4 ms·

When I was at Princeton they had strict anti-grade inflation policy, with no more than 35% of students getting an A per department. It was really demoralizing,

When I was at Princeton they had strict anti-grade inflation policy, with no more than 35% of students getting an A per department. It was really demoralizing, and to be honest it's had a negative impact on my life. My public high school didn't have a great math and science program so I started behind my classmates freshman year. It felt like the As basically went to the kids who had covered the material before in AP classes. By junior year I was hovering around a 3.0, and I made the gut-wrenching decision that I couldn't go to medical school or pursue a PhD in biology because my grades weren't high enough. I decided I needed to set my sights lower. Even law school was out, basically business school was the only graduate school that would take me. I switched my major to economics. It was devastating to give up on my dream, and I have to admit it still stings 20 years later. I adore biochemistry and would have loved to pursue research as a profession. My main problem is I didn't know how to effectively study in college. I cruised through high school without ever really needing to learn from a book. I didn't really learn how to study correctly until a year or two after college, when I took the CFA exams. Let me tell you, learning how to study (at 24) was an eye-opener for me, and it still feels like a superpower. I ended up becoming the valedictorian of my business school class a few years later. I've had a very successful career as an investment banker, so I ended up fine. But I do think these grade deflation policies can be really harmful to the psyche of young students. Sure, there are benefits to getting humbled, hitting a wall and needing to grind it out, but students come into school with all sorts of different levels of preparation and there's a big risk that some will flounder. I don't like relative grading. I think there should be objective standards of what you should know, and if you meet those standards you get an A. As long as you make those standards sufficiently rigorous, it shouldn't matter whether 30% or 80% of the class gets an A. Relative grading pits students against each other and creates an unhealthy learning environment.

