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Theoretically, it is to stop grade inflation by limiting the number. WSJ: “The cap, which applies to the undergraduate college, limits the number of A’s per course to 20%, plus an additional four A’s to account for smaller courses with more variability. It won’t apply to A-minuses, which committee members predict will take over as the most awarded grade.” In my FSU experience, I was in classes that had a plethora of geniuses (not myself, sadly) comprising easily 50% of the class! Arbitrarily penalizing almost half by reducing the grade is not just misguided, it is blindingly ignorant! Harvard, as well as the other Ivy League schools hav a far worse problem as a result of DEI! They had to establish “Remedial” courses in basic subjects in a feeble attempt to to bring the DEI students up to the educational standards that might allow them to succeed in regular settings. That policy of forced admission deprived non-DEI Students of admission! That has now, under the Trump Administration, been outlawed, requiring merit only admissions.- No quarter .308/.223 | ||
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| Vote the BASTIDS OUT!  |
The reason I voted that limiting A grades as being blindly stupid is from a personal experience in high school. My rather pompous biology teacher allowed me a recorded grade of A in our first semester but only a B for the rest of the school year even though all of my test scores were graded as A. He told me that his reason was that he considered a grade of A as being perfect and that nobody is perfect. If you earn an A you should receive an A, but it must be honestly earned. John “You know—everything happens for a reason. But sometimes the reason is…you’re stupid and you made a bad decision.” Senator John Kennedy, Louisiana | |||
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Member |
The premise behind grade distributions and limits is generally an assumption of a normal distribution. Which may not actually be present. One must be careful what one measures because (unfortunately) one may just get it. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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His Royal Hiney |
When I was teaching as an adjunct professor at SIU teaching working adults, I was liberal in passing students. But getting an A or an A- means you actually earned it. For tests, if you put something, anything down, you get 50% credit. But 50% overall is still a fail. They're not grading according to a normal distribution. They're just limiting the number of As. If you're not in the top 20% of the class, then tough. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946. | |||
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| Bookers Bourbon and a good cigar  |
100 students 100 test @ 100% Which 20 get the "A"? I know it's not realistic, but what if? Any dog can be a Guide Dog if you don't care where you're going. NRA ENDOWMENT LIFE MEMBER | |||
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| Member |
Exactly. And if there isn’t a normal distribution, why the magic number 20%? Why not 15%? 25%? 50%? Again, this goes back to intent and then what you should measure. And why percent rather than percentile? What does the 20% actually look like - consistency of scores if the distribution is heavily too biased? Heavily bottomed biased? It’s not a good grading scheme. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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| Thank you Very little  |
Second question, answers 1 and 2 should be combined to Yes - because it's the right way, and, it will make liberal heads explode....  My dad spent a lot of time as an executive as a member of the YPO Group, (Young Presidents Organization) attending business classes at Harvard Business College. When he got home he told my mom to never let either of their kids attend any Ivy League schools especially Harvard due to the social and other issues within the school. Good for him, neither of us had the ACT/SAT scores for that to be an issue! LOL | |||
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Member |
If you've earned an A because you know the material and can prove it then you deserve a grade that reflects that. If high standards are maintained, then I don't know why it matters what anyone else receives. If there are a lot of people getting top marks then either you have a class full of very smart people, a professor that is excellent at their job, a combination of those two, or you have made things too easy. The Ivy League schools started losing their way some time ago and the rest of education in this country followed right behind them. I don't take any of them seriously anymore. Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be men of courage; be strong. Do everything in love. - 1 Corinthians 16:13-14 | |||
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Member |
Is this a proposal, or has it been implemented? The rationale for grade inflation I had heard in the past was that everyone attending Harvard was well above-average; therefore, hardly anyone there should graduate w/ less than a 3.0 GPA. | |||
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Mistake Not... |
It's not the number of A's that matter. It's the number of F's that count. That's where accountability comes in. And, of course that statement is simplistic. What exactly are you testing and grading? If everyone answers every question correctly on a multiple choice test do you give only a random 20% A grades? While grade inflation is a thing, the true problem is not holding students accountable and actually recognizing great students all the way down to crappy ones. I'm perfectly fine with giving everyone A's if all the students came and played with their A game. But in my experience, that's just not what's happening and its holding the bottom part of the class accountable. ___________________________________________ Life Member NRA & Washington Arms Collectors Mistake not my current state of joshing gentle peevishness for the awesome and terrible majesty of the towering seas of ire that are themselves the milquetoast shallows fringing my vast oceans of wrath. Velocitas Incursio Vis - Gandhi The good thing is that if Plan A fails, there are 25 other letters in the alphabet. | |||
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| Member |
What is the A grade with 20% of the class really reflecting? Is it actually a reflection of competence level or knowledge? Or just a relative position to others in the class? The latter is useless if the interest is actual competency. The former is subject to failure as well. "Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it." L.Tolstoy "A government is just a body of people, usually, notably, ungoverned." Shepherd Book | |||
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| Member |
In situations where more than 20% of the class achieves a legitimate A result (perhaps because the test was easier than it should have been), doesn’t the policy then allow the professor to continue implementing DEI since he now has sole authority to decide who falls into the 20% group? | |||
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| Member |
I think it’s a great idea! AWESOME!!! The students get what they deserve. 20%? Can they drop it down to 15%? Maybe even 12-10%? That would be even better! ______________________________________________________________________ "When its time to shoot, shoot. Dont talk!" “What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It’s not good at much else.” —Author Tom Clancy | |||
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The 2nd guarantees the 1st |
On the other side: I had a college professor that said on the first day of class, " I don't give A's. In my opinion an A means perfect and the only perfect one died on the cross." As soon as that class ended I went right out and transferred to a different professor's class. This guy was a well-connected, tenured professor and had been doing was years. "Even if the world were perfect it wouldn't be." ... Yogi Berra | |||
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Wait, what? |
If you earn the grade through displayed retained knowledge instead of some phony baloney reason like skin color, you get the grade. This of course would require academia to be 100% transparent and honest… “Remember to get vaccinated or a vaccinated person might get sick from a virus they got vaccinated against because you’re not vaccinated.” - author unknown | |||
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| Member |
Anything the leftist ideology touches is stupid and should be torn down. DEI does not work as we have seen but liberals have/love to race to the bottom. Fairness should not play a part for those who are inept and cannot function with learning basic skills or have the basic education from high school. Insanity has won out at these "fine" institutions. We reap what we allow to sow. | |||
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| Savor the limelight |
41% of the Harvard Class of 2029 identified as Asian-American and 50% of them are not going to like this. | |||
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Member |
As an FSU grad myself, I think this happened to me NRA Life Member "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are." Teddy Roosevelt | |||
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| Page late and a dollar short |
Change “admitting students” to “hiring employees”and you’ve got my attention. I was rejected by The Bell System in 1972 because of ethnicity and gender despite my high score in the written and the oral interviews. How do I know this? The interviewer told me this off site of course. -------------------------------------—————— ————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman) | |||
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| Member |
Voted 3 and 1. If this is in fact a Harvard policy, then it serves to show how stupid it is to send your kid (especially a high grade earner) to Harvard. Or any college that has a similar policy. End of Earth: 2 Miles Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles | |||
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