News & Notes: Dartmouth columnist comes out in support of grade deflation

According to Dartmouth’s Report on Grades and Related Matters for the 2009-10 academic year, the column says, 55 percent of grades given during that year were A-minuses or above and almost one-third of grades were full A’s.

“It’s a staggering statistic, one that shows us just how bad grade inflation has gotten,” Dartmouth columnist Brian Solomon explained. “When everyone gets an A, those teaching aspects of grading fall away, along with any student motivation to work hard,” he said.

Though Dartmouth’s Committee on Instruction recently began an investigation into grade inflation, Solomon noted, he recommended that officials consider implementing a grading system similar to Princeton’s grade deflation system.

“There are no limits on grades, just a target — that A’s account for less than 35 percent of grades given in most undergraduate courses,” he said.

“The system provides flexibility for professors and students as well as a shared benchmark for keeping grades useful … The average GPA at Princeton has actually decreased with no detrimental effects to students’ post-college success finding jobs or applying to graduate and professional schools.”

Dartmouth is the most recent of several colleges to raise questions about grade inflation.

Duke’s student paper, The Chronicle, also recently published a piece by its editorial board examining the topic that advised increased vigilance among professors and students and noted that strict limits, such as those set by Princeton and certain departments at Duke, undermine the effectiveness of grades.

A piece in the Columbia Daily Spectator revealed after a document leak last month that one in 12 students received at least a 4.0 GPA last semester. This data has lead Columbia as well as the University of Pennsylvania to begin examining grade inflation.