Why Princeton Is Changing Their Grading Policy

[wheywhey]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...students-who-deserve-as-cant-get-them-report/

Why Princeton students who deserve A’s can’t get them — report

By Valerie Strauss August 9

Here’s an interesting case of unintended consequences in education reform — in this case, grading policy at an Ivy League school.

A decade ago the faculty at Princeton University adopted a grading policy that was intended to distinguish between good and great work but that wound up restricting the number of top grades professors handed out. The policy recommended that each department award no more than 35 percent of grades in the “A” range, resulting in strange grading curves that rob students of A’s they rightly deserve. Last October, new Princeton President Christopher Ludwig Eisgruber formed a committee to review the policy, noting that there had been some unfortunate unintended consequences of the policy (and even “poor behavior” by some professors). The committee’s report was just released (see below) and it exposes an unfair system. The key recommendation:

Remove the numerical targets from the grading policy. Such targets are too often misinterpreted as quotas. They add a large element of stress to students’ lives, making them feel as though they are competing for a limited resource of A grades.

The panel questioned many students and faculty in their fact-finding process. Here are some of the responses in the report:

Several themes emerged from the student responses, and we provide a few sample responses below. Some of the comments revealed poor behavior on the part of the faculty:

“I received a 91 on a midterm exam in a [particular department] course this past fall (my concentration), but the 91 was scratched out and replaced with an 88. When I asked my professor why he reduced my score, he told me that normally the paper would be an A- ,but due to grade deflation, he was forced to lower several students’ grades to a B+.”

“The grading policy is particularly unreasonable in introductory language courses. On the first day of classes, my [language] teacher said that only 3 of us in a class of 11 would receive As. This often means that despite receiving an overall grade of 90+ a student cannot receive an A-grade because some other student got a 91 or 92.”

Another common theme was that the grading policy harms the spirit of collaboration:

“I have experience[d] multiple negative effects from the grading policy. Because of grade deflation it has been extremely hard to find any kind of collaborative environment in any department and class I have taken at Princeton. Often even good friends of mine would refuse to explain simple concepts that I might have not understood in class for fear that I would do better than them. I have also heard from others about students actively sabotaging other student’s grades by giving them the wrong notes or telling them wrong information. Classes here often feel like shark tanks. If I had known about this I very probably would have not attended Princeton despite it being a wonderful university otherwise.”

Some students described how their low grades have had serious consequences, which they blame (rightly or wrongly) on the grading policy:

“I had to drop being Pre-Med here because the grades I was getting in the sciences were too low. I was getting low grades not because I didn’t understand the material, but because the curve was getting messed up by kids who were very advanced in chemistry and taking Intro to Chem and getting 100’s on the exams. Now my parents have to help me pay for a post-bac program so that I can take the sciences elsewhere post-graduation because Princeton didn’t allow me to take the necessary next step to realizing my dream by giving me unfair grades in the sciences. My sister went to [a peer institution] and was pre-med there, and even though I have been consistently better than her grade wise growing up, she was able to receive A’s in all the science courses and attend [a top medical school]. I don’t even know if I have a shot at [that medical school] because of Princeton. Not because I’m not qualified or a good applicant, but because Princeton’s grading policy makes me look like a poor applicant compared to other students applying with incredibly high GPA’s.”

“I earned a college scholarship at the end of high school. To keep the scholarship, I had to maintain a 3.4 GPA throughout college. I did not have a 3.4 my first semester due to grade deflation in large introduction classes and lost my scholarship. Also, many internships have 3.5 or 3.6 GPA cutoffs. They don’t care what school you go to or that Princeton has grade deflation. Your application isn’t considered if you don’t make the cutoff.”

Some students told the panel that they liked the grading system, but so many didn’t that the committee members decided to recommend a grading policy overhaul.​

​

 

[L&HH]

I had a statistics teacher like this as well as other professors. It was fukking whack. Dude intentionally made the tests impossible to finish. Worst part is he didn't hand back the previous years tests as study material because he reused tests. Some students had friends who knew ppl who took the class in previous semesters and they were able to get the tests. I was lucky in that the 2nd test I had the previous test to study from, and it was the EXACT SAME test. But I still didn't finish, I was able to breeze through the early portion of it from memorization but the last couple questions weren't necessarily the same and those were the hardest and most weighted.

 

[babylon1]

i worked my ass off in college for nothing. i've yet to find a potential who employer who asks about grades or requests a transcript

 

[L&HH]

i worked my ass off in college for nothing. i've yet to find a potential who employer who asks about grades or requests a transcript

There's good reason for that:

Google HR Boss Explains Why GPA And Most Interviews Are Useless

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013-6#ixzz3AvYyyLwV

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013-6

 

[babylon1]

There's good reason for that:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-hires-people-2013-6

then why bother grading to start with

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

some grading policies are straight up retarded. I remember in cost accounting I ended up getting a C+ when in reality I had a B, you had to maintain a test average within 5% of the letter grade you wanted to get. My test average was like 74% and I had enough total points for my grade to actually be 80% overall but I was given a C+ because of that stupid rule.

 

[L&HH]

then why bother grading to start with

My guess is, they need some kind of a metric to verify the work you've done. No matter how inconsistently it may be applied between different teachers teaching the same class at the same university let alone what's being done at different universities.

It's funny, Princeton is guilty of grade deflation and Harvard is the exact opposite, so they say

 

[Killer Instinct]

Weed out courses were the worst.

 

[babylon1]

My guess is, they need some kind of a metric to verify the work you've done. No matter how inconsistently it may be applied between different teachers teaching the same class at the same university let alone what's being done at different universities.

It's funny, Princeton is guilty of grade deflation and Harvard is the exact opposite, so they say

then just go to pass/fail

 

[Mr. Somebody]

So basically they're implementing affirmative action for their grading system so certain students can pass.

 

[wheywhey]

“I had to drop being Pre-Med here because the grades I was getting in the sciences were too low. << SNIP >> My sister went to [a peer institution] and was pre-med there, and even though I have been consistently better than her grade wise growing up, she was able to receive A’s in all the science courses and attend [a top medical school].

I saw something similar with two sisters. One sister wanted to be a lawyer and the other sister wanted to be a dentist. The older sister went to Harvard and graduated from Harvard Law School. The younger sister went to Duke and now works for AT&T.

 

[L&HH]

then just go to pass/fail

I never knew about pass fail until I got to college and I had a bro at Yale and another at mit. Both had pass fail systems their freshman year and I agree. I believe some form of this should be used throughout

 

[EndDomination]

So basically they're implementing affirmative action for their grading system so certain students can pass.

No
Say you have a 100 person class, and say 35 kids get a 93 or above. You get a 92. You get a B. Even though you did A work, you still get a B. Its worse with smaller, more difficult classes, where a mid level B could end up a C or eve a high d due to grade deflation.

 

[Serious]

Weed out courses were the worst.

Organ Chem

 

[Killer Instinct]

Organ Chem

Organic is complex regardless of where you take it, but I wouldn't say that was a weed out course at my univ. Some folks say it was at theirs.
My university tried to get the pre-health kids to quit long before that, though.
Intro Bio and Gen Chem were the courses more kids dropped than anything. You made it through your year in both of those, you were more or less in the clear.
On top of the impossible exams, neither of the Chem professors spoke good English.