"Who could ever have imagined that we would reach a point where a student with a straight B average would rank 923 out of a graduating class of 1079 — or where a student with a C average would rank 1078?"
This question appears in bold text on the first page of a report sent to faculty members in late February after a University committee analyzed trends in grades given to undergraduates in the last three decades.
The report, a copy of which was obtained by the 'Prince', warns that both grade inflation and grade compression — narrowing of the range of grades given — are ongoing trends that are not being reversed despite recent administration efforts to combat them.
"We could leave it alone, [but] is it responsible to let the trend line go up?" said Nancy Weiss Malkiel, dean of the college and member of the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing, which authored the report. "As educators, we owe our students a well-calibrated sense of how they're doing."
Among its findings, the report found that the median graduating grade point average of the Class of 2002 was 3.46, or between a B+ and an A-.
Between the fall semester of 1997 and the spring semester of 2002, 45.5 percent of grades in 100-400 level courses were 'A,' 38.7 percent were 'B,' 7.3 percent were 'C,' and 1.5 percent were 'D' or 'F.' Seven percent of grades were 'Pass.'
Inflation and compression are not new problems, Malkiel said. In fact, the rate of increase in mean grades has slowed somewhat since 1997, according to the report. Nonetheless, Malkiel said the current system does not adequately recognize outstanding work.
The committee requested that each department meet to discuss its grading standards and send the results to the office of the Dean of the College by May 20.
Malkiel said the likelihood of major changes in grading at Princeton is "very small." The goal is to be "a little more responsible, a little more discriminating," she said.
Before any changes are made in grading or reporting of grades, student committees would provide input, Malkiel said.
"We'd have a long discussion with students and the faculty," she said.
The current report is a continuation of similar work done in 1998-99 by the committee, when it told professors to begin looking at their methods of grading.
Average grades actually dipped in the 1998-1999 academic year, but now the current report states the "seemingly unstoppable trend" of rising grades has resumed.
Departmental variation
The economics department has discussed the issue and distributed grading data but does not plan any major changes in its grading policies, said Professor Gene Grossman, department chair.
"Our data for course grades are reasonable. There's a bigger spread than in the University as a whole," Grossman said.
The report does not show data for individual departments or professors, but it does break down grading among the University's four divisions.
Since the academic year 1997-1998, humanities courses have awarded a mean grade of 3.47, engineering courses 3.37, social sciences 3.32, and natural sciences 3.16. Classes in a program have a mean grade of 3.51.
In the astrophysical sciences department, the large enrollment of the introductory class tends to skew the average grade, said department chair Scott Tremaine, because students who take the course PDF are not included.
Tremaine said the students in the small department's upper-division courses are highly motivated to study astronomy. "We do not think it's a problem if the grades among our majors are relatively high," he said.
'Rigorous grading'
USG president Pettus Randall '04 said grade inflation was not a concern he had yet heard about from students.
"I think we have a very rigorous grading process, and the academic integrity of this institution is not being undermined by the grades that are being given," he said. "Unless Princeton is statistically significant above the average, then I don't see it as a student concern," he added.
Independent work
The report also gave data about the grading of independent work, which is consistently higher than class grades. In the most extreme case, 76.4 percent of senior independent work by engineering majors received a grade of 'A-' or higher.
Thesis advisers are more involved with their students and may therefore grade higher.
"You're much more invested and implicated. To what extent are you grading yourself?" Malkiel said.
The report asks the faculty for their opinions on other responses to inflation, such as putting "contextual" grades — such as the median grade in the class — on My Academic Record or the transcript, or making departments' grading averages available to students.
National trend
Grade inflation and compression are national trends occurring at similar institutions, Malkiel said.
In 2001, Harvard University became the focus of a debate over inflation after a Boston Globe article focused on the 91 percent of graduating students who received honors.
That controversy was "demoralizing" for students, said Rohit Chopra, president of Harvard's Undergraduate Council. Measures were taken to reduce honors inflation, but "largely what happened was symbolic," he said.
"None of this would have happened if the world didn't have this obsession with Harvard and grades," Chopra said.
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