| Topic Name: |
Grade Inflation |
| Message Name: |
misconceptions |
| Date Posted: |
01/19/2000 |
| In Reply To: |
This is my advice to anyone applying to college. If you can get into a ivy-league school go, because if their is grade inflation there, you have a good chance of getting into a top grad school. Even if you do not decide to go to grad school, the name will take you places after school. If you can go to a school that will give you easy grades and the opportunity to find a good job after college, it would be illogical not to go. At least you will have a social life there, since you won't have to study all day to get good grades. And that statement about people that go to ivy league schools are all dorks and nerds, is a bunch o B.S. I have a few friends that go to ivy-league schools and they are not dorks or unathletic. Most of them were pulling a-lot of girls in high school and still are in college. A large percentage of them complain that the girls are ugly,but it isn't much better here at rochester. I still don't believe that the person posting under the name ivy-man is actually from an ivy-league school. He sounds like an absolute idiot and doesn't know how to engage in a meaningful conversation. In the end who really cares about what your school is ranked, because most of the schools that we are comparing, the margin of difference, is so insuffiecient to be arguing about. |
| Message: |
Rather than point out all the problems with the arguments against or for ivy schools posted, I'd like to talk about my experience as a junior at UPenn- the so-called "social ivy." Grade inflation certainly exists at my school, but it is not as clear cut or hideous as many have said. (by the way, by grade inflation- I take it to mean a heavy curve where the average grade is a B- or B.) I have taken a large variety of courses in different deparments and find that, in my experience the curve has not been unfairly weighted. In hard sciences, philosophy, engineering, and math departments, the undergrad program is extremely challenging. Curving varies not only within departments, but between the various professors. Some of which don't even curve if they don't feel it's fair. The kind of self-sustaining grade inflation that all of you are primarily concerned occurs at our businness school "Wharton." I haven't taken any courses there, but most of my friends do and admit that entire sections typically receive all A's or B's; of course if you fail you fail, but everyone there is ultracompetitive and works so hard that the less adept student is quickly weeded out. In engineering and the hard sciences...the grade distribution, in my experience, has always been fair (with the mean getting C or C+) or unfair when the professor believes that we didn't learn what we were supposed to, or the exam mean is ~15%. Typical grade distributions look like ideal bell curves with most of the course getting 50% and equal distributions above and below...it is possible to fail and get horrible grades here, and many do. Even in the liberal arts, such as philosophy, getting an A is extremely rare. I've written many phil papers that were my best ever, and I thought works of philosophy, only to get a B-.
I really have no first hand experience at any other schools. I know that undergrad programs are the same pretty much anywhere (in terms of curriculum) in the top tier of schools. But just as at those other top tier schools, the student body is extremely qualified, if they aren't they quickly jump ship. The misconception that ivy students are all dorks is not totally wrong. Many of the women on campus are very ugly. But my school has a pretty kickin party scene and if you balance your time you can get a satisfying amount of play. Many times I've considered whether I should have saved my money and gone to a state school, but really the atmosphere created by such a talented student body, who are all not dorks but know how to have a good time, is one of the factors that really make it a great experience.
To summarize: in my experience, grades are extremely hard to come by in engineering and the college of arts and sciences, but I have heard that Wharton has unfair and quasi-political grade inflation probably to take care of there own and make sure Wharton remains a powerhouse (I don't know how that would work if even the dumb ones get A's, but who knows?). But like I said, I could be just as happy at a reputable state school, and I know plenty of really smart kids, who could have gone anywhere but chose state. It's all good baby, to some degree ofcourse.
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