Averaging grades across fields compares A's to oranges

There has been a great deal of discussion lately about the new system of grading that the University is contemplating. I, for one, have yet to be convinced that this new system is a remedy for the University's current ills, but it is heartening to think that there are others who agree with me that there are current ills.

What are these ills? Very simply put, the current system of grading is one in which a student gets as many points, in terms of her GPA, for an A in an easy class as she does for getting an A in a difficult class. The proposed solution is a new within-class achievement-indexed system, in which a student who gets a B+ in, say, "Philosophy of Empirical Science," may receive more points than a student who gets an A in, say, Introduction to Yoga, because the whole class got an A in Yoga, whereas only three students got an A in philosophy.

What I want to say here is that the root of the problem lies much deeper than people think. The root of the problem, it seems to me, lies not so much in local "grade inflation" or easy courses, but in the very idea of a GPA. The problem with this, in turn, lies in American tradition of a "general education," coupled with the American psychology of success and perfection.

I studied in Europe, in the Republic of Ireland and England to be specific, and I think that it is fair to say that we do not really have the problem of "grade inflation" there. If anything, we have the problem of "grade deflation." Where I come from, getting an A-or rather, getting a "First," as it is termed-really means getting a First. It means that, often, no-one actually gets a First. This fact is especially true in the case of the humanities. In my first year of courses in English Literature, out of a class of about 80 students, no one received a First. And no one was surprised either. It would have meant getting a First on each of the papers for all of the classes, plus getting an First on each of the questions on all of the exams for all of the classes. Since some of our professors did not believe that Freshmen should be awarded Firsts for anything they wrote, this achievement struck us as pretty much impossible.

The whole psychology behind grading, where I come from, is different. Striving to get a First, in a paper or exam, means striving to get 70 percent. The very idea that a person might receive a higher grade than this-say, something approaching 80 percent-is inconceivable, especially in courses like philosophy and English. What this means, of course, is that there is a psychology of humility-humility before the testimonial of your professors and of your discipline. No one ever achieves a perfect score, even if she gets a First. Over here, getting 80 percent is a crippling blow to the ego because it means you got a B. And lots of people can get grades in the 90s.

Our system works because the maximum number of subjects that you can take your BA in is two (sometimes three). This means that for four years you study two subjects, only. Thus, you are only competing with students within your discipline to get the illustrious First, and if no-one gets it in the first year, then all that matters is how well you did in comparison with the rest. As a result, in our system there is no such thing as an overall GPA. It is impossible to compare grades across disciplines. The degree you get has its internal standards, and it is these standards which are invoked when decisions about jobs and further education are being made.

The problem faced by the University is the following: What do you do if you are trying to discriminate between hundreds of students, all taking different courses with different standards, and all assessed according to one scale, the GPA? Their solution is to change the status of grades within classes, and preserve the overall GPA. My solution would be to change the structure of the BA program, and with it the concept of an overall GPA, such that students studied fewer subjects more intensely, and in this sense competed only with their subject peers.

James Mahon is a second-year graduate student in philosophy.