epic grade inflation Forum

[DoubleChecks]

Harvard's 3.5 mean and 166 average LSAT can suck my state school 3.8/176.

edit: and the median GPA at my school is 3.0.

Congrats. You were the smart kid at a school of idiots/slackers.

oh well now i just hope hoops and i dont go to the same school

haha jk

[oneforship]

Harvard's 3.5 mean and 166 average LSAT can suck my state school 3.8/176.

edit: and the median GPA at my school is 3.0.

Congrats. You were the smart kid at a school of idiots/slackers.

oh well now i just hope hoops and i dont go to the same school

haha jk

I obviously don't believe whatever school I'm referencing is full of idiots (although I might if I knew what school ) but I just think this entire debate is dumb as shit.

[Whatisthis]

I am too lazy to look through this entire thread, so maybe it's already been said.

But you do know that your percentile rank is out of a specific population of your school (those who feel confident enough about their academic credentials to apply to law school) and not the school as a whole. No doubt your actual percentile ranking within your graduating class is much higher. People with low to mediocre GPAs usually don't apply to law school.

Yes grades are inflated, but looking at the LSDAS report will grossly distort reality.

Edit: Yes, it was mentioned over and over again, though, the point still stands.

[somewhatwayward]

competition would effect how your GPA stacks up against others at the same school but it doesn't really effect what your GPA would be in the first place.

it does, though....bc teachers don't usually give all As, so you are competing against everyone else in the class to get one of those As. as i mentioned in another thread, apparently 50% of the grades at harvard are B+ or better, which meas that there are a lot of B+s or better given out, but you have to beat out 50% of the class to get one, and that is not totally straightforward at a school packed with really smart kids.

[Robert398]

Hmm, my school doesn't seem to have too much GI, average GPA is around 2.94

[robin600]

Damn, my UGPA is 3.67 and I'm in the 84th percentile.

[S de Garmeaux]

Hey can someone answer this?

On my LSAC Academic Summary report, for year 08-09, under notes from Transcript, it says "Academic Honors".

Does that refer to something I could have received, or that I actually did receive.

Because I was unaware of receiving anything except a diploma

[Borhas]

competition would effect how your GPA stacks up against others at the same school but it doesn't really effect what your GPA would be in the first place.

it does, though....bc teachers don't usually give all As, so you are competing against everyone else in the class to get one of those As. as i mentioned in another thread, apparently 50% of the grades at harvard are B+ or better, which meas that there are a lot of B+s or better given out, but you have to beat out 50% of the class to get one, and that is not totally straightforward at a school packed with really smart kids.

well if what you say is true, then your point would be solidly supported. I'm not familiar with how the teachers grade at Harvard, but if they set the curve to have median at B+ then that is a pretty lenient curve right off the bat.. but since the mean GPA is at 3.5, I'd say that the curve is centered as close to A- as it is to B+ meaning there are probably about as many A- given out as B+. I think the mean gpa at those schools show that teachers are perfectly willing to give out a lot A's (and probably as many A's as B-). If they weren't then the mean GPA would be closer to 3.0 than 3.5. Now that may not seem like inflation to you but it seems a lot like inflation to me.

[thebunk]

I think law schools take grade inflation into account. My reason being, I've been amazed by how many people with high gpas/low LSATs get into T14s from my UG. A non-urm friend of mine got into UVA with a 160/3.85+, another guy got into Penn with a 168/3.85+, and yet another at Michigan with a 166/3.6.

If 30%+ of LSAT takers at your school score a 168 or above, and the 75th gpa is 3.6, adcoms realize that there is stiff competition for grades.

A while ago (late 90s I think) Boalt compiled a list of how their admissions office views grades from different UGs. This gets circulated on TLS from time to time. This index is weighted based on LSAT and GPA percentiles:

"This is the Boalt Hall study. Colleges at the top have less grade inflation than those at the bottom. Keep in mind that these numbers are somewhat outdated...

