« Vishy's Indian English Dictionary: prepone | Main | The influence of organizational structure on software »
May 10, 2005
Grade Inflation at Cornell
I just thought I'd share a hilarious tidbit I came across in The Atlantic Monthly.
Cornell is an Ivy League school. Its charter is to attract passionate and smart young women and men, who like to challenge themselves. It, like any other school, prefers to believe it is succeeding at this task, year after year. So, you would think, if Cornell's toughest courses were advertised as such, more students would rise up to the challenge and take them.
Wrong.
Starting in 1997, Cornell decided to publish the median grade in every offered course at the end of term. The result was that students gravitated to the easier courses (not the harder ones), which led to increased grade inflation.
Is this the Law of Unintended Consequences or simply unbelievable naivete on the part of the Cornell administration?
Posted by Vishy at May 10, 2005 11:32 PM