Quintile quandary

In late September, Registrar Joseph Greenberg sent students an email to students letting them know that each student's quintile rank for academic performance within their class would become available alongside other information on the "My Academic Record" feature of the registrar's webpage. This information would remain a confidential part of each student's academic record, not to be released beyond University gates.

The decision to include quintile ranking comes as part and parcel of the University's new grading policy, which curtails the number of A-range grades awarded by each department. Apparently, the University hoped that by releasing quintile information, it could help students understand their (perhaps deflated) GPAs against a (deflated) broader field of GPAs, assuaging students' concerns about the erosion of their absolute GPAs while at the same time helping them better gauge their relative academic strength. But in its current implementation, the University has added anxiety without adding much information.

Insofar as the release of quintile rankings gives students another indicator with which to understand their performance and reassures students with downward-tilting grades that the quality of their work hasn't necessarily declined, the University's decision made sense. Because quintile rankings stir up new self-consciousness and competitiveness among students, however, the decision has come at a price.

Hard to believe or not, with the posting of quintile ranks, quintile identity issues have emerged on the Princeton scene. Many students have found themselves comparing quintile ranks; some students have found themselves despairing their new quintile caste. While many top-quintile students remained quiet to avoid resentment from their classmates, some fifth-quintilers quickly bonded together in solidarity to announce themselves as "five alive," the rowdy alternative to academic overkill. The new policy not only left many Princeton students stewing over their academic performance, it left some of us still confused as to where we fall in our class, unsure as to whether we sit in the 21st percentile or the 39th, and how this might affect our chances while applying to law school.

The University may have decided against releasing student percentile rankings for fear that this information would create too much GPA idolatry and get under the skin of over-competitive students. And perhaps students would take a 12 or a 1,012 ranking in their academic record too seriously. Still, given that the release of quintile rankings produces anxiety anyway, most students would probably find themselves best served if the University also produced clarity, adding to the registrar's website a more precise index showing what range of GPAs corresponded to what range of class rankings.

In the meantime, without providing us all the information we need to make sense of our academic records at Princeton, the release of quintile rank has succeeded in adding yet another form of status anxiety here.