The following is UC Berkeley's rankings of
the toughest schools to get an "A"

Swarthmore 89.5
Williams 89.0
Duke 88.5
Carleton 88.0
Colgate 88.0
J. Hopkins 87.5
Chicago 87.0
Dartmouth 87.0
Wesleyan 87.0
Cornell 86.5
Harvard 86.5
Middlebury 86.0
Princeton 86.0
Bates 85.5
MIT 85.5
Haverford 85.0
Pomona 85.0
Virginia 85.0
Amherst 84.5
Reed 84.5
Vanderbilt 84.5
Wm & Mary 84.5
Bowdoin 83.5
Tufts 83.5
Vassar 83.5
Bryn Mawr 83.0
Hamilton 83.0
Oberlin 83.0
Rice 83.0
U. Pennsylvania 83.0
Clrmt. McK. 82.5
Yale 82.5
Brandeis 82.0
Northwestern 82.0
Colby 81.5
Michigan 81.5
Notre Dame 81.5
Wash. U. 81.0
Barnard 80.5
Columbia 80.5
Stanford 80.5
Brown 80.0
Georgetown 80.0
Smith 80.0
Wellesley 80.0
Emory 79.5
U. North Carolina 79.5
Whitman C. 79.5
Rochester 79.0
UC Berkeley 78.5
UC San Diego 78.5
Illinois 78.0
SUNY Bing 78.0
Texas 78.0
Trinity U. 77.5
Boston College 77.0
UC S. Barbara 77.0
Wisconsin 77.0
Florida 76.5
U. Washington 76.5
Santa Clara 76.0
Geo. Wash. 75.5
UC Davis 75.5
UCLA 75.5
Colorado 75.0
Michigan State 75.0
Boston University 74.5
Cal Poly SLO 74.5
Massachusetts 74.0
Penn State 74.0
Iowa 73.5
Purdue 73.5
SMU 73.5
SUNY Albany 73.5
BYU 73.0
Minnesota 73.0
Ohio State 73.0
Oregon 73.0
UC Irvine 73.0
Indiana 72.5
NYU 72.0
SUNY Buff 72.0
SUNY Stony 72.0
Mills 71.5
American 71.0
Arizona 71.0
Loyola Mary. 71.0
Maryland 71.0
Fordham 70.5
Kansas 70.0
Syracuse 70.0
USC 70.0
Arizona St. 69.5
CS San Diego 69.5
Catholic U. 69.5
Oklahoma 69.5
Pacific 69.5
Hofstra 69.0
UC Riverside 68.5
Utah 68.5
CS Chico 68.5
Miami 68.0
New Mexico 68.0
San Diego 68.0
CS Northridge 67.0
Pepperdine 67.0
CS San Fran. 66.0
CS Sacramento 65.0
Hawaii 64.5
Denver 63.5
CS Fullerton 63.0
CS Hayward 63.0
CS Long Beach 63.0
CS San Jose 63.0
CS Fresno 62.5
St. Mary's 61.5
CCNY 59.0
CS LA 58.5
Howard 57.5
San Francisco 57.5"

hey, maybe i have a shot at berkeley after all!

[Hattori Hanzo]

Hey can someone answer this?

On my LSAC Academic Summary report, for year 08-09, under notes from Transcript, it says "Academic Honors".

Does that refer to something I could have received, or that I actually did receive.

Because I was unaware of receiving anything except a diploma

Those are from transcripts so it must be something you actually received, at least during one quarter/semester in that year.

[somewhatwayward]

well if what you say is true, then your point would be solidly supported. I'm not familiar with how the teachers grade at Harvard, but if they set the curve to have median at B+ then that is a pretty lenient curve right off the bat.. but since the mean GPA is at 3.5, I'd say that the curve is centered as close to A- as it is to B+ meaning there are probably about as many A- given out as B+. I think the mean gpa at those schools show that teachers are perfectly willing to give out a lot A's (and probably as many A's as B-). If they weren't then the mean GPA would be closer to 3.0 than 3.5. Now that may not seem like inflation to you but it seems a lot like inflation to me.

the mean GPA is actually around 3.4-3.45.

i don't think there's any question that grades have inflated at harvard over the past thirty years or whatever. the issue really is, is this giving an unfair advantage in LS admissions to kids who go to harvard? i am saying no bc at most of the other elite schools, average GPAs are also very high, and, at the less good schools, average GPAs might be lower - maybe only 30% of the grades given are B+ or better - but it is less difficult to get yourself into that 30%, so it balances the fact that 50% of the grades given at harvard are B+ or better.

i would also argue that in an absolute sense it is harder to get a 3.4 at harvard than at most other schools even with grade inflation bc of the same phenomena i described above (ie, i think it is harder to make the top 50% at harvard than the hypothetical top 30% at a tier 2 school).

