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Grade Inflation

Not sure how anyone could post about grade inflation on a Wake message board with a straight face.
 
That said, STEM gains are made way before college, not by snaring random underclassmen trying to fulfill an elective.
 
When I went back to homecoming this past year and caught up with some professors, was told that they've been forced to inflate because our GPAs were too low and bemoaned how it made for worse students.
 
There's a huge disconnect between all the politicians calling for STEM majors because we are following behind in math and science to other countries then actually supporting math and science through funding.
 
Grade inflation is a factor but not remotely in the way described by the author.

It's the inflation that students experience in high school that sets a high bar for expected achievement and in general education courses that compete for the credit hours of frustrated STEM majors.

Students got A's in high school and get A's in their general education courses and see their non-STEM friends get higher grades and decide not to fight through C's in Chemical Engineering.

The idea that Econ majors would head over to the sciences side of campus and just take an Organic Chemistry course for fun if their Econ courses were harder is hilarious. People don't take STEM electives for the same reason they don't major in STEM. Lack of interest.
 
econ majors are smart enough to do it though
 
There was an article a few years back that reported that 79% of UNC undergrad grades were either an A or B. I have no idea what the % is at Wake, but I certainly wasn't a 79 percenter.
 
It was tough applying to law school because my LSAT was higher than the 75% but my GPA was lower than the 25%.
 
sailordeac said:
It used to be the gentleman's C. Now it's the gentleman's B.
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Yeah. My philosophy is "B is for buddy." Getting a B shouldn't be considered a let down. B is your friend.

Try selling that to millennials who had a 3.95 high school GPA, 5.7 adjusted or something like that.
 
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PhDeac said:
Yeah. My philosophy is "B is for buddy." Getting a B shouldn't be considered a let down. B is your friend.

Try selling that to millennials who had a 3.95 high school GPA, 5.7 adjusted or something like that.
Click to expand...

Ph, did you feel pressure to inflate grades your first few years as a professor, and is it common among younger professors seeking tenure?
 
Super annoying listening to kids younger than me talking about their 4.9 high school GPAs. In my mind, a GPA is out of 4.0 and the SAT is the only god damn test you take. Stop telling me how your brothers girlfriend's cousin got a 16 on their ACT
 
KickballDeac said:
Ph, did you feel pressure to inflate grades your first few years as a professor, and is it common among younger professors seeking tenure?
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The research does suggest that students getting higher grades tend to give higher evaluations. There is still a delicate balance.

At my institution, the only real evaluation of teaching is optional student evaluations. They answer eight questions on a 5-point Likert scale and have the option of leaving comments in response to open-ended questions. Students will comment that a course was too hard and the tests were unfair. They'll also say that a course was too easy. A professor wants to avoid both the perception that they're too easy and that they're too hard.

I'll add that as far as tenure goes, teaching is pretty much gravy at a Research I institution. If your research is of high caliber, your teaching would have to be horrifically bad to derail tenure.
 
When I arrived at Wake, I was told, "Whatever your average was in high school, expect your average at Wake to be one grade lower." And that was pretty accurate for many of us.
 
sailordeac said:
When I arrived at Wake, I was told, "Whatever your average was in high school, expect your average at Wake to be one grade lower." And that was pretty accurate for many of us.
Click to expand...

Here, too. It was tough when Wake was a regional school, and its rep was not well known.

I recall an associate professor at Wake who clearly resented student evaluations. While passing out the evals, he said that we were not qualified to evaluate him: we were ignorant on the subject when we started, and had no idea whether he covered the subject in the correct depth or breadth. At the time, I thought he made a pretty good point. When you start knowing 0 about a subject, should you end the semester knowing 1,2, 5, or 10 about it? I suppose/hope the department has an idea on the curriculum and test scores.

A friend was asked to continue guitar lessons to a kid who had been taught for two years. He sat with him to determine what he could and could not play. Turns out he could play two chords. Two chords in two years. Of course the student had no idea if that was good or bad, but he had an opinion about whether he liked his teacher or not.

I think the root of the problem is that schools have fallen into model where students are customers (see High Point U as an excessive example) who must be satisfied (placated with inflated grades).
 
Grades are inflated at Wake too, just not to the extent that they are at some other schools. Before they changed the GPA cutoffs for Latin honors about fifteen years ago well over half of each class was graduating with distinction.

A cum laude degree from Wake in the 70s and 80s was truly an achievement. Not so much in the 90s and 2000s (and I say that as someone belonging in that latter category).
 
I enjoy Netflix's philosophy on performance management. Adequate performance gets a generous severance package.
 
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