43% of college grades are in A range??

Grade inflation is more common at private colleges than state schools, and especially at top-tier schools like Yale and Princeton (here's looking at the Brojos). It's also quite easy to inflate grades in the humanities, where grading is more subjective, than it is in STEM fields. There's a comprehensive website on grade inflation here http://www.gradeinflation.com

I would *expect* that a majority of folks that have made it so far in life that they are in a 3rd year engineering class to be able to master the material.

Then, think about a place like MIT or Caltech, you basically have to be a genius to get in. Nobody there should ever get less than a B in anything.

Why the need to have some arbitrary fraction get poor grades?

If you master the subject matter, you should get an A. If everyone in the class masters the subject matter, they should all get As. No?

The people taking high level engineering classes are not a random cross section of HS graduates.

Get over it already.

Not that surprising. Gen ed classes are insanely easy.

Depends on the prof. At Berkeley engineering undergrad they graded pretty hard. It didn't matter too much because you were.pretty much guaranteed a job, but it did matter more for grad school admissions.

Usually gave an A+ to one student. A couple As and mostly B and C. Some D and F.

Did you ever consider that millennials are just that smart, huh? smh.

Not at Wake Forest

I work for a small biz and we get flooded with job applications and I basically filter everything out that is below a GPA of 3.3.

In the beginning I once had a guy here for an interview with 2.9. Damn was he bad.

Also, if there is no GPA showing on the resume, you know it's 3.2 or lower...

Master the material????? That might work in middle school.

Any undergraduate scientists, engineers or mathematicians who even think they have mastered the material in their upper level classes are dangerous.

Mastery takes specialization and 10 more years, minimum. Safety and not overestimating your skills is an ongoing process that you never master. The best you can hope for as an undergraduate is to catch up to your TA who is seeing the material for the 2nd time. If you do you should get an A.

It is then pretty easy to see the group that should get Bs. The question is always where do the Cs start? Ds aren't so hard because the material is usually cumulative enough that people near the bottom fall further and further behind.

35+ years ago when I was in school, teachers/profs either graded on a curve or they graded you personally. Everyone understands what it means to grade on a curve. To be graded personally is to get a grade based on what the teacher has come to understand to be your ability. For example, in the 4th grade, the class genius might have to do 7th grade work to get an A and the class dunce might only have to do 3rd grade work.

Families pay a lot to send their kids to school. Schools want their customers to be satisfied with their expensive "product". It's easier to satisfy the customer by giving "A"s than "C"s, and giving "A"s costs the colleges practically nothing.

Mastering in this context = getting As on exams of standard and accepted difficulty for the class.

Mastering in this context does not equal earning a noble prize.

Now, answer the question instead of making some semantic bullsheet argument.

well.... wrote:

Families pay a lot to send their kids to school. Schools want their customers to be satisfied with their expensive "product". It's easier to satisfy the customer by giving "A"s than "C"s, and giving "A"s costs the colleges practically nothing.

This is the truth. "Students" are really now treated as "customers" and this shades everything.

Because the only thing kids are taught these days is how to pass tests. Schools don't get money unless their kids get good grades.

Just curious- what is the normal amount of experience that college GPA shouldn't be put on the resume? Is 5 years enough? 10+ years?

Hiring wrote:

I work for a small biz and we get flooded with job applications and I basically filter everything out that is below a GPA of 3.3.

In the beginning I once had a guy here for an interview with 2.9. Damn was he bad.

Also, if there is no GPA showing on the resume, you know it's 3.2 or lower...

I well remember my college Bio prof (hundreds in the class) opening one lecture by drawing an approximation of a bell curve on the blackboard. He then divvied it up: ~10% of the class would get an A, and a similar number an F; ~20% would get a B, and about as many a D; a C would go to the remaining ~40%. A mark of C was an honorable, if not thrilling, grade; and the average GPA of those who graduated from my Ivy (not everyone did) was 2.xx.

OTOH this was about 40 years ago. Tuition (one of the highest in the country) was less than $3k, and people didn't think they were "owed" high grades.

Nowadays Joe Blow and Suzy Creamcheese have gotten As throughout high school, just by showing up and not making trouble; and for the money they're dropping in college tuition, they expect similar treatment there. Profs can't stick with the "C is average" principle: if they did, they'd be eviscerated on students' ratings and lose out on promotions and tenure.

The best current response I've seen to this grade-inflation phenomenon: a professor who gave his students a grade-of-record, and also told them what grade they'd really earned, e.g. A- (the grade on the transcript) and B- (indicating performance that was actually slightly just above average).

3.0 is the new 2.0. If your GPA is 2.xx, don't even bother applying for a job.

I had a few profs (PSU, 2002-2006) who were old-school and graded properly. Those C's and B's killed my GPA for a semester or two, but I respected their approach. And when I got an A from them, I celebrated!

In my major (Engineering), you needed at least a C in all required classes to continue. By traditional logic, if you were below-average, you were not permitted to graduate. So only "above-average" students could get a degree. Thus, the average for students graduating with a degree in engineering from Penn State was probably 3.0+.

At my law school we had a curve. Most people got in the B range, with very few As and Cs. A+ was the highest grade in the class, and there wasn't an A+ in every class; it was something you could legitimately be proud of.

The school actually raised the average on the curve during my third year; the rumor was that is was because our nearby competitor had a higher average on its curve and their students thus looked better to potential employers.

Btw, if you think humanities grades are completely subjective, you must just lack an understanding of writing. If students are assigned to write an essay about a Shakespearean sonnet or the influence of technology on the Civil War or whatever, there will be good ones, mediocre ones, and bad ones, and people knowledgeable in the field will mostly agree which ones are which.

Former Law Student wrote:

Btw, if you think humanities grades are completely subjective... and people knowledgeable in the field will mostly agree which ones are which.

So it's not subjective, but it is.

Not at Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth or Georgetown