In her editorial, "Deflating Grade Inflation," (The Dartmouth, April 22) Amie Sugarman argues against the Princeton administration's plan for limiting grade inflation and the possible institution of such a plan at Dartmouth. Sugarman's main argument is that if Dartmouth were to curb grade inflation, the resulting lower student GPAs would hurt graduate school and job applicants and sully Dartmouth's academic reputation. Because "students from top institutions are vying for [a] limited number of spots," and "grades are what makes someone's application competitive, not just the school from which someone hails," Sugarman makes the vast deductive leap that "a student from a much lesser university with a 4.0 grade point average clearly has the advantage over an Ivy Leaguer with a much lower average."
Her argument tremendously underestimates the intelligence of recruiters and admissions officers. Books containing the distribution of grades for colleges are available and employed in admissions. As the directors of several top law schools said while attending an info session at Dartmouth, "not all 3.6s are created equally." They know the average GPA of your school, and they also know the reputation of certain schools such as Stanford, which vastly inflate their grades, to the point where one official joked (right to the Stanford Law School admissions director's face, I might add), "everyone from Stanford has a 3.8."
Having gone through corporate recruiting as a junior and the graduate school admissions process as a senior, I can state that the reputations of top schools such as Dartmouth matter tremendously, and that having a 4.0 from a lesser school certainly does not give one any advantage. Individuals from lesser schools are at a tremendous disadvantage, and any attempt to inflate grades further in order to compete in a battle we are already winning would simply reduce the respect the outside world has for the rigors of a Dartmouth education. If, for instance, the weight Sugarman puts on the simple numerical value of GPA were correct, how does anyone from Dartmouth with a B-plus average ever get a job, or get into graduate school? Would not all of such opportunities be taken by people (and there are plenty) with 4.0s from lesser institutions? If GPA were always taken out of context as Sugarman suggests, how could Dartmouth students who major in the sciences, where grade inflation is often much less egregious, ever compete with humanities majors?
The refusal of Dartmouth or any other fine college to bow to the pressure of grade inflation will in no way "blemish the reputation of these institutions," as Sugarman states. Our reputation has never been and will never be a result of the average GPA of our student body. It comes instead from the intelligence and abilities of our students, what they accomplish after leaving Dartmouth and the ability of the outside observer to recognize these traits. Just as actual inflation makes it more difficult to know what the value of something in the future will be, grade inflation simply makes it harder to ascertain the true intelligence and ability of a student. Why would a graduate school admit someone from Dartmouth with a 3.4 GPA of uncertain value, when they could admit a similar student with a 3.4 GPA they know to be hard-earned? To those who feel that inflated grades are the way to impress employers and admissions officers, do not underestimate the amazing reputation the alumni of Dartmouth have created for you, or the ability of those holding the keys to such opportunities to see through inflation on either the major or college level. Princeton's proposal to limit grade inflation is a step in the right direction, and will only help to bolster their reputation for academic rigor to the benefit of their undergraduates. Dartmouth's grade inflation, while relatively minor compared to some schools, only demeans the value of the grades students work hard to earn, and chips away at the reputation we have amassed as providing one of the finest undergraduate educations in the nation.
