This week, the USA Today printed an article titled “Princeton leads in grade deflation,” which addresses grade inflation at American universities, specifically, the Ivy League. I hope to show that Cornell should follow Princeton’s lead by discussing how inflation starts, why it is hard to leave, its consequences, and a potential fix.

The start of grade inflation is not surprising when looked at through a cascade clean lens. At any given time, one school has an incentive to boost its average grade because inflation will make its students look like stronger candidates for competitive positions in industry and in graduate school. Once a university takes the initiative, the rest will follow cue so they aren’t left behind. Pretty soon, you have average grades of A- and A.

When you’ve reached a point where inflation is occurring, you’re really in a bit of a pickle. There’s not much incentive for a unilateral deviation. Why should one school reduce the grades of all its students and make them look worse when no one else is doing it? One response to this is that people will know you are tougher and therefore treat your grades more seriously. Yeah, ok, but how in the world do you make such an adjustment? Another problem is generational. If deflation were to suddenly take place, the people from the pre-deflation era win because their transcripts look better. This should start protest from the first few generations of deflation, thereby putting deflation to an end.

There are a few important consequences of grade inflation that come to my mind. The first is that companies and admissions committees are forced to weight other aspects of an application more to determine applicant quality. The main two are letters of recommendation and test scores. We can pretty much throw out letters as a great discriminator (except for those that come from a high ranking person), since almost every letter will be positive because, in most cases, a recommender will not write for you unless he or she has nice things to say. What you’re left with is test scores.

An emphasis on test scores. Bad test takers should cringe at the sound of this. They should be deflation zealots. Somewhat surprisingly, good test takers are not made worse off by deflation, despite the potential reduction in test score emphasis. In a study by Professors Talia Bar and Asaf Zussman of Cornell University, it was found that the most talented students (i.e. those with high test scores) are less drawn to classes with high median grades. These 1600 prodigious prodigies should therefore not mind deflation, since their currently hard earned B’s look bad in comparison to the A’s of other students.

Another consequence of grade inflation is a warped drive and a potential loss of academic curiosity. If everyone is getting A’s, receiving a B becomes disaster. Motivation for an A is thus somewhat driven by fear. The drive for an A should be fueled by a desire to stand out in a good way, not by a fear to stand out in a bad way. Academic curiosity is also reduced. If B’s are bad, there’s no reason to take a class out of your comfort zone and risk getting one.

Hopefully it can be seen that the only losers of deflation are lazy people who get bad grades and have low test scores. That’s fine, they should be the losers. The winners are the hard workers with good test scores. That’s also fine, they should be the winners. Now, how do we start the deflation? Collective action seems to be the way to go. Like the USA Today journalist stated, the rest of the Ivy League should follow Princeton’s footsteps by restricting the amount of A’s given out. It was said that Princeton restricts the amount of A’s to an average of 35% across departments. Everyone else in the Ivy League should do the same through a formal pact. I will leave the details and enforcement of this for another day.

Link to paper by Professor Bar and Professor Zuzzman:

http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp61.pdf

References:

Bar, Talia and Asaf Zussman. Quest for Knowledge and Pursuit of Grades: Information, Course Selection, and Grade Inflation at an Ivy League School.

Bruno, Laura. “Princeton leads in grade deflation.” USA Today. Wednesday, March 28, 2007 9D.