Reply to Harvard Report on Impacts of Grade Inflation

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Reply to "Harvard Report on Impacts of Grade Inflation "

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I teach STEM at one of the notoriously hard universities mentioned in this thread, and I can confidently say that Harvard's struggles with underprepared students are not only Harvard's struggles. Rather, this has affected all universities and all of my colleagues universally feel the struggle. As a result, we have had to redesign our courses, and we have become more lenient, whether that is a philosophy we want to adopt or not. Mostly, we feel it is our responsibility to help students succeed as best we can, and if that means changing previously difficult content to make it more manageable to the majority of the class, that is what we have to do.

And before the people of DCUM jump to the conclusion that this watering down is all due to DEI, or URM, or FGLI, I have faced similar struggles with students who are advantaged in every way and who come in with glowing grades, awards, and national merit recognitions, etc. I honestly believe that some factor has hurt attention spans almost universally among our young people. As the parent of a high schooler, what I observe among my college students has influenced the way I parent, and I am really invested in reducing distractions, and encouraging my teen to take on challenges that involve deep work and which do not guarantee success.  [/quote]

I agree that this generation has been harmed by factors outside academic policies, but we are witnessing a breakdown caused by a confluence of several events. COVID gave the impetus for test optional policies that were already being pushed for DEI purposes, and combined with COVID school shutdowns, which exacerbated grade inflation at the high school level (also DEI), we ended up with very little way to distinguish which students have had their attention spans completely rotted by social media and which (like your teen, God willing) have not. Academia seems to have reacted to this by lowering academic standards for everyone. Your argument is that this was all inevitable and unavoidable. I disagree — it was not inevitable that elite universities admit less qualified students. In fact, most schools have rescinded their test optional policies, indicating the failure of that experiment, whether they explicitly say so or not. But those policies were always a *choice,* and one that was criticized by many at the time. Universities have the ability to make distinctions between high schools that have rigorous grading policies and those that do not. Or simply demand that students live up to the standards of the university or leave. But that would lead to politically incorrect results, so they water down academic standards for everyone instead. It’s “too hard” to try to lift up those who need assistance, so we drag down the excellent students, instead. This is clearly a net negative for society and the academic reputation of these institutions. It sounds like there are at least some at Harvard that have not resigned themselves to the idea that this is all inevitable and would like to fight back. I wish them luck.  [/quote]
I feel like you’re too wrapped up into the politics of these institutions rather than considering that these institutions know their students are entering wanting a job, wanting fellowships, or wanting a grad school offer by the time they leave. Faculty members were also burned out and got lazy during and post pandemic, but for some reason, that’s not brought up. Most colleges see no benefit reducing their students’ post grad opportunities to filth to win the culture war.[/quote]

Eventually the reputation of schools that have lowered standards will take a hit, and a degree will no longer be a valuable signal in the labor or grad school market.[/quote]
Seen by what?[/quote]

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