflation is evil and must be eradicated. But no one has explored the idea that grade inflation may have significant benefits to undergraduates. I find today's students to be better writers, more accomplished at processing information and more knowledgeable about more things than students of 30 years or even 10 years ago.

4. A related assumption is that we are not better teachers than we used to be. I know I do a much better job teaching now than in the past. We have all been helped by better research on how to teach, a wider variety of evaluation tools and the wonders of technology.

'Normal curves'

5. Another set of driving assumptions has to do with competition. According to this argument, pitting students against each other through "normal curves" will push them to learn more. As a student at Johns Hopkins University in the mid-1950s, I found that grade-grubbing pre-meds wrecked many courses. In freshman psychology, they did so well on the multiple-choice tests that approximately 75% of the class scored above 90%. Rather than use the normal guideline that a 90 is an A-, the instructor created a curve so that a score between 90% and 95% would yield a C.

6. Let me now say why grade inflation is good:

7. First, the policy of most universities to allow drops fairly late in the semester has resulted in higher GPAs. My freshman class is called "boot camp" by my successful graduates. Students have to submit five papers during the semester at about two-week intervals. As they get their low grades back or fail to turn the papers in on time, they drop. Most universities permit late drops, which give students more flexibility in finding their interests and exploring their capabilities. This source of grade inflation is clearly a good thing.

8. More important, I have found that students learn, on average, less than half of what they need to learn as undergraduates in formal course work. Therefore, higher grades give them some breathing room to undertake activities from which they can learn what is truly important. As Mark Twain said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

More than grades

9. In order for students in every field to use their undergraduate years to prepare for a career, citizenship and life, they need to develop skills and character.

10. Graduate schools give much more weight to the GRE, LSAT, MCAT and letters of recommendation than they do to grades.

11. And in a survey of 452 employers, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that the employers ranked GPA 17th out of 20 factors they consider when hiring college graduates.

12. The recruitment managers I talk with emphasize the "soft skills," which are rarely covered in college courses that use normal curves.

13. These include written and oral communications, the ability to ask the right questions and a commitment to continuous improvement. Often the skills come from students' experiences away from home, getting along with others, community service, jobs and participating in groups.

14. Finally, grade inflation allows the faculty a chance to provide apprentice opportunities to the best students, such as conducting research in a laboratory, doing a

literature review for a historian or starting a mentoring program for a local community youth agency.

15. Grade inflation provides students with the time and opportunity to have the experiences that will count more. It allows students to escape the limits of formal schooling and take responsibility for their own education.

Bill Coplin is a professor of public policy at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, and author of Ten Things Employers Want You to Learn in College.