>For top level schools (MIT, Berkeley, etc), I went to one of these type schools. At the time, grade inflation was already a hot topic. It seemed then that the

>For top level schools (MIT, Berkeley, etc), I went to one of these type schools. At the time, grade inflation was already a hot topic. It seemed then that there were two schools of thought: 1) Grades where artificially inflated for some students that couldn't keep up for social or political reasons and to help with their economic future. The idea being that in a "real" job, it isn't about always being exactly right and you can always research any info you need in quasi-real-time, not to mention most of your actual job requirements will be taught to you on the job. So a can-do attitude and good communication skills are adequate and a bad grade should not stop your progress. 2) Students were just smarter and better prepared each successive year. If a student makes an A, you give them the A! And if the school is very selective a lot of students will make A's. They are not there by accident after all! As an example, the average GPA in my school was a 4.1! (And I mean my university, not my high-school where AP "tweaks" GPAs) I was even in a class where one of our projects was to research and write about this. At the time, there was no one right answer, it seemed.