4/16/2004

Credit where it's due: The Yale Daily News Editorial Board, in their Staff Editorial for tomorrow, takes Princeton to task for its proposal to regiment grades - It seems Princeton's new system will penalize departments that have lots of small seminars, in which a greater percentage of students may be doing truly A-quality work than in a large lecture class. Additionally, it could create faculty tensions. Which professors will be entitled to hand out A's to more than 35 percent of the class? Will the more senior professors get to give the grades they want, while those lower on the ladder are forced to assign whatever grades are left? Even Princeton's potentially standardized grade distribution doesn't seem to make it any more likely that students will be getting the grades they actually deserve. - while also calling Yale students on their sense of entitlement in grading: Few students seem to even consider the possibility that a low grade might be deserved -- ours certainly have been. Instead, students here treat a bad grade as some sort of moral injustice, often making the offensive argument that any work at Yale would be 'A' work at another school. Students do not, contrary to what many seem to believe, have an inherent right to good grades just by virtue of being here. Right on.

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