eatbitseveryday 4y ago
If you are lucky enough to be in a financially sound situation, why not consider a career change and try to pursue that which you've wanted? My wife retook foundational courses for med school -- physics, biology, chemistry, etc. to pass the prerequisites, and then the MCAT. You can take classes at (any?) university, telling them they are "non-degree credits" which makes it easier for you to enroll. For a PhD you're never too old. For medical school, likely as a "non-traditional" student, you'd have better luck at gaining admissions to a DO school than an MD school, despite the latter claiming they adore that class of student.
- JauntTrooper 4y ago
  I've actually been seriously considering it over the past year or two. It's really daunting though. Career-wise it would probably be a one-way trip. Investment banks are notoriously narrow-minded in their hiring process, and I doubt I'd be able to break back in once I left the industry for a year or two. I also have three kids under 6 who I like to spend time with, including a newborn, and I'm geographically limited to this area because my wife owns a business that has deep local roots. We have 3-4 good schools within an hour, but if I don't get into their programs I'm kind of out of luck. The grad schools nearby have minimum undergraduate GPA requirements of 3.0, and I ended up with a 2.9. I assume they'd waive the requirement if I had great grades in a post-bac science program and a great GRE, along with my 4.0 from business school, but it's unnerving to have so much riding on the whims of an admissions department. Plus even if I did manage to get in, I worry about how hard it would be to get a post-doc position as a 50 year old. I realize it sounds like I'm just making excuses, and maybe I am. I have a comfortable, happy life, and there's a level of irreducible risk on this alternate path. As of now I've decided I'll start taking some science classes in the evenings at the local university next year, once my baby is a little older, and see where that takes me.
  - massysett 4y ago
    As you get older, if you have a good career the opportunity cost of going back to school is just too high. As I have aged I also realize that the value of pursuing dreams is not quite as important as I previously thought. If I am providing for my family and have some money left over and my job is good, I’m not going back to school just so I can have a different career that in the end isn’t going to make me that much happier.
    - FastMonkey 4y ago
      I don't know about that. I left civil engineering for finance a couple of years ago. Changing was actually a lot less painful than I thought it would be (I might even say it was fun), and I'm way happier now. There was a couple of years as I found my feet where the pay wasn't quite as good, but that reversed pretty quickly and I'm ahead now again. Transferable skills are a real thing. Also, the amount of people who can do the everyday work in any industry is endless, so don't worry too much about that. It's the ability to come at things from a different perspective that's rare and it really sets you apart.
ir123 4y ago
If everyone inflated their grades then how would getting a PhD get any easier? Your uni can grade you on a curve or grade you flat, but for a PhD you will have to be stack ranked
- asdff 4y ago
  Most PhD admissions committees would probably be fine with the 3.0 too if you had a few years of undergrad research experience under your belt. Even better if you spend a year or two working after undergrad as a lab technician or something. That tells potential professors you can start working immediately 40 hours a week in the lab on assays you already know how to do. Straight A students with no research experience are going to be a net drain on productivity for months if not longer while they put in the time you've already put in learning how to work in a research environment. The classes you take in many STEM PhDs are often rubber stamp classes anyhow, the focus is on working on research outlined in grants.
  - rsfern 4y ago
    Largely agree, but I wouldn’t say grad classes are rubber stamped. In the program I was in, the courses were rigorous, but the encouraged attitude was “B’s get degrees.” If you had a 4.0, you weren’t focused enough on research
    - netizen-936824 4y ago
      You heard "B's get degrees"? I always heard it as " C's get degrees" because grad schools look for B average or above (3.0+) At least that's most of the grad schools I've looked at
      - rsfern 4y ago
        Didn’t see this response while the thread was active, but the degree in question is the Ph.D. — in my department you needed a B average to stay in the program, and we were explicitly encouraged not to optimize for straight As in grad classes.
cbozeman 4y ago
> Let me tell you, learning how to study (at 24) was an eye-opener for me, and it still feels like a superpower. I would like to know more...
- andai 4y ago
  Also curious about GP's experience. Meanwhile I can share my own: until age 25 I was unable to study at all. I couldn't even concentrate for ten minutes. So for me the hardest part was developing the habit of just sitting down and studying every day, which I didn't develop until years after failing university. My key insight came from hearing the idea that discipline is like a muscle, and as with strength training you must start at the appropriate "weight" for you. In my case, that was a painfully low 5 minutes of work a day. I wrote a script to generate a schedule for me, starting with 5 minutes of studying (for the whole day!) and increasing the time by 2% every day. By starting with 5 minutes and working 2% longer every day, I worked my way up to 5 hours a day this way. The fact that I was able to work for 5 hours absolutely blew my mind, because when I started I could barely focus for 15 minutes. I might add that a year of manual labor did wonders for my motivation to study. (Perhaps that is what is meant by "it builds character?" ;) As for practical study skills, I have heard very good things about this: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
- JauntTrooper 4y ago
  Haha, I am happy to share. I basically switched from a lecture-centric approach to a practice-question-centric one. When I need to learn a new topic, I will first read the materials once thoroughly, taking notes with a paper and pencil. Then I spend the rest of my time drilling practice questions. 75%+ of my study time is drills. I just do question after question until I start getting most of them right. When I'm done and getting 80%+ right (or I run out of questions), I go back and re-do all the questions I got wrong the first time around. I used to just pay attention in class and read the textbook, but I'd get in trouble when I needed to apply the concepts on an exam. I realized exams often tested application and mastery, not understanding, so I needed to anticipate what questions would be asked and practice all the different iterations. Instead of relying on lectures to teach me materials, I started treating them as a nice-to-have intro or review, with the expectation that my real learning would come from drills and reading. I also switched up my approach to classwork. I started sitting in the front row, taking notes with a pencil and paper. I was often the only one without a laptop. I'd never really look at my notes again, it was more the act of taking notes by hand that helped me with retention and staying engaged. When I had a syllabus or learning objectives I would read it closely multiple times and use it to make sure I was meeting all the goals. I'd also write a list of the assignments in Excel and try to score 100% on each one. It was a challenge I'd set for myself.
lvl102 4y ago
This resonates with me as well. I went to a school with similar grade structure. Exams were hard. And when I saw exams for the exact same science classes at MIT and Harvard, I was shocked how easy they were. For this reason, I still refuse to contribute a single dime to my undergraduate.
davesque 4y ago
Very relatable story. I think I've had similar experiences throughout my life. I never fit the academic mold very well. But whenever I was given the freedom to explore a topic of interest without a lot of pressure, I think I always excelled. It was fortunate that computer programming classes at my high school were basically like study hall. The teachers didn't make you do anything. That meant that the handful of us who were motivated out of personal interest could take things as far as we wanted to go. We weren't constrained by a curriculum. When I got to university, I felt like I was way ahead of the game and had already learned a lot of the things that were covered in freshman comp sci courses. I think I understand in theory what the point of grades is. It's hard to imagine a perfect way of deciding who gets access to limited opportunities and who is best fit to take advantage of them. However, I know from deep down that my life would have gone very differently if I hadn't been given those critical chances to wander. Competition can filter out the people who are less innately talented, but just as often filters out people who just don't like having to talk over everyone and fight for everything all the time. If you're just a shy kid or are starting out with a weaker self-image for some reason, you can fall to the bottom of the pile really quickly regardless of whether or not you're smart or worthy of good things in life. That's why I tend to think a certain amount of grade inflation is alright; because it unlocks hidden potential in people who don't look the part. Maybe in a sense it also penalizes people who game the system by chasing grades while missing the real point of getting an education.
willio58 4y ago
It's insane to me that there are people like you who went to a school like _princeton_ and ended up being cut out of your dream to pursue medical school or a PhD in bio, where if you had maybe just gone to a mid-tier 4-year university you could have easily scored top of your class and probably been accepted to those same programs. To me, grades in general seem to have little bearing on how driven or knowledgeable someone is on a topic. To limit someone's future based on a somewhat subjective measurement is just.. wrong.
barry-cotter 4y ago
> I don't like relative grading. I think there should be objective standards of what you should know, and if you meet those standards you get an A. That’s what external exams are for. The CFA, accounting exams, APs, English A Levels all have those. There’s very limited demand for them at university level. No demand leads to no supply.
Dracophoenix 4y ago
> Let me tell you, learning how to study (at 24) was an eye-opener for me, and it still feels like a superpower. By learning Pomodoro or was there something else to it?

