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Grade inflation has always been a buzzword, but only some well-intended college administrators want to control it. However, the attempts to do so create issues worse than the perceived problem. It should be up to the most impacted group, the students, to decide whether high grades are an issue.
In 2004, Princeton University devised a deflation policy to control grade inflation that required all academic departments to limit A’s to no more than 35 percent of all grades in undergraduate courses. In September of last year, this policy hit a road block when Princeton’s student government sent a letter of complaint to the faculty.
The students questioned “whether professors were being overzealous in applying the policy,” according to a Jan. 29 New York Times article “Type-A-Plus Students Chafe at Grade Deflation.” Of course, common sense tells us that grades may go up for the simple yet positive reason that students are learning more.
Nancy Weiss Malkiel, dean of the undergraduate college at Princeton, stated in the New York Times article, “The grading policy was not meant to establish such grade quotas, but to set a goal.” However, her “clarification” is questionable, because setting a specific limit on the number of A’s given out is a grade quota. When there is a grade quota, students that should have received an ‘A’ might not get the grade that they earned. For some students, not getting the ‘A’ they deserve can hinder their chances of admission into graduate school, or being hired for their dream job.
The New York Times article stated, “In a survey last year by the undergraduate student government, 32 percent of students cited the grading policy as the top source of unhappiness.” Some Princeton students are concerned that they are at a disadvantage when their GPA of 3.5 is being compared to a GPA of 3.8 at Yale, a school that does not limit high grades.
 Although ones GPA is not the sole criteria that colleges and employers consider, the difference between a GPA of 3.5 and a GPA of 3.8 can certainly decide students’ acceptance. According to Alex’s Illicit Guide to Medical School Admissions (www.bestpremed.com), “Some [medical schools] use certain GPA cut-offs, others use ‘secret’ formulas that incorporate GPA and MCAT scores to initially screen out applicants before letting actual people to look at individual applications. If your GPA is not up to snuff, you might not get a ‘fair hearing’ despite all your other accomplishments,” Alex Shteynshlyuger, MD, stated on his website. Also, public colleges such as UC Berkeley admit to expecting freshmen to have a high average GPA of 4.15, according to University of California (www.universityofcalifornia.edu) records.
Some say that grade deflation may motivate students to work harder. However, as a result of this GPA concern, a fear of heightened competition among students for A’s caused students to stay away from classes they perceived as difficult, according to a March 28, 2007 USA Today article “Princeton leads in grade deflation.” The real purpose of going to school is depreciated as a result of grade deflation because students should attend their classes to gain more knowledge through challenging themselves.
Even though the deflation policy at Princeton University has resulted in a lowered mean GPA for their students, the grade inflation problem is not an issue for students at Lowell. According to the annual “Lowell High School Profile” between the years 2005 and 2009, the school’s average cumulative unweighted GPA of 3.29 has been consistent between the years 2005 and 2008. In fact, there has been an occurrence of slight grade deflation at Lowell, as the class of 2010’s average unweighted GPA is 3.25, having dropped 0.04 points over the past four years. This shows that grade inflation may not be as widespread as many think.
Some students may argue that due to grade inflation, peers who put in less effort than they had, yet still received the same grade, had an unfair break. According to a March 24, 2009 Christian Science Monitor article “Grade inflation gone wild,” the students at Brown University are still able to attain good grades with minimal effort. However this issue is not necessarily about inflated grades, but rooted in nonrigorous class selection and assignments. In the end, such students’ education will suffer, which could happen at either Princeton or Yale, regardless of a grade policy.
High school students who put in minimal effort face a loss of education, which hurts them later when they are unprepared for admission tests and college-level courses. Then students are only cheating themselves. It is not for the administration to decide whether students are learning or not — it is the students’ choice.
Princeton has tried to control grade inflation but their attempt can harm students’ excitement over education. In educators’ efforts to kill the buzzword, they should not kill the buzz unless students view grade inflation as a problem.
Illustration by Monica Zhang
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