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The game theory around grades is interesting. I went to a well regarded US CS school for a masters, and we were told essentially that "Being good enough to get

The game theory around grades is interesting. I went to a well regarded US CS school for a masters, and we were told essentially that "Being good enough to get in here means you're smart and capable, and being middle of the pack here is still doing very well. In order to communicate that to companies doing hiring, the minimum allowed average is a B". I don't know for sure, but I expect most of my decent, but not truly exceptional cohort had GPAs much above a B. There were a couple courses that bucked the trend. Which ones theses were was well known, and many folks, looking to work at FAANG, dodged them because of it. I already had employment figured out, and optimized for things besides GPA. I was a bit too ambitious, receiving a number of Bs, but also learned a ton. Maybe that will bit me if someone cares to look back 5+ years at my grades, but that's a separate problem. If you're a professor assigning grades, with little ability to communicate the intricacies of your grades to those looking at them, what do you do? Accurately assigning grades hurts your students, and getting everyone to change is a collective action problem.

runnerup 4y ago
After even 2 years post-graduation those grades will only be inspected for McKinsey/Bain/BCG consulting positions and maybe some corporate executive-track / future C-suite-potential type roles. Almost no one will ever use them for hiring decisions. But also curious how much of the grade inflation is driven by increasing selection bias. With the bar to get into top schools is raised higher and higher, maybe most of the students really are earning their inflated grades?
chernevik 4y ago
It's very easy for the school to fix this. - The average grade is a B, class grades will not be accepted until compliant. - Publish this policy so employers know this. For a school like Harvard they'll trouble themselves to find out. Employers will quickly learn that a B, or even a C, still indicates a pretty capable person.
- ceras 4y ago
  Princeton tried exactly this while I went there ("grade deflation"), and it didn't go well. They sent a letter to places like med school admissions alongside transcripts, but it wasn't enough. Ultimately, they abandoned the practice in 2014: employers, law schools, med schools often have minimum GPA requirements that are not school specific. Students also didn't like it because they felt it made the environment more competitive and less collaborative than at other schools, because an A for your peer means one less A for you. Somewhere else in this comment section someone mentioned how going to Princeton during grade deflation era stopped them from becoming a doctor, and I'd say that's accurate.

runnerup 4y ago

After even 2 years post-graduation those grades will only be inspected for McKinsey/Bain/BCG consulting positions and maybe some corporate executive-track / future C-suite-potential type roles. Almost no one will ever use them for hiring decisions. But also curious how much of the grade inflation is driven by increasing selection bias. With the bar to get into top schools is raised higher and higher, maybe most of the students really are earning their inflated grades?

chernevik 4y ago

It's very easy for the school to fix this. - The average grade is a B, class grades will not be accepted until compliant. - Publish this policy so employers know this. For a school like Harvard they'll trouble themselves to find out. Employers will quickly learn that a B, or even a C, still indicates a pretty capable person.

ceras 4y ago
Princeton tried exactly this while I went there ("grade deflation"), and it didn't go well. They sent a letter to places like med school admissions alongside transcripts, but it wasn't enough. Ultimately, they abandoned the practice in 2014: employers, law schools, med schools often have minimum GPA requirements that are not school specific. Students also didn't like it because they felt it made the environment more competitive and less collaborative than at other schools, because an A for your peer means one less A for you. Somewhere else in this comment section someone mentioned how going to Princeton during grade deflation era stopped them from becoming a doctor, and I'd say that's accurate.