April 11, 2024 | OPINION | By Pierce Sullivan
Colorado College has a graph of grade point averages of enrolled undergraduates on its website. As of fall 2023, the average GPA was a 3.71, coming in at just above an average grade of A- for all CC students. Again, on the website, CC explains that an A-range grade should correlate to “excellent work that reflects superior understanding and insight, creativity, or skill.” At the risk of being overly nitpicky, how could every student possibly have superior understanding?
CC seems to have found itself in quite the pickle here. “Superior” is a relative word and, so, not every student — by the College’s definition — could possibly achieve this grade. Looking past the empirical impossibility that a vast majority of students achieve an A-level or superior understanding in all of their classes, by CC’s definition, what does this mean for us as CC students? And more importantly, why should you vehemently despise this phenomenon of grade inflation?
A guest opinion essay appeared in the New York Times in October outlining some of these issues, which I think barely scratched the surface of the glaring flaws having to do with grade inflation. The general argument against grade inflation is that, as the Times piece was titled, “If Everyone Gets an A, No One Gets an A.” Sure. The grade carries less weight if everyone gets one. No longer a sign of achievement, but more a participation award. This isn’t the issue which concerns me in itself, though — the results are. Consider you are searching for a job, graduate school or a summer internship candidate. Pick your poison. It is relatively competitive, let’s arbitrarily say that out of 100 applicants, only one person gets the job. There are two scenarios, the “representative model” and the “participation award model” as I have poetically coined them.
In the former model, the undergraduate grades of students range from C to A, with a B average. In the latter, everyone has an A. Consider the ‘participation award model.’ Every single applicant you consider has a 4.0 GPA. How could you possibly decide? By flipping a 100-sided die? Flipping this absurdly-dimensioned die would likely be just as telling about the proficiency of candidates as the ‘participation award model.’ However, the answer lies elsewhere.
Now that grades are all but useless as a metric for evaluating high school and college students, the only way to set oneself apart is through extracurriculars and internships. There are two glaring issues with this. First, it cuts into the ability of adolescents to live their lives. Time to socialize is one of the few things that has such a drastic ability to improve mental well-being. Grade inflation takes this away. Second, and more importantly, the ability to stack one’s schedule with ‘resume builders’ is significantly easier for affluent, privileged students. Internships are easier to attain when either their pay is of less importance to you or your family has a host of high-profile connections. Grade inflation primarily serves to amplify privilege.
So, what can we do? People like to say that this is a problem that cannot be solved. I have had professors tell me that they do not want to give out ‘bad’ grades because it will just hurt their students down the line. The facts say the opposite, however. Something else worth considering is that, despite a few exceptions such as medical school admissions, your grades do not matter.
Let’s say you want to go to a half-decent grad school, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, maybe. According to their admissions blog, if you have a 3.0, you have a shot. Your GPA is above a 3.5? Fantastic application. However, it is not grades, but letters of recommendation that matter.
Taking a step back, grade inflation is harmful to everyone, but also manages to amplify inequities. Not only this, but the vast majority of us do not actually need straight A’s. They tend to be wildly inconsequential. It turns out the answer is quite simple, professors just need to stop giving everyone A’s. Easy as that.