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The Wharton Undergraduate Executive Committee unanimously voted yesterday to abolish the flat grading system in all Wharton courses beginning this fall. This change comes on the heals of a similar change implemented by the Nursing School earlier this academic year. The College of Arts and Science's long-time policy of distinguishing between pluses and minuses also provided additional incentive for the change in Wharton's policy. According to University policy, each school is allowed to develop its own system of breaking down grades. College students, for example, who are currently enrolled in a Wharton course only receive flat grades, such as A, B or C. Similarly, Wharton students enrolled in College courses can earn plus or minus grades that will appear on their transcripts. "I think many faculty believe that there is a rather large difference between a B+ and a B-," Wharton Vice Dean Janice Bellace said. "The majority sentiment was in favor of having these distinctions more fairly marked out." Professors said the change next fall should not radically alter the way they teach their classes, and most agreed that the switch to pluses and minuses is a good idea. "For my own private selfish reasons, I'm very happy with it," Statistics Professor David Hildebrand said. "I teach mostly College students, and they were legitimately ticked-off with the flat grades -- now Wharton joins the rest of Penn." Changing to the new system will not affect the way grades earned before the 1994 fall term appear on Wharton students' transcripts. Bellace said, however, that the transcript will indicate that a changeover to pluses and minuses occurred. Bellace added that the move to include pluses and minuses should not hurt the grade point averages of most students, although she added that those who "just scrape by" could be adversely affected. Wharton sophomore Christian Coli, a board member of the Wharton Undergraduate Student Association, said the move to eliminate flat grading should encourage higher academic standards in students. "People in Wharton are very utilitarian, so they're a little less interested in doing extraordinarily well, but just well enough," Coli said. "This will take away that 'well-enough' mentality." Coli said he thinks the success of the new grading system will largely depend on faculty "holding up their end of the bargain" and grading students fairly. Abba Krieger, a professor of statistics, decision science and marketing, said he recently polled one of his classes and noted that students preferred the plus and minus system two to one. "This won't affect the way I teach," Krieger said last night, but he added that "there might be more grade grubbing." Krieger explained that since more students will end up on the "borderline" without a flat grading system in place, they might be more likely to contest, "even though the advantages are less." Beyond the advantages in conforming to the system used by the College, Krieger said most students will try a little harder to make the next grade cut. Hildebrand said he is not at all surprised that it took so long for the changeover to occur, adding that the whole discussions over grading systems are overblown. "This is really not a big deal," he said.

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