University Says It Intends To Puncture Grade Inflation

Matthew Hersh

In response to a pattern of "significant grade inflation" over the last 30 years, Princeton University officials said that the school will begin an initiative that will limit the number of A grades awarded by its faculty.

The goal, according to Nancy Malkiel, dean of Princeton's undergraduate college, is to reduce A grades to 35 percent of all grades issued. Currently, 46 percent of all grades at the University are A grades.

The dean added that the University aims to award A's for less than 55 percent of independent work and seeks to provide "clear guidelines" for faculty and students about the actual meaning of letter grades.

This action was prompted by what appears to be grade inflation over the last several decades. In 1998, she said the faculty was shown what had happened to grading patterns in undergraduate courses and encouraged professors to begin rethinking methods of grading.

"Last year was the first point where we could really take stock of what had happened over the years," she said. "And what we found was that the grades continued to go up."

The mean grade point average at Princeton through the 2002 academic year stood at 3.36, a rise of .14 points since 1987, Dean Malkiel said. She added that the percentage of A's between 1997 and 2002 was nine percent higher than what was recorded between 1987 and 1992.

In 2003, 47 percent of grades issues were A's, a 50 percent increase from the 1973 academic year.

Dean Malkiel said these problems need to be addressed by implementing a comprehensive system that reevaluates what is considered "A-quality work."

"You need to work out an institution-wide grading standard," she said. For the last year, the faculty committee on Examinations and Standing worked with the department chairs to develop such a standard, the dean said, adding that tougher grading standards will allow students to see the difference between their best work and their sub-par performances.

"What is going to motivate a student to stretch to do the best work [he or she] is capable of if [a student receives] an outstanding grade for only modest work?" she asked. "We should hold the students to high standards, the point of being at a place like [the University] is to stretch them."

She said the importance of having a University-wide system is to prevent disparities among various departments. However, she said some departments, including some in the natural sciences, were already near the University's target grading system.

What has been the direct cause of the inflation? Dean Malkiel attributed the rise to an academic trend that has plagued Ivy League colleges for years.

"I don't know what it is about the culture that makes [grade inflation] happen, but it does happen," she said.

Dean Malkiel did say, however, that professors can be susceptible to student pressure in appealing grades.

"I think one of things that's going on is that students put a lot of pressure on faculty members to change grades," she said. "The traffic in appeals of grades has picked up exponentially in recent years."

In realigning the grading system, Dean Malkiel said a student's output will now be graded more on a technical basis and should largely exclude intangible elements, or factors that cannot be gauged.

One of the suggestions conveyed by some members of faculty, she said, was that professors should grade more "blindly" and remove the objective elements that can come into play when evaluating a student's work. Some faculty members currently practice a method of grading where students simply submit their work with an assigned number so the professor in unable to attach a name or any emotive bias or expectations that would affect the assessment.

"If you know what you expect in terms of how capable a student is, you read the work with those expectations in mind," the dean said. "If you believe the student is only modestly able, you're probably less prepared to fully recognize an excellent performance."

The grade assessment proposal, which has already been made known to students through group discussion and question-and-answer sessions, will be presented to the University faculty at its April 26 meeting.