By Meagan Steiner
Daily Pennsylvanian (U. Penn)
(U-WIRE) PHILADELPHIA-Troubles with grade inflation are not limited to classrooms at the University of Pennsylvania. Other Ivy League universities must deal with rising marks as well. The steps taken to evaluate and prevent this inflation vary significantly across the Ancient Eight, but concerns about the topic are increasingly apparent.
Some schools, like Yale and Cornell universities, say the issue isn’t a major one. Others, however, have taken dramatic measures to curb an excess of high grades.
At Princeton University, for example, faculty voted in April 2004 to implement “expectations” that each undergraduate department would grant A’s for a maximum of 35 percent of coursework and 55 percent of junior and senior independent work.
As a result, A’s received in undergraduate course at Princeton were reduced to 40.9 percent last academic year, a drop of 5.1 percentage points.
At other universities, whose measures against grade inflation may be less drastic, the proportion of high grades given is higher – though not as high as at Penn.