Perhaps the bulls are not running fast enough.
In response to faculty concerns that Wharton MBA students need to rededicate themselves to academics, the Wharton MBA Executive Committee has proposed changes that might hold students more accountable to their grades.
The changes, at least at first, would include expanding the honors recognition to the top 25 percent of each class.
Although a planned vote on the proposal was canceled last spring, faculty, administrators and student representatives are still discussing the issue and hope to call for another vote soon.
At the heart of the proposal are several difficult questions: how to reward hard-working students while keeping competition under control, whether students outside of the top 25 percent will be overlooked in the recruiting process and how to maintain an atmosphere of academic exploration.
Both faculty and students who support the proposal feel it would encourage students with GPAs just outside the top 10 percent to keep working hard and give students in the middle percentages an incentive to work harder.
But some students believe it would turn recruiting back into a numbers game -- something students have tried to ward off through their policy of not disclosing grades.
Since 1994, Wharton MBA students have had a collective policy of not disclosing grades -- a measure protected under federal law. This means that the students cannot release their grades to recruiters even if they want to. The idea behind this is to promote collaboration, encourage students to take difficult classes and push recruiters to look deeper than GPAs.
Because the proposed expansion of the honor roll would allow students to disclose their position in the top 25 percent, some students worry that it would be harder to attract recruiters without honors distinction.
At the same time, administrators and recruiters are concerned with both student performance and accountability.
Citing a decline in time spent on academics based on a self-reported survey, Vice Dean of the Wharton Graduate Division Anjani Jain believes there are disadvantages to grade-disclosure that need to be addressed.
Under the current system, students in the bottom 10 percent appear no different on paper than the top 25 percent, something he feels does a disservice to recruiters because it prevents them from getting a good grasp of how a student performed in school.
He feels the current policy sends recruiters the message that a student's "academic performance [at Wharton] is going to cloud your judgment."
"We are telling them what should be and should not be relevant in their choices," he said.
Deputy Vice Dean of the Wharton Graduate Division Peggy Lane said that the proposal would not hurt non-honors students' chances of being recruited.
"Grades are not the only thing that recruiters look at, even when there was grade disclosure," she said.
Adam Carol, a second-year MBA student, believes that expanding the honor-roll recognition would not discourage competition as long as grades still fall under a nondisclosure policy.
