Sunday, April 04, 2010
A Law School Raises Every Grade
Inside Higher Ed: "Loyola Law School in Los Angles has raised the grade of every student -- retroactively -- by one level (with every B turning into a B+ and so forth). A memo from the dean ran this week in the blog Above the Law. In the memo, the dean argued that potential employers look at grades and that other law schools are already easier about grades than is Loyola."
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18 comments:
Wow. I can't believe that they are doing this. It seems so completely foolish. Yes, their students look like they are getting better grades now, but it's a lie! And the rational of "well others are doing it so we should too" is a bit immature in my opinion. Lets go back to the adage our parents have told us so many times.."if your friends jump off a bridge will you too?" If I were an employer, I would look to hire people who didn't have their grades artificially inflated. What is the point of that? You are misrepresenting your students, your program,and your reputation as a school by doing so.
Really? We need to inflate grades to get people's hired. I believe grades are evaluated based somewhat on the school you went to. If they see slightly lower grades from a more prestigious school, won't that be taken into account that it was a harder program? Well maybe not, but now when they see this school all they will know is that the grades are inflated, which seems worst than a slightly lower grade. On another note how many colleges actually give pluses and minuses?
I think this is really ridiculous. If the grading is in actuality harsher, it should be known to potential employers. By just altering grades, it makes all of the hard work put in by students a joke, especially those who have done exceptionally well on their own, because they lose their advantages. This seems to just be an attempt to raise statistics for employment post-graduation. If they are really so concerned with the grade issue, perhaps they should encourage less harsh grading at the time of grading, and not as an afterthought, although that still does not give the room for improvement.
I would hope that employers look at more than a transcript when hiring new employees. Yes, this might help put the foot in the door for a few students, but I seriously doubt law offices' views of a person are going to drastically change because a B is now a B+. I also feel like this may adversely affect students. Chances are, information like this is going to get around and law offices might look at transcripts and degrees from Loyola with a lesser view.
I think the article takes the right tone about this news. It is ridiculous. Like others have said, if you are evaluating transcripts from a prestigious school, chances are that you will look at the grades in a different light than you would look at the grades from a school with a weaker program. People evaluating these things know what they are looking for. In addition, there is enough grade inflation going on in classrooms already, devaluing the hard work of students who deserve those scores. Why do we need to inflate them intentionally. Also, if you are that fixated on the difference between a B and a B+ (especially from a college), you have other problems. Even I have learned to let that go. I find it hard to believe that employers are really that particular when looking for a potential intern or employee. Why not make it more specific and put percentages on the transcript that would take the guess work out of determining a scale.
Something in me wishes there was just a standardized grading system, just to avoid these types of issues, but I really agree with Jon that Loyola is shooting themselves in the foot by making the change. The specific little grades are not going to make much of a difference (unless you're going to fail, in which case having a D is still going to look bad), but Loyola will lose credibility with employers for doing this. The inflated grade will really not do much good (minor GPA fluxes, and some kids won't blatantly fail, even if their transcripts have a D), but the press from this will no doubt be hitting the desks of employers, and Loyola students will have an extra obstacle as they try to get a job.
By doing this AND by publicizing it, it seems that raising all the students' grades kind of defeats the purpose. Now employers who pay attention to these issues will know that every potential employee who's a Loyola alum has artificially inflated grades. Loyola's defense is that it has always been a harsher grader than other schools. To me that's something to be proud of; it probably pushes a lot of students to work harder because there's so many students that care so much about getting an A instead of a B. This policy unfortunately seems to be going along with the trend of making sure our generation is never disappointed.
I wonder what so ever "Grade" means. The employer can not rely on the "letter," even though it is hard to discern the best students from others in other methods. If the grade only works for students' self-confidence, it doesn't matter. (Of course, the border is "pass" or "fail", that would matter for one's school life...)
Anyway, the reputation of the school is established in the long run. How many people who graduated from the school survived through the industry to be successful is coming to play in the end.
Fortunately, the company can fire an employee easily if the employee is not functional as one expected. So it seems to be no problem. Just oneself should be smart enough to think that given "grade" is not practical in our society.
