http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/09/20 ... index.html

The first paragraph - 40% A's...c'mon you ivy league jackasses.

How do you curb back an A grade in mathematics or the physical sciences? There's not much room for subjectivity there, unlike in arts programs or social science disciplines.

theyre obviously bell curving the grades, which is total bullshit. give the students what they deserve and forget about averages.

the problem is that 40% of people are simply not doing a work - these ivy league schools are simply afraid to give anyone a bad grade.

its ridiculous. same thing happens with a lot of law schools.

C = meets standards/expectations

It's not just the Ivys, btw. Plenty of upper tier schools are guilty of this.

I'm glad DeVry has managed to avoid this sort of thing.

my Design professor always said that the best students were "c" stundents ,and if you got A's all the time you weren't taking enough risks.

i suppose this is only aplicable in creative fields.

at my school the curve is at b-. if you get a 3.5 you will be in the top 5% of students...at a school of about 700 people, that means only 35 or so people have above a 3.5.

How would this have affected George W. Bush's GPA at Yale?

You are sadly mistaken if you think this only happens at Ivys or even only upper tier schools.

Today more than ever even your average state school is becoming much more dependent on tuition and enrollment (less state support) than in the past. This means keeping students enrolled.

Second, the ridiculous mind set that equates students with customers and views education as a service industry same as any other leads to grade inflation. When "the customer is always right" - what else would one expect to happen?

There are other factors that I think are relevant-for instance parents actually calling up and complaining about a SON or DAUGHTER'S grades (this has become such a problem, that some schools explicit ban parents from calling professors about their kids enrollment in a course). I have also found students more willing to argue for a better grade (at least more so than I was ever aware of when I was a student- granted this is not the most objective way to look at it).

Further, students are more willing to drop a course and lose that money than risk getting a bad grade given todays academic climate- so it is possible that the 'grade inflation' is really self-selection-a bunch of the kids doing poorly have dropped the course.

My school, Cleveland State University, does this. In fact, I hear stores like the following on a yearly basis.

Yeah, where are the "weed out" classes of yore? I (and many others) barely made it through the first year at Georgia Tech, but managed to make dean's list the rest of the time there.

damn. i wish they did that when i was in school. would have done me good.

They did this my first year at UGA, but instead of classes it was letting kids run wild at Sky's Place and having drugs and drinks shoved in their face.

Heh, well, that did happen with me too, but going from straight A student in highschool to literally failing basic (basic for Tech, that is) classes like Calculus and Chemistry was a slap in the face.

Well it's good to know I'd lose my scholarships for being creative if I was in his class.

in law school they a students become profs and make shit, b students become judges and make shit, c students become the guys you see on the sides of buses and make a couple hundred thousand a year. our torts prof said one of his past students, who received a d in torts, just won the biggest judgment in the history of Oregon - a several hundred million dollar judgment against the tobacco industry.

so, what kind of grades are you making?

Generalizations as wisdom. Exciting.

B+, B, and a few A's sprinkled around. in the top 25% of my class, which seems ok, but most "good" jobs these days only go to the top 5%. good thing I don't really want those big firm jobs.