"Grade Padding!"

[ohiowa]

I just had and interview in which the interviewer accused the college I went to of "grade padding," (i.e. giving students higher grades than deserved in order to give students a leg up in their future exploits). I took the comment calmly, not wanting to get into an argument with my interviewer, but now that I've been thinking about it I wish I had said something.

For one thing, the accusation is just not true. The only thing I can think of which might explain this comment is the general grade inflation that exists at all colleges, by which the "gentelman's C" has become the "gentelperson's B". I think the interviewer must be coming from the old school, or else he was just bitter. btw, the schools he accused of grade padding were cornell and dartmouth.

Just needed to vent that.

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[whyme]

do you go to a top ten school?

 

[ohiowa]

i dunno. i went to dartmouth.

 

[Andrew_Doan]

Originally posted by ohiowa
I just had and interview in which the interviewer accused the college I went to of "grade padding," (i.e. giving students higher grades than deserved in order to give students a leg up in their future exploits). I took the comment calmly, not wanting to get into an argument with my interviewer, but now that I've been thinking about it I wish I had said something.

For one thing, the accusation is just not true. The only thing I can think of which might explain this comment is the general grade inflation that exists at all colleges, by which the "gentelman's C" has become the "gentelperson's B". I think the interviewer must be coming from the old school, or else he was just bitter. btw, the schools he accused of grade padding were cornell and dartmouth.

Just needed to vent that.

Don't worry, it's only the opinion of one. Several of my former Hopkins classmates were from Dartmouth, which has a very good reputation!

 

[jbsnapple]

What school was this interview at?

 

[SunnyS81]

I didn't know that a "gentlemen's C" is now a "gentelmen's B". If that were the case, would everyone at all the schools that do this have above a 3.0?

My school still curves around a C, and the campus gpa definitely reflects it (~2.8). Heck, 3.0 is dean's list here.

I guess you learn something everyday!

 

[qweewq11]

wtf?? Cornell is the Ivy that pads least! The guy was just jealous 'cause he went to some podunk school.

Originally posted by ohiowa
I just had and interview in which the interviewer accused the college I went to of "grade padding," (i.e. giving students higher grades than deserved in order to give students a leg up in their future exploits). I took the comment calmly, not wanting to get into an argument with my interviewer, but now that I've been thinking about it I wish I had said something.

For one thing, the accusation is just not true. The only thing I can think of which might explain this comment is the general grade inflation that exists at all colleges, by which the "gentelman's C" has become the "gentelperson's B". I think the interviewer must be coming from the old school, or else he was just bitter. btw, the schools he accused of grade padding were cornell and dartmouth.

Just needed to vent that.

 

[neuromd03]

Originally posted by ohiowa
I just had and interview in which the interviewer accused the college I went to of "grade padding," (i.e. giving students higher grades than deserved in order to give students a leg up in their future exploits). I took the comment calmly, not wanting to get into an argument with my interviewer, but now that I've been thinking about it I wish I had said something.

I think you did the right thing. Of course, you could've always said, "Sir, what makes you say that?" Maybe he wasn't implying that you had benefitted from the "grade padding." Maybe he was just making a statement to see how defensive you would be.

 

[ohiowa]

Originally posted by neuromd03
I think you did the right thing. Of course, you could've always said, "Sir, what makes you say that?" Maybe he wasn't implying that you had benefitted from the "grade padding." Maybe he was just making a statement to see how defensive you would be.

yeah, i thought it best to just leave it be. the school was albany med college. things were going smooth in the interview so i made the mistake of asking if he thought i would be a good match for albany. word of advice: don't ever ask this...it's bad gnus. so the guy says "yadda, yadda, but D. and C. pad their grades." i just gave him a, "hmm."

oh, well.

it just goes to show that sometimes a school's name can be a help and other times a hinderance. i think this is part of the reason people that go to harvard say they went to school in boston when asked about their education (there was a thread about this earlier today).

 

[jwin]

a gentleperson's B is grade padding!

as sunny said, NOT ALL SCHOOLS ARE THIS KIND, and schools that do give a gentleperson's B are grade padding!

