Vassar, peers have faced losing battle against grade inflation

In the 1960s, colleges and universities began to see a rise in grades. Since then, the trend has become a phenomenon, affecting top institutions all across the country.

In 2003, Princeton University found that 47 percent of its awarded grades were A-minuses; Harvard found two years earlier that 91 percent of its students graduated with honors; and a Princeton study found that A-range grades represented 44 to 55 percent of grades given at 11 of the top colleges in the country—Stanford University, University of Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the eight Ivy League schools.

And like almost all of its peer institutions, Vassar, too, suffers from the effects of grade inflation. The grade point average (GPA) of the graduating class was 3.12 in 1990; last year it was 3.48—showing a rise in 0.36 points. Reports also show that last year, nearly 50 percent of grades were As and, overall, 96 percent of all letter grades were comprised of As and Bs.

Some have suggested that the rise in grades is only appropriate at Vassar, since the College has deepened its applicant pool—which has almost doubled in the past 10 years—and has thus accepted more qualified students. Therefore, some argue, students should indeed be showing a higher level of academic competency and getting better grades.

According to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid David Borus, in the past 12 years, the average GPA of Vassar applicants has risen from about a B-plus to an A-minus or A. The average Reading and Math combined SAT score has risen from a 1300 to a 1390, and applicants are typically taking two to three more advanced courses in high school. "All of these academic indices that we look at in Admissions as part of the decision-making process have gone up," said Borus.

"If one wants to say that that equates to an increase in academic quality—certainly it equates to an increase demonstrated academic ability," continued Borus. "Now, whether that leads to the fact that therefore they are more competent, therefore they are earning higher grades because they are students—maybe."

Registrar Dan Giannini explained that, although applicants' statistics have risen, those factors alone cannot account for the level of grade inflation at the College. "In conversations about this, the question comes up, ‘Well, are the students just better now than they were 20 years ago?' We can show through test scores that we have become more selective and therefore student grading should go up. But whether they do that much better—it is debatable," said Giannini.

"Grade inflation isn't just happening at schools like Vassar—it is at schools where test scores have not gone up. It's a nationwide issue. Faculty are just not grading as tough as they used to," Giannini continued.

Some believe that professors have gradually become so lenient over the years that the Course Catalogue's description of each letter grade is essentially no longer applicable. In the Catalogue, while an A "indicates achievement of distinction" and "involved conspicuous excellence in several aspects of the work," a C indicates "the acceptable standard for graduation from Vassar College. It involves such work as may fairly be expected of any Vassar student of normal ability who gives the course a reasonable amount of time, effort and attention." Meanwhile, for students to obtain a B, they must demonstrate "excellence in some aspects of the work."

Even students feel that these descriptions are no longer accurate and that, in some classes, they can get by just fine without much time or effort. "This semester in my psychology class," said Jasper Boyle '12, "I missed and slept through many classes, and I crammed for all the tests—which consisted of sentences we had to memorize from the textbook—and yet I just talked to the teacher politely, made sure I crammed well, and I came away with a decent grade."

Professor of Political Science Richard Born explained that today students would never consider a C grade to be representative of acceptable work. "The Catalogue has a description of what each letter grade means—it is antiquated," said Born. "I go over it on occasion, and it does not relate to the way people grade or they way I grade now. Cs are meant to be acceptable, but a C essentially does not exist at Vassar."

According to professors like Born who view grade inflation as a problem at the College, there are several issues that may be motivating professors to give higher grades. For example, faculty may give better grades to gain popularity or to secure high enrollment levels in their classes. Some report a fear that, if they were to grade a student more harshly, that student may give the professor a worse evaluation on his or her Course Evaluation Questionnaire (CEQ)—the survey taken by students at the end of a course that plays a central role in salary and tenure decisions.

"The CEQs are very important—more, I think, than students believe," said Born. "Probably, in my own mind, an important reason why inflation has gone on is because you do not know whether the grades that you give are going to relate to your CEQs. You don't know whether easy graders get evaluated more highly. A lot of [professors] think this is the case. So you say to yourself, ‘I'm not going to risk it. It's just not worth it—I'm going to give easier grades to play it safe.' In junior faculty who are looking to get tenure, that kind of calculation is quite pronounced."

Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette explained that there is literature showing a correlation between CEQs and level of grades. "There have been studies showing that there is a correlation between grades and evaluations of faculty members. It is not a perfect correlation by any means, but there is a degree of correlation, and that could be applying some of the pressure since we use these CEQs."

