Editorial: Translating grades

One of the chief objections that has been raised against grade deflation is that potential employers or graduate school admissions officers will not take the system into account when comparing the record of a Princeton student to that of a student from another comparable university. Like most peer institutions, the University provides instructions for calculating grade point average on a 4.0 scale. Our GPAs are compared with those of non-Princetonians on the same scale even though, on account of grade deflation, a Princeton A does not mean the same thing as an A from a peer school. Even if employers and admissions officers understand the grade deflation policy, it may still be difficult for them to overcome the understandable instinct to favor the student with the higher number.

If the grade deflation policy will be retained, this particular concern should be addressed by adopting a system of grade translation. Instead of using the standard 4.0 scale for calculating GPA, the University should calculate it based upon some other number, for instance five or 10. Such a system would help to solve several problems. First, this new system would force employers to recognize the difference between a Princeton GPA and that of another university: the numbers themselves would be simply incommensurable. Second, this system would also force employers and admissions officers to come to terms with a unique Princeton grading scale, thereby forcing them to learn what a grade at Princeton actually represents. Such a policy would thus both eliminate the harms of direct GPA comparison and help to publicize the role of grade deflation at Princeton.

Some might argue that this system would be ineffective because Princeton does not report GPA. However, the solution seems simple enough. In addition to the grades presented on a transcript, the University also ought to publish a student’s GPA on each official transcript. Several other universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, use such a system, and it works effectively. Some might also argue that grade translation would lead to confusion on behalf of the employer or admissions officer as they adjust to Princeton’s system, but this confusion and adjustment is exactly the point of grade translation. Grades at Princeton represent a different metric than they do at other top universities; one way to ensure that this reality is recognized outside our gates is to adopt our own metric for reporting them.