They’d been together for ten years. But they’d been fighting a great deal recently, trying to eschew an inevitable split. And after an hour or two of careful retrospection and introspection, just like that, it was over. The two would part ways. It was time to let go and move on.
So goes the tragic end to the long-time love story between Princeton and grade deflation, with the repeal of the infamous grading policy. The decision allows each department to establish its own grading standards – standards that won’t necessarily include numerical quotas of A’s.
The previous policy mandated that no more than 35 percent of the grades given to students in any one department should be in the A range, and that no more than 55 percent of the grades assigned to independent work should be in the A range. This limit on the number of A’s given out was not intended as a strict quota, but was often interpreted as such by both students and faculty. This grade deflation policy was an endeavor to combat the grade inflation trends at Princeton.
The new policy, which is now in effect, removes the previous numerical targets. In other words, there no longer is an explicit limit on the number of A’s that can be given out. Instead, individual departments and programs will evaluate and establish their own respective grading standards, which in turn will be evaluated for consistency and fairness every fall. Furthermore, a greater emphasis will be put on professors providing clear and detailed feedback to students on a more frequent basis (not just at the end of the semester), and the Committee on Grading is to be eradicated.
Under the new policy, one could say that grade deflation may unofficially continue within the individual departments. While there won’t be an explicit cap on the number of A’s given out, professors may just continue to sparsely award A’s.
While I generally don’t split hairs over semantics, I’d like to emphasize the word “award” in the previous sentence.
Are A-grades to be awarded — or earned? The distinction between those two words points to an immutable aspect of Princeton’s grading culture. If a student works hard for an A and turns in work that deserves an A by the standards of any rational professor, then he/she has earned that A. It’s as simple as that – or at least, it should be. But under the status quo, getting an A-grade is a ruthless, unceasing struggle of the fittest to the end, with A’s remaining rare for no justifiable reason other than to bolster the perceived difficulty of this school.
Ultimately, it comes down to this: it’s all about the grades. Princeton has engendered a culture that attributes exorbitant value to a letter grade. With this overemphasis on grades and the perpetuation of this struggle of the fittest comes the reinforcement of a divide between students. A letter grade neither helps a student learn nor serves as quantifiable proof of a student learning, which is why we should emphasize better feedback from professors, as the new policy proposes.
But even with the good-intentioned recommendations of the new policy, grade deflation’s repeal won’t do much to change this grade-frenzied culture on campus. Professors will continue to informally put out grade quotas, the grade point average will continue to be lower than other comparable institutions and students will continue to fret over how they will fare in the grad school applicant pool. While such high standards are intended to compel students to work and push themselves even harder, this exclusivity in grades correlates to and reinforces the exclusivity of this institution as a whole. And there is no foreseeable end to this exclusivity, as long as we continue to emphasize the importance of a letter grade. It’s all an intrinsic, irrevocable part of Princeton’s grade culture.
And now there is a very tangible fear of students gravitating towards majors and programs with higher numbers of A-grades, since individual majors will be determining their own grading standards independently of each other. This “grade-centrism” will continue to plague the Orange Bubble, as students will continue to surrender to apprehension over getting a good job or getting into grad school over choosing to study what they’re truly passionate about, regardless of how hard it is to get an A.
So now, I’ve got 99 problems and choosing a major with less austere grading standards could be one.
Sarah Sakha is a freshman from Scottsdale, Ariz. She can be reached at ssakha@princeton.edu.
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