Professor of Psychology Ken Livingston explained that other, less understandable motives might exist for faculty members. "In the years of these discussions, I actually had a member of the faculty who confessed that his grade inflation was intentional precisely because it took less time. ‘Because,' he said, ‘I don't have to write long comments if I give an A,'" Livingston said. "So in that case, if you just look at the superficial syntax of the paper—‘Does it look like it's in decent English? Does it have the proper reference format?—then I give an A and I'm done.' That person's conscientious colleague may spend 45 minutes to an hour on that paper, and this person spends four or five minutes with that paper," Livingston continued.

Livingston began studying grade inflation in 2002 when he was Director of the Office of Teaching Development and served as part of an ad hoc committee on grade inflation. In 2003, his committee sent a survey out to the faculty that addressed the issue. "As I remember, those who responded to this survey," said Born, "thought it was quite serious—they were very bothered by the grade inflation in a lot of regards."

Professors concerned with grade inflation insist that ultimately undeserved high grades will only hurt a student. "The reason I'm very concerned about it is—to be perfectly honest—it is a cheat for students. I can guarantee that students are not getting the value for [their] time and other resources than a student 20 or 30 years ago did.  They're not being pushed as hard or challenged as much," said Livingston.

Associate Professor of English Wendy Graham explained that grades are a tool of instruction for students—and without grading accurately and honestly, professors are not giving students an idea of when or how to improve. "I think grades can be instructive. I want students to understand that every paper can be revised—every work, no matter how good it is, can be improved. Consequently, I think I do tend to use grades and be more critical," continued Graham, "because if you say, ‘I have problems with your work, but here is an A anyway,' it defeats the purpose of suggesting a higher bar to people. I do not want to say that I use grades punitively, but for encouragement and to establish a bar. Students will learn more, but they have to do more."

One concern with grade inflation is that it leads to grade compression, which results in a smaller scale on which students can be evaluated. By using mostly As and Bs and not the full 10-point grade scale, it becomes nearly impossible to distinguish between students from one another based on academic achievement.

"I worry that we lose nuance," said Chenette, "but if you are comfortable with only five levels—B-minus, B, B-plus, A-minus and A—then, okay. I don't think it is a serious problem that we need to immediately attend to, but I do think that it is a phenomenon that we need to be aware of."

Students in particular may worry that clamping down on grade inflation would put Vassar graduates at a disadvantage when applying for jobs and to graduate schools. Director of the Career Development Office Mary Raymond explained that while GPAs are less of a factor when applying for jobs, they can be a crucial component of graduate school decisions.

"Lower GPAs will always impact outcomes—and for graduate study, and particularly law school, GPAs are a critical component of the application," said Raymond. Despite these concerns, the ad hoc committee put forth several proposals in 2003—none of which, as Born explained, were acted upon. "They spanned the spectrum," he said. "Some of them were kind of silly. There was one proposal to put in a new grade above an A. It was ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. My feeling is, you've got five letter grades and you use them—a ‘super A'—I do not know what you would call it—is essentially just kicking the can down the road."

Another possibility recently put forth by Princeton University to stymie grade inflation attempts to ensure that not more than 35 percent of grades are As and A-minuses. Others suggested that on a transcript, next to a person's grade in a class, the College put another number indicating the class average—a method currently employed by Dartmouth College in order to give graduate schools and employers an accurate sense of their grading scale.

Livingston explained that Wellesley College saw a drop in grade inflation after they voted that their faculty not allow the mean GPA for any given course to exceed a 3.3. "They took a very specific, proactive step. They had some exceptions built in—if a class had fewer than 10 people in it, then you could make a special case. In theory, you were supposed to send a request to the dean's offices to make your exception and say, ‘I can't hit the 3.3 mark fairly.' Apparently that actually happened very seldomly."

Research, however, shows that grade inflation might ultimately be difficult to control. Director of Institutional Research David Davis-Van Atta completed research this year that showed that for the number of As to increase as they have in the past 20 years, each professor would only have to give 1.348 additional As per year. "The average faculty member gives about 75 grades each year," said Davis-Van Atta. "Can someone reliably detect an additional one-point-something additional As per year out of all the courses taught? I think probably not."

Despite the almost imperceptible nature of grade inflation, however, concerned professors still want to explore the issue. This year, the Dean of the Faculty has yet to bring up grade inflation at a Committee on Curricular Policy (CCP) meeting. "This is not my top priority," said Chenette, who is currently dealing with the ramifications of the financial crisis on faculty compensation and resources. "But I think it is worth talking about—and we may have a conversation about it at the CCP before the end of the year just to ask if anybody thinks this is something that that the faculty more generally should be talking about."

Livingston believes that the College should stimulate this kind of discussion as soon as it can, as grade inflation is becoming an increasingly urgent problem. "This upward curve in As is in danger of going hyperbolic here. Pretty soon, there is not going to be any point in reading anything from a grading standpoint," he said. "I think most people here honestly want to do a good job by our students, and if we ask ourselves to be reflective about this—even that would be a good first step."