Explain grade inflation to me

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But one could infer from such a cynical remark that you don’t believe those As are earned.

The purpose of primary and secondary education is to teach mastery of material. It’s not to generate a bell curve where top grades are rationed. Thinking about top grades as a commodity in this way is bizarre and antiquated. It’s literally Ok if half the class gets and A, even if they get to have retakes the like — because it demonstrates they learned the material. Which is the purpose of education. It’s not a race to learn the material “first” and it’s not like someone had to be “best” at it.

+1000

Purpose is to learn/master the material.
Even in college I never understood classes where the highest score on a test was 40 and the mean was 18.
I can assure you nobody felt like they learned the material

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA (the school itself) was always known to have grade inflation compared to the other state universities.

Having been at Hopkins and UVA- I will attest to that !

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

Yes that is ridiculous. Senester grade should be average of each marking period. And schools should use + and minuses

[Anonymous]

Yes this newfangled way using “A”s and “B”s! WTF is up with that? Makes no sense and it is completely understandable why Princeton is suddenly admitting all these idiots!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UVA (the school itself) was always known to have grade inflation compared to the other state universities.

How do you figure?? In most of my kids classes an A is a 95 or higher, which is very tough to obtain. Each class has so many components, including discussion participation, essays, exams and group projects, so a lot of work and variables. I’d love to know where the grade inflation is so that my kid can find it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But one could infer from such a cynical remark that you don’t believe those As are earned.

The purpose of primary and secondary education is to teach mastery of material. It’s not to generate a bell curve where top grades are rationed. Thinking about top grades as a commodity in this way is bizarre and antiquated. It’s literally Ok if half the class gets and A, even if they get to have retakes the like — because it demonstrates they learned the material. Which is the purpose of education. It’s not a race to learn the material “first” and it’s not like someone had to be “best” at it.

But when do students learn that college doesn't give them these accommodations? Are students just supposed to adjust to midterms and finals in college when they've never had them in HS? There are no retakes in college so how do they adjust when that's all they've ever known in school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But if the grades are inflated for everyone, there are still students that stand out because of superior work. If everyone get an a then the top students will get more than an A.

Nope that’s the problem with grade inflation, it masks the truly superior students.

Really, it does not.

Absolutely it does. That’s why having a prefect gpa from some of these schools doesn’t result in the admissions one would expect.

You have it backwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes this newfangled way using “A”s and “B”s! WTF is up with that? Makes no sense and it is completely understandable why Princeton is suddenly admitting all these idiots!

Probably was intended as a joke that the poster missed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

Yes that is ridiculous. Senester grade should be average of each marking period. And schools should use + and minuses

It is an average, but there are no pluses and minuses. So A and a B gets rounded up to an A. An A and C would be a B.
It is absolutely ridiculous and as the poster above noted, it really hurts the smart kids who are getting 95s and above each semester.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But one could infer from such a cynical remark that you don’t believe those As are earned.

The purpose of primary and secondary education is to teach mastery of material. It’s not to generate a bell curve where top grades are rationed. Thinking about top grades as a commodity in this way is bizarre and antiquated. It’s literally Ok if half the class gets and A, even if they get to have retakes the like — because it demonstrates they learned the material. Which is the purpose of education. It’s not a race to learn the material “first” and it’s not like someone had to be “best” at it.

But when do students learn that college doesn't give them these accommodations? Are students just supposed to adjust to midterms and finals in college when they've never had them in HS? There are no retakes in college so how do they adjust when that's all they've ever known in school?

I had retakes and opportunities to revise in college (UVA in the 90s). It varies by class, school, professor, obviously; if you’re in a weed-out program like engineering, it just sucks. But professors are humans, and many of them are flexible and want students to learn. The idea that there’s some rigid “college system” that students won’t be able to adjust to isn’t real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here is what we saw in HS. Example below for illustrative purposes for 1 course and 2 students.

