Earlier this month, the faculty council at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill voted to enact revisions to the school's transcript format that are meant to counteract grade inflation. The plan, which will take effect in fall 2012, requires transcripts to include information such as the median grade for each of a student's classes, as well as the achievement percentile in which his grades fall. Transcripts also will feature a revised statistic known as the "schedule point average" that takes into account the relative difficulty of a student's classes - based on grade distribution - when calculating his GPA.
Yet the changes are controversial among students who fear they will be held to an unreasonably high standard when relaying their grades to graduate programs or potential employers. The plan's opponents have failed to acknowledge, however, that providing additional context for students' academic performance will bolster the resumes of high achievers and lead to greater levels of attainment by the student body as a whole. North Carolina therefore should be praised for taking this bold step, and other schools, including the University, should consider following its lead.
The problem of grade inflation in higher education is longstanding and pervasive. At the University, for example, the percentage of College students who made the Dean's List - meaning they earned a GPA of 3.4 or higher while taking 12 or more graded credits - jumped from 32.9 in spring 1992 to 45.7 in spring 2008. More broadly, the undergraduate student body's mean cumulative GPA rose from 3.060 to 3.218 during that same time period.
Although this is not necessarily because of easier grading practices or simplified material, the reality is that GPAs no longer convey the same information about student quality in an era when so many students score highly. Moreover, there are wide disparities between the grade distributions in different departments and sometimes even among the same classes taught by different instructors, meaning that not all GPAs can be weighted equally.
North Carolina's approach would go a long way toward solving those problems. By placing information about the grade distributions of individual classes alongside the marks students receive, it will enable the transcript to communicate the true level of a student's achievement. Thus, admissions officers and employers will be able to see whether a student's "A" is significantly above the class median or whether most people in the class score that highly. If the latter is the case, then the academic rigor of the class may be called into question and the student will be evaluated appropriately.
North Carolina students and those at universities contemplating similar policies have argued that this will cheapen their grades compared to those earned by students at schools where contextual information is not available on transcripts. For academically motivated students, however, precisely the opposite is true. Currently, if a student receives a "B-" in a class with stringent grading requirements, then his GPA will suffer without any mention of the fact that he took an unusually difficult class. Yet with the grade distribution of the class included on his transcript, the student's "B-" might instead signal to admissions officers or employers that he strives to challenge himself. Similarly, earning an "A" in a demanding class will appear more impressive if the median grade is included as well.
Equally significant is the impact that such a policy change will have on student achievement. Knowing that the grade distributions of their classes will appear on their transcripts, students will be stimulated to take harder courses. This will improve both their work ethic and their intellectual capacities, and it also will discourage professors from artificially boosting grades. If students increasingly demand classes with tough material and rigid grading policies, then professors will adjust their teaching styles accordingly.
The University's Faculty Senate thus far has neglected to address concerns about grade inflation, and its inaction pushed the Spanish department to undertake a unilateral revision of its grading scale several years ago. The department's approach was of questionable benefit to students, however, because it made grading stricter without advertising that fact on transcripts. If the University hopes to address variation between grade distributions, as well as the watering-down of GPAs, then it should look to North Carolina for an example of how to ensure uniformity and transparency among all its departments.
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