 

[DoubleDoctor]

Well I had kinda the opposite experience. During my interview they commented on how commendable my GPA was considering where I went to undergrad and that I was a double science major. She remarked that they liked grads from my school because they have such tough grading stance. I guess these adcoms make it their business to know about different schools (esp local ones) because they get alot of their applicants. I was kinda shocked because (I guess I am kinda naive) I figured all colleges were pretty much the same. I know that there was a lot of crap about grade inflation years ago, but I haven't really heard of anything lately.

I know at my school, they could care less if 90% of the class fails.
More than once, I have had exams where the class average was 40 or 50% and they did not curve at all. I did work in the lab with a kid with a great GPA from another college that couldn't do stuff that I learned in my 1st year, like how to make a 1 molar soln or calibrate a pipette.

I think I would probably chalk it up to perhaps he had a student that didn't perform as well as he expected, he has a chip on his shoulder about top tier schools, or he was just trying to stress you out.

I would definitely, nicely but firmly, have told him that from my experience that was not the case. You have to remember that sometimes they are testing your ability to be assertive. This is almost like an ethical question where they ask you your opinion, then take the opposite side, and see if you have enough confidence to stand your ground. All this psychological stuff with the interviewing just gives me a headache. I was pretty anal about it at first then I just decided that I was going to be myself and either they liked me or not. If they didn't, then perhaps they aren't a good fit for me personally.

 

[ohiowa]

Originally posted by jwin
a gentleperson's B is grade padding!

as sunny said, NOT ALL SCHOOLS ARE THIS KIND, and schools that do give a gentleperson's B are grade padding!

i agree with jwin, that a gentleperson's B is grade inflation if the definition of a genterperson's B is: sit back and relax and you'll get a B with the rest of the average crew george w. bush style. but that's not what i'm talking about. B is, by definition, above average. but what happens when the majority of people are above aveage. that means that the average is above average. it becomes a difficult balance for a professor to give grades that reflect performance. that's why we have standardized testing (god forgive me for implying that the MCAT truly tells anything concrete about a person besides his or her ablility to take the MCAT).

yo, and for the record, grade inflation is ubiquitous in academia today. if you think that your school, be it Podunk U. or Harvard, is free of it, then you are naive, have stumbled upon the exceptional class, or deserve a C (which by the way, in today-speak means below average).

i can't wait for pass/fail grading in med school.

 

[DoubleDoctor]

I can only speak from my experience in my majors (Biochem/Micro and a minor in molecular bio) but at Miami in the science programs this just doesn't happen. I missed an A in phy chem by 0.1 points. I had a 89.9% and I received a B. Now I will say that I had some liberal arts classes that I thought were pretty lame as far as grading, because they gave the tests but then they had extra credit stuff you could do if you wanted. A couple of very hard chem classes were curved by a couple of points but you knew going in that 88-100% was an A. They did not base it on class performance. Wish they did give out these "gentleman's A's" cuz my GPA would have been much higher.

 

[Cerberus]

Its really unusual how this works. I transferred from a small private school to the major university this year. The entire time I was at the private school I heard about how easy the uni is and how they inflate grades. Well, they were wrong. The first physics exam here had an average grade of 55 (or maybe 60). This has been my experience thus far with all the science classes! I am having a helluva lot more trouble making A's here than there. Just goes to show that you shouldnt listen to everything people say about another schools reputation!

 

[medicine2006]

I think that all classes that are in one's particular major should have a standardized grading scale that is universal throughout all colleges in the USA. For example you set up a system that says the mean will equate to a C+/B- and that a standard deviattion above as a full grade higher and a std deviation below a full grade lower and so forth. The scale should be a little less strict for upper divison classes within ones major, for example a calculus based P-Chem class of 16 people should not be subject to the same strict curve thing I mentioned above as like a 300 person Organic chem class. I know that the exception I mentioned is a little ambigous but something could be worked out among the faculty to set up a fair grading scale for classes too small to set up a true curve.

 

[Random Access]

Originally posted by ohiowa
sit back and relax and you'll get a B with the rest of the average crew george w. bush style.

Shrubya wasn't so much of a B student for the most part:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=2636

 

[BlueAvocado]

Who gives a fook what that guy had to say about your school. Everyone knows you get out of any school as much as you want to get out, no matter what the ranking of that school is. I get so tired of people flaunting what school they went to like it matters. Whats more annoying is when these idiots at admission boards do it. My advice and I know that you may not agree, if that idiot represents that school you applied to and what they stand for and what they beleive in. I wouldn't even give them the time and the day.