I've been asked to talk about an issue that is slowly affecting more and more college campuses around the country. Grade inflation is a concept that you may not hear about until you get to college, but it is widely debated and analyzed in levels of higher education. Grade inflation can be defined as an abnormally high average range of letter grades. For example, a class containing students with many more A's and B's than C's, D's and F's can be considered to have inflated grades. What does this mean? Well, in a class of 100 students, if 50 of them receive A's, 40 of them receive B's and only 10 receive C's, it could start to look a little strange. Then, people not taking the class may think the class is simply too easy. If this happens in a lot of classes at a particular university, it could make the entire school look like a place to get easy A's. This is obviously not what a university wants associated with its name. It also leads to the overall average grade point average of the school being much higher (3.2 out of 4.0 for example) than it should (2.0 out of 4.0). This problem has plagued Ivy League universities as well as others for years. Now, Princeton University is attempting to fix the problem. Starting in the fall of 2004, Princeton instituted a policy stating that each department can give A's to no more than 35 percent of its students each semester. Some believe that this solves the problem. With fewer A's, the average grade point average will in fact drop. But this causes other problems for students and faculty. One major issue is the evaluation of coursework in general, especially in courses with subjective grading (papers and other written assignments). It becomes much more difficult to determine what constitutes an A. Previously an assignment was given, students were told what they needed to do to receive a high grade, and the students who did so received those high grades. Sometimes half of the class might receive A's. Now, professors must choose between very similar papers to figure out which of these deserves the higher grade. There is the argument that a large percentage of high grades should be expected because of the caliber of students who are accepted into Princeton. Another important point is the possibility of negative social consequences on campus. Without the pressure to compete for a limited number of A's in a class, students are more likely to share information with each other and, therefore, interact in general. However, now, there is a fear that the person with whom you study could be taking the last A spot, which would give you a B for the class. It is too early to tell if this is affecting many students here at Princeton, but it has been known to happen at many medical and law schools across the country. In trying to discover what Princeton students think about the new policy, I have found it varies widely from student to student. Many English majors and liberal arts majors, whose grades are based on writing, don't like the policy at all. On the other hand, science and math majors seem more neutral about the policy. These students usually receive grades based on tests where a curve is set after the tests are graded. So, they are less likely to be as affected by the new policy. All in all, it will take at least a year or two for enough data to be gathered to fairly evaluate Princeton's solution to grade inflation. Until then, views may change, and the policy may change. If so, you can count on me to give you the update. Take Care, Robert Rowe Princeton 2007