Princeton University Dean Nancy Malkiel outlined to faculty members last week a proposal that would combat grade inflation by limiting the number of A’s a professor can give out to students in a given class.
Following the proposal, A’s in all undergraduate courses would amount to less than 35 percent of the grades given in any department. They would account for less than 55 percent of the grades given in junior and senior independent work.
The proposal addresses only A grades, assuming that once they are controlled, other grades will fall into line. In the third report of Princeton’s grade patterns, approximately 46 percent of the grades given out last year were A’s.
In the letter accompanying the proposal sent to Princeton faculty, Dean Malkiel explained that the proposal would have two main purposes: “to establish a common grading standard across the university and to provide clear guidelines for faculty and students about the meaning of letter grades.”
According to Princeton Media Relations Manager Patricia Allen, the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing will vote on the proposal April 26.
Princeton has been addressing the problem of grade inflation for six years, addressing the use of the A+ in May 2000. One initiative required professors who wished to give out an A+ to include a statement as to why they would make the distinction. This modestly showed improvement in grade inflation, but officials continued to pay attention to the increasing amount of As, Bs and Cs in a given year.
In the memo, Dean Malkiel urges that “more aggressive steps” be taken to curb the problem. The proposal concludes that faculty and officials “should take a bigger rather than a smaller step” to make a difference in grade inflation and compression.
By limiting the amount of A’s to 35 percent in undergraduate classes and 55 percent in independent work, university officials hope to return the grading patterns to what they were in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to the proposal.
The proposal included a comparison of A grade distribution to the other Ivy League institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and Stanford University.
The number of A’s ranged from 44 to 55 percent, with two institutions falling at around 45 to 46 percent, four (including Princeton) between 47 and 48 percent and three in the 49 to 51 percent range.
The proposal states that an expected outcome of the institutionalized grading would set the university “apart from the pack in a way that identifies Princeton as a real leader in tackling this problem.”
Harvard University is tackling grade inflation as well. Dean Benedict Gross sent a letter in February noting that the average grade point average of Harvard students has continued to increase since the school began acknowledging average GPAs in 1985. The mean GPA has steadily increased from 3.16 to 3.41. In his letter, Dean Gross said the data “suggest that grade compression continues to be a problem.”
University of Wisconsin officials have discussed the issue of grades in the past, but according to Associate Vice Chancellor Virginia Sapiro, a move like Princeton’s is unlikely to occur at UW.
“We believe very strongly in academic freedom,” Sapiro said. “We would never tell our faculty to pre-judge our students.”
Princeton’s student body is considerably smaller than UW’s, with less than 5,000 students. Sapiro stressed that implementing institutionalized grading is not a matter of size, but of selectivity.