eatbitseveryday 4y ago

If you are lucky enough to be in a financially sound situation, why not consider a career change and try to pursue that which you've wanted? My wife retook foundational courses for med school -- physics, biology, chemistry, etc. to pass the prerequisites, and then the MCAT. You can take classes at (any?) university, telling them they are "non-degree credits" which makes it easier for you to enroll. For a PhD you're never too old. For medical school, likely as a "non-traditional" student, you'd have better luck at gaining admissions to a DO school than an MD school, despite the latter claiming they adore that class of student.

JauntTrooper 4y ago
I've actually been seriously considering it over the past year or two. It's really daunting though. Career-wise it would probably be a one-way trip. Investment banks are notoriously narrow-minded in their hiring process, and I doubt I'd be able to break back in once I left the industry for a year or two. I also have three kids under 6 who I like to spend time with, including a newborn, and I'm geographically limited to this area because my wife owns a business that has deep local roots. We have 3-4 good schools within an hour, but if I don't get into their programs I'm kind of out of luck. The grad schools nearby have minimum undergraduate GPA requirements of 3.0, and I ended up with a 2.9. I assume they'd waive the requirement if I had great grades in a post-bac science program and a great GRE, along with my 4.0 from business school, but it's unnerving to have so much riding on the whims of an admissions department. Plus even if I did manage to get in, I worry about how hard it would be to get a post-doc position as a 50 year old. I realize it sounds like I'm just making excuses, and maybe I am. I have a comfortable, happy life, and there's a level of irreducible risk on this alternate path. As of now I've decided I'll start taking some science classes in the evenings at the local university next year, once my baby is a little older, and see where that takes me.
- massysett 4y ago
  As you get older, if you have a good career the opportunity cost of going back to school is just too high. As I have aged I also realize that the value of pursuing dreams is not quite as important as I previously thought. If I am providing for my family and have some money left over and my job is good, I’m not going back to school just so I can have a different career that in the end isn’t going to make me that much happier.
  - FastMonkey 4y ago
    I don't know about that. I left civil engineering for finance a couple of years ago. Changing was actually a lot less painful than I thought it would be (I might even say it was fun), and I'm way happier now. There was a couple of years as I found my feet where the pay wasn't quite as good, but that reversed pretty quickly and I'm ahead now again. Transferable skills are a real thing. Also, the amount of people who can do the everyday work in any industry is endless, so don't worry too much about that. It's the ability to come at things from a different perspective that's rare and it really sets you apart.

ir123 4y ago

If everyone inflated their grades then how would getting a PhD get any easier? Your uni can grade you on a curve or grade you flat, but for a PhD you will have to be stack ranked

asdff 4y ago
Most PhD admissions committees would probably be fine with the 3.0 too if you had a few years of undergrad research experience under your belt. Even better if you spend a year or two working after undergrad as a lab technician or something. That tells potential professors you can start working immediately 40 hours a week in the lab on assays you already know how to do. Straight A students with no research experience are going to be a net drain on productivity for months if not longer while they put in the time you've already put in learning how to work in a research environment. The classes you take in many STEM PhDs are often rubber stamp classes anyhow, the focus is on working on research outlined in grants.
- rsfern 4y ago
  Largely agree, but I wouldn’t say grad classes are rubber stamped. In the program I was in, the courses were rigorous, but the encouraged attitude was “B’s get degrees.” If you had a 4.0, you weren’t focused enough on research
  - netizen-936824 4y ago
    You heard "B's get degrees"? I always heard it as " C's get degrees" because grad schools look for B average or above (3.0+) At least that's most of the grad schools I've looked at
    - rsfern 4y ago
      Didn’t see this response while the thread was active, but the degree in question is the Ph.D. — in my department you needed a B average to stay in the program, and we were explicitly encouraged not to optimize for straight As in grad classes.

