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I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlemen

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to spend hours explaining why they didn’t deserve a higher grade. At the end of the day you’re worn down and there’s very little incentive to grade honestly as you get pain nearly nothing and you’re really there to finish your PhD.

sabas123 9y ago
Did you get any different instructions for your grading at Yale? And doesn't such thing lead to large varying amounts of average grads per class?
- rdlecler1 9y ago
  No, but students will go around you to the prof and they get away with things that wouldn’t have worked at UofC. Mostly you end up asking yourself how much you’re willing to go to battle. No upside, lots of downside. Grades become more binary for anything subjective. Obviously multiple choice is much easier to deal with, but even then students will get exam re-writes from the profs.
jseliger 9y ago
I've actually seen similar things happen at public schools; I think students may also intuit that very little incentivizes profs to grade honestly: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-professors-to-grade-honestly-nothing https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-profess...
- geebee 9y ago
  I believe average GPAs are much lower at Berkeley and UCLA than they are at ivies though, is that correct?
  - sapote 9y ago
    That's correct.
  - babesh 9y ago
    Yes when I went there but dependent on whether it was graduate or undergraduate and department. Undergraduate lower division CS classes were graded assuming a normal distribution (standard deviations from average). In my opinion, it was mostly used as a weeding out process. Graduate classes had much higher grades, mostly As, some A-s... few B+s. I heard that undergraduate Chemical Engineering had especially hard grading. It was supposedly hard to maintain a B average in that major and that major had students coming in with much higher average SAT scores and GPAs.
giardini 9y ago
Why are you obligated to "explain"?
- pdabbadabba 9y ago
  Because one's job is not just to evaluate, but also to teach.
thomasahle 9y ago
The problem is when the grades given on assignments influence what goes on your final exam papers. At a university, only the final exam should count. This way you can give honest feedback, and the student doesn't feel obligated to point out every little mistake to try to make you change your decision. It also allows them to misunderstand things at first, but then 'get' it later. Of course universities don't like this, since they don't consider students mature enough that they do the homework if it doesn't "count".
- ahelwer 9y ago
  Really? Spreading grades out among various assignments and tests is how I managed to pass university (I coincidentally also attended the University of Calgary, hi rdlecler1!). I would have imploded if it all came down to a single giant exam. Why the heck would you want academic achievement to come down to a handful of hours of actual performance? What goal does that serve? University isn't the Olympics.
  - katastic 9y ago
    The true answer is: No grades should matter except the final exam and you should be able to take the final exam as many times as you want. (With a reasonable minimum period between retakes, possibly increasing each time.) If you take AC motors, and fail, and study your ass off and six months later can pass it with 100%, shouldn't that really be... your actual grade? Isn't a grade supposed to represent your ability and understanding of a topic? And then almost magically: health problems, study problems, (most) test anxiety, and other problems no longer actually matter.
    - ahelwer 9y ago
      A grade is supposed to represent your ability and understanding of a topic, but that's only half the equation. Are exams an adequate proxy for ability and understanding of a topic? They aren't for me. When I want to understand something, I create something which requires and demonstrates that understanding - this could be a Wikipedia article, a piece of software, or a lecture. Nothing of value is demonstrated by sitting down for a few hours under extreme pressure and regurgitating my "understanding".
deleted 9y ago
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tehwebguy 9y ago
What a scam it all is. How tragic that you TAs are apparently complicit. Edit: Thanks for the downvote but giving higher grades because it's more convenient than doing the right thing is... the wrong thing. Painful that at some point it felt like your (and many others') best choice but it was still wrong flat out. Hey maybe now you can "change the system from the inside!"
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- csa 9y ago
  The system of elite schools is designed to perpetuate itself -- just like any beauracracy. The elite schools do this fairly well, imho. Note that grading hard is basically friction in the system that is fairly efficient to avoid. The elite schools have plenty of smart and hard-working students who don't need hard grading as a motivator to do great work. Those students are the backbone of your school.
- csa 9y ago
  Some additional questions after your edit: 1. How does one define the "wrong thing"? Genuine question. 2. What about soft grading makes it a scam? Since letter grades are distinctly not criterion referenced, I struggle to see a strong justification for this claim. Please help me understand. 3. What makes you think that anyone in the system wants it changed? I humbly suggest that very few people actually do -- the current system is super-low friction and allows professors to work on the things that they are actually evaluated on.
  - tehwebguy 9y ago
    I'd say giving one a grade they didn't earn, because it is more convenient for you, is the wrong thing. It's surely a breach of ethics to evaluate someone's work and report that they did better than you concluded they did for convenience. I'd call that ethical breach "the wrong thing." OP said to think twice about "honest grading" so I think dishonest grading is the problem with what you are calling "soft grading." I don't think anyone inside wants it changed, I don't think anyone ever does when a broken system benefits them more than those outside. That's why it was in quotes.
jostmey 9y ago
That's right! You're paid nearly nothing so you represent cheap labor for the Yale. I guarantee you that somebody is getting paid a lot! The problem with these so called "Higher" institutions is that the people fulfilling the actual function of the University don't actually get treated all that well. Everyone just walks all over them, including the people in charge. It has become a crazy lopsided system. These schools are basically becoming feel-good daycare centers for adult children of rich families
da02 9y ago
Can you go into more detail about the positives/negatives of your experiences at the University of Calgary?
otakucode 9y ago
Research suggests 'honest grading' is a pipe dream anyway. The book 'A Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives' dedicates most of its final chapter to grading. Even people specifically trained to grade to a very strict standard were incapable of doing so when they knew almost anything at all about the student.

