Nearly eight years after Dartmouth moved to thwart grade inflation by including median grades on student transcripts, students are receiving more A's than ever before, while some are concerned that the system unfairly penalizes students and promotes competition.
Unique in higher education, the policy mandates the inclusion on transcripts of median grades and total enrollment in classes alongside student grades. Median grades for each class are also accessible on the registar's web page.
Initially approved in May of 1994, the new policy was enacted in response to figures that showed the overall GPA had increased from 3.06 in 1976-77 to 3.23 in 1992-3, and over concerns of differential grading between departments and academic divisions.
"In general, higher education is groping for a way to provide grades in context," Registrar Polly Griffin explained. "The system of reporting median grades is an attempt to alleviate grade inflation and to help provide information to students, faculty, departments and employers."
Despite the policy, grades have continued to rise. At the time of the system's inception, the overall GPA stood at 3.25. Last year, that figure hit 3.33, the highest level ever.
The system has not come without its critics.
" Median grades don't reduce grade inflation, they expose grade inflation," Mike Sevi '02 said. Sevi, who has been involved with Student Assembly in debating the issue, said he feels the system "breeds an unhealthy competitiveness" that should not have a place at Dartmouth.
Student opinion is mixed, with a majority favoring an elimination of the policy.
According to a Student Assembly poll conducted last spring, nearly 60 percent of students voted in favor of removing median grades from transcripts. Mike Perry '03, the Assembly's Chair of Academic Affairs at the time, told The Dartmouth that those in favor of continuing the policy were generally science majors, whereas those in the humanities tended to oppose it.
In 1992-93, average grades in the humanities division were 3.36 as compared to a value of 3.09 in the sciences. Perry said those students who supported median grades felt they would better reflect their in-class performance, particularly in comparison to the relatively higher grades of social science and humanities majors.
Sevi said Dartmouth should not necessarily expect to see an even distribution of grades given the school's strict admission standards.
"If you don't admit average students, don't expect to see average grades," he said. "I think we don't admit students on a curve, and therefore you can't expect them to perform on a curve."
"There is a certain notion of a normal distribution pattern when you give grades," said Carl Thum, director of the Academic Skills Center. "Maybe that's not a fair and reasonable supposition anymore."
While no other Ivy League school has moved as far as Dartmouth to show median grades on transcripts, some have adopted similar measures to try to stave off rampant grade inflation.
At Columbia University, students' transcripts display the percentage of the class that earned the grade the student received, but do not contain median grades.
Additionally, the minimum GPA required to make the dean's list was recently raised to 3.60, reducing the number of students on the list from roughly half the class to a figure nearer to one-third, according to Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs Lee Baechler of Columbia.
"I think the policies have been developed to give people an idea of what the trends and patterns in grading are," she said. "They give the student, the faculty member and the prospective employer a better opportunity to assess what grades mean."
Despite the seeming failure of Dartmouth's own policy in halting the rise in grades, administrators say the system still has value both to students, departments and others as useful contextual information.
"I don't know that anyone can say the reporting of median grades has had effects on the grades that people give," Griffin said, "but it does serve some very important purposes."
She said she believes grade inflation is an issue that individual departments must tackle while using the information provided by the median grade report.
Sevi believes that one possible solution to the disagreement would be to allow students to choose whether median grades appear on their transcripts. For now, however, all students will continue to receive transcripts noting their performance relative to the rest of their class.
The policy was recently reaffirmed, without alterations, in Oct. 2000. "I don't see that it will be changed anytime soon," Griffin said.