[castanea]

First, I think it is funny whenever I see Yale included in any sort of ranking on grade inflation since the school has refused to release the data since the 1980s.

Second, arguing that Ivy League schools have grade inflation is pretty hard to do. If the idea of a GPA is to compare the students at the school to each other, they obviously do. But USNWR (and by extension law schools) uses the UGPA to compare students from different schools.

People who argue the Ivy League has rampant grade inflation want to use the first model, but don't recognize that the second system is the one law schools and rankings use to compare students. This is why someone said they had deflation, since students earning a 3.3 at a top UG would have earned a 3.8 if the students they were competing against were the same caliber as an average state school.

Do people really think students who did well enough to get into one of these schools would not be near the top of the class at a state school? I would like to see a study that follows students from high school who have equivalent GPA / SAT and see the GPA earned at college. This is really the best way to answer whether a 3.8/175 from a state school is equivalent to a 3.3/175 from Harvard.

[DoubleChecks]

First, I think it is funny whenever I see Yale included in any sort of ranking on grade inflation since the school has refused to release the data since the 1980s.

Second, arguing that Ivy League schools have grade inflation is pretty hard to do. If the idea of a GPA is to compare the students at the school to each other, they obviously do. But USNWR (and by extension law schools) uses the UGPA to compare students from different schools.

People who argue the Ivy League has rampant grade inflation want to use the first model, but don't recognize that the second system is the one law schools and rankings use to compare students. This is why someone said they had deflation, since students earning a 3.3 at a top UG would have earned a 3.8 if the students they were competing against were the same caliber as an average state school.

Do people really think students who did well enough to get into one of these schools would not be near the top of the class at a state school? I would like to see a study that follows students from high school who have equivalent GPA / SAT and see the GPA earned at college. This is really the best way to answer whether a 3.8/175 from a state school is equivalent to a 3.3/175 from Harvard.

mm i might entertain your idea (not literally, just in support), but i think the gap between a 3.3 and a 3.8 is a bit high...

[Borhas]

well if what you say is true, then your point would be solidly supported. I'm not familiar with how the teachers grade at Harvard, but if they set the curve to have median at B+ then that is a pretty lenient curve right off the bat.. but since the mean GPA is at 3.5, I'd say that the curve is centered as close to A- as it is to B+ meaning there are probably about as many A- given out as B+. I think the mean gpa at those schools show that teachers are perfectly willing to give out a lot A's (and probably as many A's as B-). If they weren't then the mean GPA would be closer to 3.0 than 3.5. Now that may not seem like inflation to you but it seems a lot like inflation to me.

the mean GPA is actually around 3.4-3.45.

i don't think there's any question that grades have inflated at harvard over the past thirty years or whatever. the issue really is, is this giving an unfair advantage in LS admissions to kids who go to harvard? i am saying no bc at most of the other elite schools, average GPAs are also very high, and, at the less good schools, average GPAs might be lower - maybe only 30% of the grades given are B+ or better - but it is less difficult to get yourself into that 30%, so it balances the fact that 50% of the grades given at harvard are B+ or better.

i would also argue that in an absolute sense it is harder to get a 3.4 at harvard than at most other schools even with grade inflation bc of the same phenomena i described above (ie, i think it is harder to make the top 50% at harvard than the hypothetical top 30% at a tier 2 school).

I don't know where you got the 3.4 number from but in this thread it says 3.5 (the data shows 3.45 in 2005 and 3.48 in 2004, but they have been steadily increasing for about 30 years so it probably is 3.5 by now)

now I as much I don't like the condescension regularly coming out of the Ivy leagues I still think they collectively have a fine group of students. But, that extra bit of collective quality can be explained with the higher GPA mean.

with all that taken into account I guess my final position is that Harvard and other IVY students don't have an unfair advantage due to inflated GPA's... However, their GPA should also not be valued higher than most other schools either since we can see that they do have about a half a letter grade boost (in mean GPA) compared to a lot of other schools. The supposedly better collective quality of the students is adequately taken into account by the unusually high mean GPA.

