Grade inflation took a turn for the worst a year ago at the University of Toronto Law School.
While discussing the problem of fierce grades based competition for highly sought summer jobs on Bay Street, one of the professors contemplated what would happen if the students made a pact to all submit straight A’s.
Son of a gun if some of them little critters didn’t go out and do just that. Makes me proud to be a lawyer. :rolleyes:
I went to the University of Western Ontario, which is one of the top schools in Canada (though to be fair, they are all very good). The class averages were usually B-.
On occasion grades were reduced (but not belled) by the administration to B-, but only after looking closely to see if the grades had been handed out too easily as opposed to there being an abnormally large proportion of top students in a class.
A small class might work its way up to a lofty B, or descend into the depths of C+ despair, but B- was the norm. Folks landing A grades deserved them.
University of Virginia has the famous “B mean” (or “Be Mean,” as one professor put it). 10% of the students in every course got some form of A, 10% of the students in every course got some form of C (or in very rare cases, lower). Everyone else got some form of B. And this was enforced to a level of mathematical exactitude by the school administration.
Bottom line was if you had a 3.5, you were probably top 10-15% of your class. And a 3.0, right in the middle.
And to top it all off, they absolutely refused under any circumstance to give out class rankings. Probably because each .1 above and below 3.0 encompassed a boatload of people.
I think you probably have magna and summa reversed. That’s how Georgetown Law does it, too.
–Cliffy
There’s a huge difference, pally. We get those three stripes on the arms of our academic robes, and the robes themselves are cut more stylishly.
Sua
For what it’s worth, at Washington University, we’re on a numerical grading system, with the median being an 83. A couple of points in either direction makes a huge difference in class rank.
I’ve always assumed the “grade inflation” thing can be explained like this:
There are two system of grading, the B-average (post-grad)and the C-average (under-grad). The post-grad system is the one underwhich no one ever gets anything less than a C, and a C is considered a really, really shitty grade. Very few A’s, very few C’s, lots of varieties of B’s. Every taught master’s program I’m aware of uses this system, wherein there is a big difference between getting a B, a B+, or a B-.
The undergrad system is more faithful to the generally-accepted letter values, in that a C is average. Most undergrad programs grade under this system.
IME there is not a real consensus at the law school level regarding how law school classes should be graded – in the B-average (post-grad) manner or in the C-average (under-grad) manner. Some schools do one, some do the other. I think we have had people post here from both types.
I think it only becomes “grade inflation” when students are getting better grades than their work would indicate they deserve. And my understanding is that this is the case in some very high-end law schools (Harvard), as well as in some very low-end schools (Bob’s Laudramat ‘N’ Law School), the latter because they want to pass as many people as possible.
But getting a B+ under the post-grad system when you would have received a C+ under the under-grad system is not necessarily grade inflation. It is rather the appropiate grade under that system of grading. It can look like grade inflation, however, if a person looks at a “B-average” B+ and takes it as a “C-average” B+. This of course works to the benefit of those who were graded under the B-average system, since their grades appear higher to a person who doesn’t know the difference.
AFAIK, this is a problem only with law schools. In taught master’s programs, in contrast, everyone knows that the system is one under which a B is average (not above average) and so no one takes a B+ to be a particularly “good” grade.
Not much to add, except to agree. Grades don’t matter much. Class rank does.
At KU, grades are normally geared towards a 2.9 average for the class. It is extremely difficult to fail. Probably even harder to do that than it is to get an A. Nevertheless, if you get an A, it’s something to be proud of because only about 8% of the class nabs that honor.
Jodi has perfectly described the grading scheme at my undergrad, grad and law schools.
Robes? You got to wear academic robes with stripes? You’re bumming me out, man.
For my law school mid-summer convocation they put us in black sacks and had us line up in a steam tunnel. We were not certain if we were being led into convocation, or being led into some strange food processing operation. Fortunately, there were no injuries or humiliations (unlike my previous convocation experiences).
Last spring in the courthouse robing room three female lawyers started getting maternalistic and played “Let dress Muffin” for half an hour, so I’m beginning to wonder if the cut of my robe sucks, or if I simply don’t have requisite robe wearing skills. Probably both.
Son of a gun, the folks at U. of Toronto have already twigged on to this. Mail in a Bachelors and they mail back a Doctorate. Cool.
I wonder, is that degree inflation, or just keeping up with the J.D. Joneses?