Tea, Fire and Boredom

Dear Prudence

(Copied from an email dated 6/15/09)

Dear students,

Over the past several semesters, students have expressed concern about professors who have not correctly followed the grading policy. The most frequent complaint was of professors saying that they would have liked to have given an “A” for a particular assignment, but that they were prevented from doing so by the grading policy.

To address student concern regarding the grading policy, I have spoken at length about this issue with Dean Malkiel, and she has agreed to draft a letter with USG representatives to the faculty explaining student concerns and clarifying that it is never acceptable to give “A”-caliber work anything less than an “A”.

We would like to extend an invitation to all students who would like to be involved in the writing of this letter to join us in this effort. If you would like to share your input and help write this letter, …

Sincerely,

-Connor DY

Dear Connor Diemand-Yauman (Princeton Undergraduate Student Government President) and everyone else who has been complaining about the Princeton policy of grade deflation,

Please stop sending me emails regarding your protest of grade deflation. I get enough idiotic shit from you during the school year. Can you at least leave my inbox unmolested for a few months every year? I don’t want to support your crusade against grade deflation. I like grade deflation. I like that its proceeding to give you and much of the campus a kick in the ass.

I have a very hard time respecting a student that wants to return to the old grading policies. I interpret complaints to return to grade inflation as essentially a student’s way of saying “I want to get a higher grade for doing the same amount of work”. I understand that point of view. It represents the college student’s dream. Most college students would be perfectly happy in a world in which they would get an ‘A’ by virtue of having a pulse and internal body temperature in the vicinity of 98 degrees Fahrenheit.

Grade inflation fosters a very unhealthy mindset in students. It’s an obsessive, compulsive entitlement with obtaining top grades. See, most of us come from backgrounds in which we were constantly coddled and reassured about how talented we are. We got the highest scores on all the tests. We lead the right clubs. We got the best grades in our classes, often without trying. It’s no surprise that a student emerging from such a background would expect this to continue receiving top marks.

And I don’t give a flying fuck that you or any other student on campus is dissatisfied with his or her grades. Look I understand that kids got cranky because they stopped getting straight A’s when they started taking classes at the University. I understand that some kids got upset that the universe, in fact, does not revolve around them. In fact, I think it’s a good thing. I think it is good that Princeton students don’t have inflated grades. Inflated grades lead to inflated personalities. And God knows there are plenty of those around without even considering grades. I think that a graduation requirement should be to have at least one “F” on your report card under grades. A good intellectual kick in the ass (and sometimes a physical one as well) does a large good for character building. Learning to survive a setback is as important to building character as learning to succeed. And if students go through their academic careers constantly getting good marks, then they miss a vital part of growing up.

Some talk about post-graduation endeavors such as law school and job hunting. These self-absorbed corporate climbers complain that “we won’t be able to get into law school/med school/grad school because Harvard/Yale/(Insert other school here) students have inflated GPA’s”. I have zero sympathy for these people. None whatsoever. These are students who have been given, from an academic perspective, everything. They have received one of the best educations in the world at one of the best academic institutions on the planet. They have boundless opportunity to do anything they want. And the most profound subject on their mind is a few points of GPA. It’s pathetic, and I am embarassed to call these people my classmates.

So what if other Ivy League schools inflate grade? Whatever happened to individuality and free thinking? When I was little, I was taught that you shouldn’t do an action only because other people are doing it. That’s why I’m studying at Princeton instead of doing pot in my friend’s basement. If you accept that grade inflation fosters an unhealthy mindset that actively interferes with a student’s maturation, then it doesn’t really matter who else is doing it. Just because all the other schools are doing grade inflation doesn’t mean we should do is it as well.
Sure, our GPA’s might not be as large as those at Harvard or Yale. And this may mean that some students are going to have trouble because some employers don’t know about grade deflation. I was lead to believe by some naive fool that an education is more than a summation of post-graduation opportunities. It is better for us to learn from an honest GPA than to continue to persist in this delusion of grade inflation. The thing about inflated objects, whether bubbles, grades or girlfriends, is that sooner or later they pop.