EDIT:

as a point of reference in my state (VA)

these are the GPA's of major public schools

Virginia Tech: 2.99-3.00
James Madison University: 3.02
William & Mary 3.2
UVa 3.2

VT and JMU are fairly equivalent, standard big state schools, W&M and UVa are more selective, and about as selective

Harvard: 3.45

so yeah... even if Harvard students are that much better... I think the disparity is great enough that GPA's from each school should be viewed as about on the same level. UVa 3.5 ought to be as respectable as a Harvard 3.5

[castanea]

as a point of reference in my state (VA)

these are the GPA's of major public schools

Virginia Tech: 2.99-3.00
James Madison University: 3.02
William & Mary 3.2
UVa 3.2

VT and JMU are fairly equivalent, standard big state schools, W&M and UVa are more selective, and about as selective

Harvard: 3.45

so yeah... even if Harvard students are that much better... I think the disparity is great enough that GPA's from each school should be viewed as about on the same level. UVa 3.5 ought to be as respectable as a Harvard 3.5

UVa is a great school. However, it is not as selective at Harvard.
If you look, the 25th percentile on the SAT for the Ivy league is at or above the 75th percentile for UVa. I couldn't find the average GPAs quickly, but I would assume that they are probably very similar for UVa and Harvard. And HS GPA probably means very little as the variability between the meaning of a GPA at the public school I went to and a GPA at a competitive school in a large city are probably vastly different.

Reading Math Writing
25% 75% 25% 75% 25% 75%
University of Virginia 590 700 610 720 600 700
Harvard .................700 800 700 790 700 790
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/S ... c_Univ.htm
http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/s ... x_side.htm

Also, the average LSAT for UVa was 158. Harvard's average is 166.

Another example, from my state schools:
UW - 18 % > 700 for the math section, 11% > 700 for the verbal section. median HS GPA 3.69
WSU - 4% > 700 for the math section, 3% > 700 for the verbal section. median HS GPA 3.45

UW Average LSAT = 155.

UW's average GPA was 3.25. I do not think that a .2 difference explains the difference in admitted students's scores.
If you do not think a student who was admitted to Harvard or Yale and decided to go to UW or WSU would be in the top 10% of the class at that school, I would like to know why. It seems like you are arguing they will be outperformed by people who had similar or worse GPAs in high school and worse standardized test scores. I don't think the personality types that get 3.9/1500 in HS suddenly quit working hard in college, and I don't see another explanation for the drop you are assuming in their performance.

[Borhas]

=
UW's average GPA was 3.25. I do not think that a .2 difference explains the difference in admitted students's scores.
If you do not think a student who was admitted to Harvard or Yale and decided to go to UW or WSU would be in the top 10% of the class at that school, I would like to know why. It seems like you are arguing they will be outperformed by people who had similar or worse GPAs in high school and worse standardized test scores. I don't think the personality types that get 3.9/1500 in HS suddenly quit working hard in college, and I don't see another explanation for the drop you are assuming in their performance.

You may not think a 0.2 explains the difference but I do. I don't think your position has any more support than mine unless I am missing something.


My position is that a Harvard student who get's 3.5 would get pretty close to a 3.5 if he went to Virginia... BUT he would be in a higher percentile at UVa than Harvard (because of the higher mean GPA at Harvard)... maybe not top 10% but definitely higher than he would have been at Harvard.

a 3.5 GPA is about median at Harvard... but at UVa my guess would be top 25%... and that sounds about right to me.

[somewhatwayward]

I don't know where you got the 3.4 number from but in this thread it says 3.5 (the data shows 3.45 in 2005 and 3.48 in 2004, but they have been steadily increasing for about 30 years so it probably is 3.5 by now)

now I as much I don't like the condescension regularly coming out of the Ivy leagues I still think they collectively have a fine group of students. But, that extra bit of collective quality can be explained with the higher GPA mean.

with all that taken into account I guess my final position is that Harvard and other IVY students don't have an unfair advantage due to inflated GPA's... However, their GPA should also not be valued higher than most other schools either since we can see that they do have about a half a letter grade boost (in mean GPA) compared to a lot of other schools. The supposedly better collective quality of the students is adequately taken into account by the unusually high mean GPA.

