In a new attempt to combat grade inflation, Princeton University administrators and faculty members are currently considering a policy that would limit the portion of A-range grades in each department to no more than 35 percent for classes and 55 percent for independent study projects.
The new proposal comes at a time when the percent of A's awarded at Princeton reached an all-time high of 46 percent in recent years.
Though Penn awards students an even higher percentage of A's -- 51 percent of grades awarded to undergraduates in the College were A's in 2002-03 -- a similar proposal would be unlikely to go into effect here, according to University officials.
Princeton Undergraduate College Dean Nancy Weiss Malkiel said at a recent meeting with Princeton undergraduates that "it's been hard for students to know their work is really superb," according to The Daily Princetonian.
For this reason, Malkiel developed and distributed the proposal in hopes that such a change in grading "would push students to grow as scholars," since -- in theory -- many would have to work harder under the new proposal to receive grades in the A range.
But despite Malkiel's optimism, Penn Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said that he is wary of whether such a policy would be successful if implemented.
"I think I can understand why they're doing it, I just don't know how it's going to work in practice," he said, adding "I just wonder how consistently they can enforce the policy across the departments. Someone's going to have to give within each department to meet the new standard."
Peterman added that another idea behind the proposal -- in addition to making students work harder -- may be the administrators' hope that students' grades "will acquire a new kind of authority than they have right now."
"One of the things I think they're hoping is that people in the future will say, 'Oh, that's a Princeton grade. So maybe it's a B, but it's a Princeton B, and a Princeton B is more valuable than a B from somewhere else,'" he said.
Such added value to grades from Princeton could "create tremendous pressure for other institutions to follow suit," according to Peterman.
Malkiel also recognized the effect Princeton's proposed policy could have at some of its peer institutions if it is adopted.
"If we succeed in this endeavor, it would make it harder for others to throw up their hands and say they can't do it," Malkiel told reporters from The Daily Princetonian.
But while the proposal, if approved, may put pressure on Princeton's peer institutions, Peterman said it is still highly unlikely that such a policy would be implemented at Penn as a result.
"I think it would be very tricky to implement here. The challenge that such a policy would impose on certain departments would be much greater than it would impose on other departments," Peterman said, pointing specifically to the discrepancies in class and department sizes at Penn.
Princeton University is certainly not the first school in the Ivy League to tackle the issue of grade inflation head on.
Ten years ago, Columbia University began printing the number of A's and A-minuses given in each class as a whole, alongside students' individual grades on every transcript.
In a similar effort, Dartmouth began including median course grades on students' transcripts in 1994.
According to Peterman, while there are currently no such stringent policies in place at Penn, administrators do closely monitor grade distributions throughout the College in an attempt to detect and correct any anomalies and to possible curb grade inflation.
