Grade Inflation and Its Effects on Mcgill University Term Paper

Grade Inflation

Dr. Heather Monroe-Blum, Principal

Grade Inflation at McGill: My Perspective

I am a senior at McGill University, both of my parents also attended many years ago. Just in the three plus years that I've been a student here, I've noticed a trend in grading that I find disturbing. It seems to me that many students are finding it increasingly easy to get and maintain a 3.0 GPA -- something I believe a college student should really have to work hard for. My parents claim that although competition wasn't nearly as fierce among students when they were younger, professors expected class participation, extensive term papers, and a great deal of homework. I have tried to keep myself challenged by aiming for above average grades in all subjects, but I find myself losing interest and even becoming lazy as so many of my peers are spending so little time actually studying; yet they are getting B. averages. I am concerned that rampant cheating via internet resources, as well as a weakening of resolve among professors, is causing serious grade inflation and character deflation.

Across the nation, statistics show that just between the years 1991 through 2007, grade point averages at private schools went up on average from 3.09 to 3.30 (Rojstaczer, 2002).This is a huge change; surely we're not getting that much smarter. I would argue that such a dramatic shift since 1991 is clearly due to the advent of the Internet and its copious resources -- a goldmine for cheaters. Most disturbing of all, however, is the fact that so much of this inflation is taking place at America's finest educational institutions -- such as Harvard (Schiming, 2009). This could be due to cheating; more likely, it's due to lazy professors who believe if you've jumped through enough hoops to get into Harvard, you should pretty much be home free. And of course that makes the professors' jobs much easier as well. But if we're turning out Harvard graduates who've lollygagged their way to good grades, and these people will be looked upon as the future experts in their fields, that does not bode well for the fate of the United States. Just some of the problems associated with grade inflation include: poor quality of work, moral and intellectual decline, inability to accurately measure success with grades, and public dissatisfaction with educational institutions (Dresner, 2004).

Experts cite many possible "excuses" for grade inflation over the past twenty….....