5 ms·

Sounds like you are looking for grades to indicate class ranking. Should that be the function of grades?

• j7ake 3y ago
  Grades are most useful to a professor if it indicates class ranking of who has potential to do research level work. The only function of giving everyone an A is to prevent shattering fragile egos who have never experienced setbacks before. Unfortunately real life is full of set backs, so it’s better to learn to deal with it in a safe environment.
  • antonyt 3y ago
    If PIs or employers want to discriminate based on class ranking, they can ask for it and do exactly that. Why conflate that with grades? A common understanding of a grade is as an indication that the course material has been mastered. Higher grade = more mastery. This is a measure independent of the performance of fellow students.
    • j7ake 3y ago
      Because it’s nontrivial to convert a grade into a ranking when everybody has the exact same grade. If you gave a test out and the average was 99 percent, you would be ranking noise. They should make the course harder so even out the distribution of grades. The most informative distribution (ie maximum entropy) of grades is uniformly distributed. The least informative is when all grades are the same.
  • ceejayoz 3y ago
    > Grades are most useful to a professor if it indicates class ranking of who has potential to do research level work. There's a bald assertion here that lots of those professors would stop you at; that good grades and capacity for research work are the same (or even necessarily closely correlated).