Student 1 who is very bright and excels in the course:
MP 1 99% = A
MP 2 98.2% = A

Semester 1 grade which appears on the transcript = A

MP3 98.9% = A
MP 4 99.1% = A

Semester 2 grade which appears on the transcript = A

Now, let's review a 2nd student, who is in the same exact class, yet this person is not exceling in the course and so their parents intervene with help, paid tutoring, and extra work...to get their college bound student into the B+ and even A- range.

MP 1 84.5% = B
MP 2 90.1% = A

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 1 on the transcript

MP 3 91.2% = A
MP 4 83% = B

Take the higher of the two marking period grades and award an A for Semester 2.

So, we have 2 students applying to the same college. They look very similar, with Semester grades of As for the course.
Yet, in reality, one is a very high earning A student and the second is a solid B student, with a sprinkle of A-.

And, if these is an Honors Course, it's scored the same as an AP grade! Think about the difference between the AP student who got all A's and student#2. Now multiply this calc. over years and years of courses. Your strong, even low, B student just has to break the 90% threshold for 2 marking periods a year to capture the A.

In my opinion, this is grade inflation.

So what was it like -- the process of GPA calculation -- before this "inflation" began occurring?

[Anonymous]

It’s up to the individual teachers. They do not have to allow retakes.

At our DCC school (MCPS) my kid has one class (AP Calc) that allows retakes on quizzes but not exams. Despite this only 4 students in their class got an A last semester.

I think for that class the retakes on quizzes make sense because it’s an opportunity to learn the material they didn’t learn the first time around.

None of their other classes allow retakes.

I have another kid who went to a different MCPS high school where the AP Calc teacher did not allow any retakes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If more than half the kids in a class get an A, there is grade inflation. And yes, I understand that there is grade inflation everywhere. Everyone gets a trophy.

But one could infer from such a cynical remark that you don’t believe those As are earned.

The purpose of primary and secondary education is to teach mastery of material. It’s not to generate a bell curve where top grades are rationed. Thinking about top grades as a commodity in this way is bizarre and antiquated. It’s literally Ok if half the class gets and A, even if they get to have retakes the like — because it demonstrates they learned the material. Which is the purpose of education. It’s not a race to learn the material “first” and it’s not like someone had to be “best” at it.

But when do students learn that college doesn't give them these accommodations? Are students just supposed to adjust to midterms and finals in college when they've never had them in HS? There are no retakes in college so how do they adjust when that's all they've ever known in school?

I had retakes and opportunities to revise in college (UVA in the 90s). It varies by class, school, professor, obviously; if you’re in a weed-out program like engineering, it just sucks. But professors are humans, and many of them are flexible and want students to learn. The idea that there’s some rigid “college system” that students won’t be able to adjust to isn’t real.

I didn’t have any of that on college and neither did my kids. Our professors had office hours where they might offer to pre-read papers but that’s it. The students who needed this were also the students who typically didn’t do things ahead of time anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

It’s up to the individual teachers. They do not have to allow retakes.

At our DCC school (MCPS) my kid has one class (AP Calc) that allows retakes on quizzes but not exams. Despite this only 4 students in their class got an A last semester.

I think for that class the retakes on quizzes make sense because it’s an opportunity to learn the material they didn’t learn the first time around.

None of their other classes allow retakes.

I have another kid who went to a different MCPS high school where the AP Calc teacher did not allow any retakes.

And at some schools every teacher has the policy of no retakes.

Why is it so hard to understand why there is grade inflation at publics?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have none of you attended school before? Have you had easy teachers, reasonable teachers and teachers that really push you to the limits ?

Think of a school with teachers filled with the latter. They grade essays harder. They have higher standards. You don’t get make up tests if you F up and late work gets a zero. You have pop quizzes

The above is my children’s high school.

They left a school where if they showed up, they basically got an A. And everyone in the class eventually got in A with late work accepted for grade, retakes, redos and very little writing or research. Books selected for reading/analyzing were also not as complex.

+100

It’s not the grade system on percentages. It’s how they are obtained and the rigor and standards to be assigned the A. DUH