We've probably all been there — looking up a final transcript on Banner and seeing that dreaded "B" letter grade. The subsequent feeling is something akin to the final landing of a punch in the gut that you've been anticipating for a while, knowing that there was no one to blame but yourself for allowing this punch to happen in the first place.
The Herald's October 8 article "Number of A's awarded grows for another year" tells us that in the 2009-2010 school year, over 54 percent of all grades were A's. This proportion has seen a general rise over the last decade, while the percentages of students receiving B's and C's have both been decreasing. According to data gathered from Brown's Institutional Research website, the average grade awarded to undergraduates at Brown, on a scale where an A grade is 4 points, rose from 3.38 in 1991 to 3.61 in 2007.
Brown students seem to be doing better and better on their academics, to the extent where there's a campus-wide sentiment that a B grade on an exam, paper or class is considered a failure. The prospect of getting a C generally means that it would be preferable to fail the class than to have the substandard grade permanently branded onto our transcripts.
In 2004, Princeton University set guidelines to restrict the proportion of A grades for all classes to be under 35 percent. Princeton justifies the grade regulations by claiming that an A should not be given unless it is really earned. But once we take the implications of grading outside of the college community and into post-graduation, competitive situations, do we need inter-university standardization of how to calculate a grade point average? Princeton's guidelines prompted a flurry of debate and concern from both students and educators — would it not be unfair for a capable and intelligent Princeton student with a lower GPA to be compared to a similar student at a different institution of the same caliber whose GPA is higher?
Students at Brown, like those at Princeton, may also be concerned with obtaining grades and GPAs lower than Brown's average. Although the University does not calculate GPAs for us, students inevitably do in order to apply to jobs and graduate schools. To me, knowing about the increasing proportion of students being awarded A's at Brown means that it feels much worse if I don't get one myself. If Brown continues to be known to admissions officers and employers for being an institution where students generally obtain better grades than in others, I might feel compelled to take easier classes, and more classes S/NC, just to boost my GPA.
Despite my anxiety over grades, I don't believe that Princeton's response to grade inflation will be effective in leveling the playing field. For all universities in the U.S. to emulate Princeton's method of regulation would not only be impractical, but also it would not succeed in standardizing grading across the board. Fundamentally, even if each college adopted the same percentile system for assigning letter grades, the specific classes, curriculums and students remain different. It is generally accepted that a Brown student's GPA is more highly regarded than the same GPA given to a student from a less prestigious college. Humanities classes also tend to assign a graded class participation component as a part of a student's overall grade, while science classes often grade students more rigidly on a weighted average of examinations and problem sets.
While it may be true that having a higher number of students getting A's each year may create a perverse incentive for some very competitive students to select only "easy" classes, the lack of rigid grading curves encourages students to see classmates less as competitors, but as possible collaborators, creating a more positive learning environment. It is easier for students to learn without the added pressure of having to study in isolation, competing for a limited number of A's.
The fact that Brown does not calculate GPAs for students in any official capacity reflects the stance that the University is taking on grading — that is, the average grade of all the classes that students at Brown have taken should not be the most accurate way of analyzing our value as students. Already, employers and admissions officers place increasingly less weight on standardized testing scores in order to assess the quality of potential candidates. In many cases, what will really set a college graduate apart from his or her peers are writing samples, interviews and further in-depth study of an academic field, such as through an honors or capstone project. Through our academic transcripts, potential employers and admissions officers can assess how prepared we are for work or for graduate school, instead of naively relying on a single, averaged number.
Students should confidently venture deeper into academic fields, knowing that taking initiative and risks defines and qualifies us more than our GPAs would. After all the effort we've put in through our four years at Brown to make the most of our liberal learning experience, it wouldn't be fair to be represented by just a number.
Sarah Yu '11 is a History and International Relations concentrator from Sydney, Australia. She can be reached at xia_yu@brown.edu.