sabas123 9y ago

Did you get any different instructions for your grading at Yale? And doesn't such thing lead to large varying amounts of average grads per class?

rdlecler1 9y ago
No, but students will go around you to the prof and they get away with things that wouldn’t have worked at UofC. Mostly you end up asking yourself how much you’re willing to go to battle. No upside, lots of downside. Grades become more binary for anything subjective. Obviously multiple choice is much easier to deal with, but even then students will get exam re-writes from the profs.

jseliger 9y ago

I've actually seen similar things happen at public schools; I think students may also intuit that very little incentivizes profs to grade honestly: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-professors-to-grade-honestly-nothing https://jakeseliger.com/2015/01/13/what-incentivizes-profess...

geebee 9y ago
I believe average GPAs are much lower at Berkeley and UCLA than they are at ivies though, is that correct?
- sapote 9y ago
  That's correct.
- babesh 9y ago
  Yes when I went there but dependent on whether it was graduate or undergraduate and department. Undergraduate lower division CS classes were graded assuming a normal distribution (standard deviations from average). In my opinion, it was mostly used as a weeding out process. Graduate classes had much higher grades, mostly As, some A-s... few B+s. I heard that undergraduate Chemical Engineering had especially hard grading. It was supposedly hard to maintain a B average in that major and that major had students coming in with much higher average SAT scores and GPAs.

giardini 9y ago

Why are you obligated to "explain"?

pdabbadabba 9y ago
Because one's job is not just to evaluate, but also to teach.

thomasahle 9y ago

The problem is when the grades given on assignments influence what goes on your final exam papers. At a university, only the final exam should count. This way you can give honest feedback, and the student doesn't feel obligated to point out every little mistake to try to make you change your decision. It also allows them to misunderstand things at first, but then 'get' it later. Of course universities don't like this, since they don't consider students mature enough that they do the homework if it doesn't "count".

ahelwer 9y ago
Really? Spreading grades out among various assignments and tests is how I managed to pass university (I coincidentally also attended the University of Calgary, hi rdlecler1!). I would have imploded if it all came down to a single giant exam. Why the heck would you want academic achievement to come down to a handful of hours of actual performance? What goal does that serve? University isn't the Olympics.
- katastic 9y ago
  The true answer is: No grades should matter except the final exam and you should be able to take the final exam as many times as you want. (With a reasonable minimum period between retakes, possibly increasing each time.) If you take AC motors, and fail, and study your ass off and six months later can pass it with 100%, shouldn't that really be... your actual grade? Isn't a grade supposed to represent your ability and understanding of a topic? And then almost magically: health problems, study problems, (most) test anxiety, and other problems no longer actually matter.
  - ahelwer 9y ago
    A grade is supposed to represent your ability and understanding of a topic, but that's only half the equation. Are exams an adequate proxy for ability and understanding of a topic? They aren't for me. When I want to understand something, I create something which requires and demonstrates that understanding - this could be a Wikipedia article, a piece of software, or a lecture. Nothing of value is demonstrated by sitting down for a few hours under extreme pressure and regurgitating my "understanding".

deleted 9y ago

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deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tehwebguy 9y ago

What a scam it all is. How tragic that you TAs are apparently complicit. Edit: Thanks for the downvote but giving higher grades because it's more convenient than doing the right thing is... the wrong thing. Painful that at some point it felt like your (and many others') best choice but it was still wrong flat out. Hey maybe now you can "change the system from the inside!"

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
csa 9y ago
The system of elite schools is designed to perpetuate itself -- just like any beauracracy. The elite schools do this fairly well, imho. Note that grading hard is basically friction in the system that is fairly efficient to avoid. The elite schools have plenty of smart and hard-working students who don't need hard grading as a motivator to do great work. Those students are the backbone of your school.
csa 9y ago
Some additional questions after your edit: 1. How does one define the "wrong thing"? Genuine question. 2. What about soft grading makes it a scam? Since letter grades are distinctly not criterion referenced, I struggle to see a strong justification for this claim. Please help me understand. 3. What makes you think that anyone in the system wants it changed? I humbly suggest that very few people actually do -- the current system is super-low friction and allows professors to work on the things that they are actually evaluated on.
- tehwebguy 9y ago
  I'd say giving one a grade they didn't earn, because it is more convenient for you, is the wrong thing. It's surely a breach of ethics to evaluate someone's work and report that they did better than you concluded they did for convenience. I'd call that ethical breach "the wrong thing." OP said to think twice about "honest grading" so I think dishonest grading is the problem with what you are calling "soft grading." I don't think anyone inside wants it changed, I don't think anyone ever does when a broken system benefits them more than those outside. That's why it was in quotes.

jostmey 9y ago

That's right! You're paid nearly nothing so you represent cheap labor for the Yale. I guarantee you that somebody is getting paid a lot! The problem with these so called "Higher" institutions is that the people fulfilling the actual function of the University don't actually get treated all that well. Everyone just walks all over them, including the people in charge. It has become a crazy lopsided system. These schools are basically becoming feel-good daycare centers for adult children of rich families

da02 9y ago

Can you go into more detail about the positives/negatives of your experiences at the University of Calgary?

otakucode 9y ago

Research suggests 'honest grading' is a pipe dream anyway. The book 'A Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives' dedicates most of its final chapter to grading. Even people specifically trained to grade to a very strict standard were incapable of doing so when they knew almost anything at all about the student.