3 ms·

> If you get all As but retain nothing, you are rewarded handsomely. I certainly haven't found this to be the case. Looking at my peers 11 years after graduat

> If you get all As but retain nothing, you are rewarded handsomely. I certainly haven't found this to be the case. Looking at my peers 11 years after graduation, the successful ones are by and large the ones who focused on learning, not the ones who focused on their GPAs.

chc 14y ago
> after graduation That is out of the school's control. It isn't really relevant to the incentives set by the school.
- stephencanon 14y ago
  What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? If the students in question are incapable of looking ahead 1-3 years, that doesn't exactly speak well of them either. I won't pretend that there isn't pressure on students to get As. But that doesn't mean we should condone students doing whatever it takes to get an A; it may mean that we should reduce the pressure on the students to get them.
  - bcbrown 14y ago
    Better job prospects?
    - stephencanon 14y ago
      Of the jobs at which you've worked, do you think that you got the job because you were smart/well spoken/skilled in a particular area/had some sort of connection, or because of your GPA? If you have interviewed candidates, did you look at their GPA? If so, how my weight did you give it? Personally, I interviewed about 30 college students last year for internship and full-time positions; I didn't even look at a single GPA.
  - chc 14y ago
    > What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? Scholarships, honors, Dean's List, general praise, etc. And students who get bad grades are given the stink-eye no matter how clever they are. In general, students who get good grades are just treated better than students who fail. Is that not your experience? This case is actually a good example of the phenomenon. The students don't appear to have been punished for not learning. According to the story, they didn't copy any answers — it just looks like they discussed the subject matter. It may well be that these students learned better from collaborating than they would have from working separately. I know I usually did in school. But because it gave them an advantage in the grading system that the school didn't want them to have, they were punished for it. Learning doesn't appear to be the primary concern here. (I don't mean to say that I think they should cheat. I'm just pointing out that they may well have learned better than they otherwise would have, but that doesn't matter because learning is not the overriding concern here.)
    - stephencanon 14y ago
      Harvard doesn't award scholarships based on grades and they don't have a Dean's list. I can't speak to honors at Harvard, but at the Ivies with which I am more familiar, departmental honors carry a lot more weight than that magna/summa nonsense, and are awarded based on advanced work in your major, not on your GPA. I'm sure that students are praised for getting 'A's, but are they men and women, or are they golden retrievers? I was mostly an 'A' student as an undergrad, but I certainly never felt that I was "given the stink-eye" on the occasions that I earned a 'C'. To be clear, I'm not saying that 'B' and 'C' students are better off than 'A' students; I'm just observing that in my experience, they are also generally no worse off at the Ivies. I agree that there are silly incentives to get 'A's. We should probably do something about that. But that doesn't make it unreasonable to expect the alleged "best and brightest" to be able to see past those silly incentives.

chc 14y ago

> after graduation That is out of the school's control. It isn't really relevant to the incentives set by the school.

stephencanon 14y ago
What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? If the students in question are incapable of looking ahead 1-3 years, that doesn't exactly speak well of them either. I won't pretend that there isn't pressure on students to get As. But that doesn't mean we should condone students doing whatever it takes to get an A; it may mean that we should reduce the pressure on the students to get them.
- bcbrown 14y ago
  Better job prospects?
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    Of the jobs at which you've worked, do you think that you got the job because you were smart/well spoken/skilled in a particular area/had some sort of connection, or because of your GPA? If you have interviewed candidates, did you look at their GPA? If so, how my weight did you give it? Personally, I interviewed about 30 college students last year for internship and full-time positions; I didn't even look at a single GPA.
- chc 14y ago
  > What handsome rewards do you imagine are heaped upon A students while still in school? Scholarships, honors, Dean's List, general praise, etc. And students who get bad grades are given the stink-eye no matter how clever they are. In general, students who get good grades are just treated better than students who fail. Is that not your experience? This case is actually a good example of the phenomenon. The students don't appear to have been punished for not learning. According to the story, they didn't copy any answers — it just looks like they discussed the subject matter. It may well be that these students learned better from collaborating than they would have from working separately. I know I usually did in school. But because it gave them an advantage in the grading system that the school didn't want them to have, they were punished for it. Learning doesn't appear to be the primary concern here. (I don't mean to say that I think they should cheat. I'm just pointing out that they may well have learned better than they otherwise would have, but that doesn't matter because learning is not the overriding concern here.)
  - stephencanon 14y ago
    Harvard doesn't award scholarships based on grades and they don't have a Dean's list. I can't speak to honors at Harvard, but at the Ivies with which I am more familiar, departmental honors carry a lot more weight than that magna/summa nonsense, and are awarded based on advanced work in your major, not on your GPA. I'm sure that students are praised for getting 'A's, but are they men and women, or are they golden retrievers? I was mostly an 'A' student as an undergrad, but I certainly never felt that I was "given the stink-eye" on the occasions that I earned a 'C'. To be clear, I'm not saying that 'B' and 'C' students are better off than 'A' students; I'm just observing that in my experience, they are also generally no worse off at the Ivies. I agree that there are silly incentives to get 'A's. We should probably do something about that. But that doesn't make it unreasonable to expect the alleged "best and brightest" to be able to see past those silly incentives.