2 ms·

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

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.