Princeton, the prestigious Ivy League university, thinks too many of its students are getting A's.

In a surprising move last week, the New Jersey university announced a proposal to reduce so-called grade inflation by limiting the number of A grades departments are allowed to award. 

An email sent out by Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Dean of the College, to all undergraduates, said that grading at Princeton "has become increasingly uninformative in conveying accurate information about the quality of student work."

In other words, so many people get A's, they've become practically meaningless.

Sixty-five percent of graduating seniors at Princeton in 2002 had a grade point average of B+ or better, while fewer than 5 percent had GPAs below B-. 

"A student with a straight C average," Malkiel's email said, "stood second to last among all graduating seniors."

Under the new proposal, A's, A+'s, and A-‘s would only be allowed to account for 35 percent of all the grades awarded in undergraduate courses.

The other grade ranges (B, C, D, and F) would be adjusted in relationship to the A's, creating a sort of bell curve with most students receiving C's. 

Currently, about 48 percent of all grades awarded at Princeton are A's.

Many Princeton students worry these changes will make them less competitive in the job market after college.

The university, on the other hand, feels that the new system will help to differentiate the merely good from the best that Princeton has to offer.

"We know that Princeton students represent the top talent in the nation," Malkiel told the undergraduates, "but such high and homogeneous grades do not help you to distinguish your best work from your ordinary work."

Some students aren't convinced.

"Prospective employers aren't going to compare Princeton grades to previous Princeton grades, they'll compare them to other university's grades," said Princeton junior Thaddeus Hartmann, who's afraid the newly underinflated grades will pale in comparison to other university's consistently high marks.

Grade inflation has been a contentious and constant issue in recent years at all of the country's major universities.  Several years ago, Harvard University was criticized for allowing more than 90 percent of its students to graduate with honors, a historically prestigious and elite classification.

Malkiel is convinced that other schools will soon make similar changes.  Rather than hurt students, she feels the new standards will motivate students to do their very best work.

Hartmann scoffs at the school's notion of separating out the great students from the not-so-great. 

"Everybody here is great student," he said.

There is no denying that Princeton schools some of the nations top students.  The university only accepts 11 percent of applicants each year, and 95 percent of those accepted were in the top ten percent of their high school class.

Hartmann, who has, as he describes it, the not very good GPA of 3.4, feels that the high grades at Princeton are just reflective of the highly motivated student body and any effort to deny good grades for good work is unfair.

"If everybody works as hard to get a grade, everybody should get it," he said.

But that's just the problem, as Malkiel sees it.  Under the current system, she feels, students who do average work and students who do their best work both could get A's.

"We want grading to help you evaluate what you have learned, how well you have learned it, and where you need to invest additional effort," Malkiel told her concerned students.

Perhaps the new system will be able to do all that.  But at the least, making it more difficult to pull an A in that World Liturature class, may just make our nation's purportedly best and brightest work just a little bit harder.

Comment on this story...