Inflated GPAs aren't just for SAS students

Engineering School sophomore Kristen Ying says she didn't study for her finals last year, and she did fine.

At least for her College courses, anyway. Her Engineering courses were a whole different story.

"During reading days, I studied for my Engineering finals whenever I was awake," she said. In the end, though, she says she was happy with the result.

That may be more than she could have said five years ago. The average freshman GPA in the School of Engineering and Applied Science has risen dramatically since then.

A's and A-minuses accounted for half of the grades given out in the Engineering School last school year, according to Joseph Sun, Engineering's director of academic affairs. In the College, 54 percent of grades awarded in the 2004-05 academic year were A-minuses or above.

The result has been a surge in Engineering students' grades over the past few years. Three or four years ago, the average GPA of Engineering freshmen at the end of freshman year was just 2.70.

For current Engineering sophomores, the average freshman-year GPA was 3.22.

But while many Ivy League schools have been criticized over grade inflation, the general consensus among Engineering School officials is that inflation is not an issue.

Some indicate that because student performance has improved in recent years, better grades are in order.

"Matriculates to Penn Engineering are better prepared than ever. They arrive at Penn very well prepared to succeed, and the data support this," Sun wrote in an e-mail interview.

Physics professor Larry Gladney, whose students are often Engineers, agreed.

"We are not adverse to having more than 25 percent A's," he said.

Others say that the Engineering system of grading makes sure that there's always a distinction made between good and poor work.

In curved classes, "we make sure . that in the end there is a difference between the student who's at the top of the class and a student who's in the middle," Bioengineering professor Eric Boder said.

Grades in the Engineering School are results of "very quantitative" measures, and are therefore not subject to grade inflation, said Sampath Kannan, an associate dean of the Engineering School.

"Exams are almost like standardized tests, but not quite. Engineering courses tend to be more objective and less subjective" than other courses at Penn, Kannan added.

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