cbozeman 4y ago

> Let me tell you, learning how to study (at 24) was an eye-opener for me, and it still feels like a superpower. I would like to know more...

andai 4y ago
Also curious about GP's experience. Meanwhile I can share my own: until age 25 I was unable to study at all. I couldn't even concentrate for ten minutes. So for me the hardest part was developing the habit of just sitting down and studying every day, which I didn't develop until years after failing university. My key insight came from hearing the idea that discipline is like a muscle, and as with strength training you must start at the appropriate "weight" for you. In my case, that was a painfully low 5 minutes of work a day. I wrote a script to generate a schedule for me, starting with 5 minutes of studying (for the whole day!) and increasing the time by 2% every day. By starting with 5 minutes and working 2% longer every day, I worked my way up to 5 hours a day this way. The fact that I was able to work for 5 hours absolutely blew my mind, because when I started I could barely focus for 15 minutes. I might add that a year of manual labor did wonders for my motivation to study. (Perhaps that is what is meant by "it builds character?" ;) As for practical study skills, I have heard very good things about this: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
JauntTrooper 4y ago
Haha, I am happy to share. I basically switched from a lecture-centric approach to a practice-question-centric one. When I need to learn a new topic, I will first read the materials once thoroughly, taking notes with a paper and pencil. Then I spend the rest of my time drilling practice questions. 75%+ of my study time is drills. I just do question after question until I start getting most of them right. When I'm done and getting 80%+ right (or I run out of questions), I go back and re-do all the questions I got wrong the first time around. I used to just pay attention in class and read the textbook, but I'd get in trouble when I needed to apply the concepts on an exam. I realized exams often tested application and mastery, not understanding, so I needed to anticipate what questions would be asked and practice all the different iterations. Instead of relying on lectures to teach me materials, I started treating them as a nice-to-have intro or review, with the expectation that my real learning would come from drills and reading. I also switched up my approach to classwork. I started sitting in the front row, taking notes with a pencil and paper. I was often the only one without a laptop. I'd never really look at my notes again, it was more the act of taking notes by hand that helped me with retention and staying engaged. When I had a syllabus or learning objectives I would read it closely multiple times and use it to make sure I was meeting all the goals. I'd also write a list of the assignments in Excel and try to score 100% on each one. It was a challenge I'd set for myself.

lvl102 4y ago

This resonates with me as well. I went to a school with similar grade structure. Exams were hard. And when I saw exams for the exact same science classes at MIT and Harvard, I was shocked how easy they were. For this reason, I still refuse to contribute a single dime to my undergraduate.

davesque 4y ago

Very relatable story. I think I've had similar experiences throughout my life. I never fit the academic mold very well. But whenever I was given the freedom to explore a topic of interest without a lot of pressure, I think I always excelled. It was fortunate that computer programming classes at my high school were basically like study hall. The teachers didn't make you do anything. That meant that the handful of us who were motivated out of personal interest could take things as far as we wanted to go. We weren't constrained by a curriculum. When I got to university, I felt like I was way ahead of the game and had already learned a lot of the things that were covered in freshman comp sci courses. I think I understand in theory what the point of grades is. It's hard to imagine a perfect way of deciding who gets access to limited opportunities and who is best fit to take advantage of them. However, I know from deep down that my life would have gone very differently if I hadn't been given those critical chances to wander. Competition can filter out the people who are less innately talented, but just as often filters out people who just don't like having to talk over everyone and fight for everything all the time. If you're just a shy kid or are starting out with a weaker self-image for some reason, you can fall to the bottom of the pile really quickly regardless of whether or not you're smart or worthy of good things in life. That's why I tend to think a certain amount of grade inflation is alright; because it unlocks hidden potential in people who don't look the part. Maybe in a sense it also penalizes people who game the system by chasing grades while missing the real point of getting an education.

willio58 4y ago

It's insane to me that there are people like you who went to a school like _princeton_ and ended up being cut out of your dream to pursue medical school or a PhD in bio, where if you had maybe just gone to a mid-tier 4-year university you could have easily scored top of your class and probably been accepted to those same programs. To me, grades in general seem to have little bearing on how driven or knowledgeable someone is on a topic. To limit someone's future based on a somewhat subjective measurement is just.. wrong.

barry-cotter 4y ago

> I don't like relative grading. I think there should be objective standards of what you should know, and if you meet those standards you get an A. That’s what external exams are for. The CFA, accounting exams, APs, English A Levels all have those. There’s very limited demand for them at university level. No demand leads to no supply.

Dracophoenix 4y ago

> Let me tell you, learning how to study (at 24) was an eye-opener for me, and it still feels like a superpower. By learning Pomodoro or was there something else to it?