I don't know the logistics of it and if they actually had to tell the world that they were increasing these grades but, if they grade more strictly, then shouldn't that imply that they are a better school. I don't' know all too much about which schools are good for law and not but that's what it would seem like to me. If this is the case, shouldn't employers already know about this and thus make the increasing of grades not too necessary? But then again, my entire assumption may be debunked if they aren't that well-known of a school.
This reminds me a lot of my high school which is hilarious because when I was in high school we had a controversial inflated gpa system that was out of 4.5. It basically disadvantaged students in non honors programs because it inflated the grades of honors students by one mark when in reality it was very debatable if the honors classes were that much harder and students always argued the quality of work that honors students vs non honors students produced and if it was worthy of such inflation. I think it definitely does not make sense to let the students in Loyola get higher grades all of a sudden, without some kind of test or study that backs it up but at the same time its really hard to tell because grading can be so subjective.
I've heard of grading on a curve, but this just seems ridiculous. I know very little about law schools, but if it's anything like most other forms of higher education, I'm pretty sure employers tend to know which ones grade harder and that an A at one place may not be as hard to earn as a B at another. I'd be interested in hearing what students who graduated after this idea was put in effect think of it. If what the dean is saying is true, Lawyer Graduate A might not have gotten a job last year simply because his B was not good enough, but on the new system he would've had a B+.
This is completely ridiculous. I don't care how good the school is and how difficult their curriculum is, that is no excuse to give students a free, better grade. That just lowers the standard for all the students in the present and future who go to that university. Students have managed to survive that rigorous work before, why should we lower our standards and make it easier for current students? The students who come out of that university will just be lying about their grades and abilities in their specific careers, and while they might like that now so they can put a better grade on their transcripts, it's really hurting them in the long run because they are less prepared than the students who came before them.
This is just absurd. Grade inflation is already a problem without the deliberate broad stroke inflation. While the hope is that employers will consider more than what grades you received, the truth is that, this is a common “weeding” tool.
While grading will always be subjective and thus will vary by where the grades are being assigned and who is assigning them, it is the hope that they are universal and thus comparable. Does it really help to raise everyone’s grades if the people evaluating them know? Also, one of the most liberation things I have found in college is the elimination of pluses and minuses. The fact that this is being reinstated in some upper education settings brings focus away from learning and to grades.
A bad direction to be going in.
It seems to me that there is a difference between changing the grading criteria and simply raising every grade. One would have teachers and professors give the grade they normally would, and then record a grade higher than that, and the other would have teachers taking a more lenient approach to their grading system. It's hard to argue about this because nearly every school has a different grading criteria that is hard to regulate. I think it's just the idea that Loyola has openly admitted to this fact and they are taking steps to raise people's grades that has others angered.
So this is getting repetitive now, but I really agree with Hannah. If they were planning to lighten the load a bit and go easier on their law students, WHY publicize it?! There is absolutely no reason for this maneuver. I understand them wanting to announce changing everyone's grades, because if someone found out it would be a bit of a scandal. But wouldn't it make that much more sense to do it gradually, and have the grading gradually get easier, as opposed to changing everyone's grades? I would think that's just common knowledge...and unless I'm missing something here (even though fifteen comments tell me otherwise...) this is a really dumb idea!!! Also...I would like to point out, that Loyola isn't exactly Harvard...I'm sorry to anyone who goes to Loyola Law School, which I'm sure is an extremely good institution...but it's not like Harvard and Yale are putting out a statement that their kids are being overworked. I feel like that would be bought a little better because of the unfortunate but unavoidable fact that it's...well...Harvard and Yale... But that's just my opinion.
I think the real unfortunate thing is how weighted grades seem to be to employers. There is so much more to a person besides their grades that I really don't think bumping things up by a letter grade should really make a difference. It's just highlighting the likely situation of these students not having anything else to offer society than their letter grades.
Grade inflation is enough of a problem in too many schools, seeing a school officially give in to it and raise everyone's grade retroactively doesn't seem like a step in the right direction, in fact officially doing that seems to me like they are saying that the grades are arbitrary anyway and not to be relied upon for anything. There's a trend in secondary education to try to get rid of grades and instead just provide a list of outcomes achieved, perhaps it's time to look at something like that at the post-secondary level as well.
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