EDIT:

as a point of reference in my state (VA)

these are the GPA's of major public schools

Virginia Tech: 2.99-3.00
James Madison University: 3.02
William & Mary 3.2
UVa 3.2

VT and JMU are fairly equivalent, standard big state schools, W&M and UVa are more selective, and about as selective

Harvard: 3.45

so yeah... even if Harvard students are that much better... I think the disparity is great enough that GPA's from each school should be viewed as about on the same level. UVa 3.5 ought to be as respectable as a Harvard 3.5

the 3.4 came from an internal survey of students (albeit with selection bias....but you'd think that would drive it up bc wh wants to report their shitty GPA?) and the 3.45 comes from LSAC.

this isn't really a question of respectability....like i said before, what is pertinent is whether harvard students are getting an unfair advantage from the fact that they have a higher average GPA than most other schools.

perhaps a different way to look at it is to take the segment of a school (say, UVa) that consists of students who have the same average SATs as the average freshman entering harvard (or make some sort of index using GPA and SAT and then take the segment of UVa's students who have the same average index as the entering harvard freshman or whatever). then average the UG GPAs of only those students. i highly suspect that number would be higher than 3.45. that gives you a rough idea of how an average harvard student would perform at UVa.

My position is that a Harvard student who get's 3.5 would get pretty close to a 3.5 if he went to Virginia... BUT he would be in a higher percentile at UVa than Harvard (because of the higher mean GPA at Harvard)... maybe not top 10% but definitely higher than he would have been at Harvard.

edit: i just realized.....you are agreeing with me. i was essentially saying that regardless of grade inflation, a 3.5 at harvard is not getting an advantage over a 3.5 at virginia. my position actually is that a 3.5 at harvard should be viewed as somewhat more difficult to obtain than a 3.5 at UVa but at least that it should be considered equal.

[Borhas]

yeah I wasn't trying to argue that Ivy grades are inflated, instead that they aren't really that deflated either. At the end of the day most LS will look at a 3.5 for Harvard about the same as a 3.5 from UVa and a 3.5 from Virginia Tech. And imo that's how it should be.

[DubPoker]

Wow, on a random note the opposite of what I thought seems to be true.

I go to a "alright" public school, not top level, but certainly not bottom... Alright, its UNCW lol...

Average GPA there is a 2.8, way lower then the top schools. I know this is probably due to the caliber of student at higher schools (Harvard's a freaken 3.5) but at least my percentile will looks higher haha.

Maybe all these kids forget we have class when there is a beach down the road

[somewhatwayward]

Borhas,
Not to belabor the point but earlier in the thread I think you were saying that a median between b+ and a- was really inflated.

I guess you mean it is really inflated in absolute terms but it is not unfair in relativr terms (if 3.5 at harv equals 3.5 at UVa)

What I get confused about is when people come on here (not you) and complain that grade inflation at good schools is unfair - that seems to be the context grade inflation comes upmost frequently; I don't see people from elite schools complaining about having it tougher that often

[Philo38]

http://gradeinflation.com/

Average is about 3.5 at Yale and Harvard. Pretty absurd.

No not absurd. A 3.5 at Yale and Harvard would have 10 LSAT points higher on average than a 3.8 in some low tier state school. Yet, law school seems that the 3.5 is inferior even though it's harder to get that 3.5.

If anything, top UGs are grade deflated, using LSAT as adjuster.

LSAC needs to have a school adjustment factor for GPA.

From what I've understood LSAC does try their best to account for this, providing the percentile of your class, providing the median LSAT score of your class and school, I think they even provide a comparison of the grades in your major with the other majors in your school. So I'de have to guess it does play some factor,

When it comes down to it though the law schools get to report the GPA to USNWR regardless of the percentages, maybe USNWR should stop factoring undergraduate GPA as much since it is so varied from factor to factor.

[Borhas]

Borhas,
Not to belabor the point but earlier in the thread I think you were saying that a median between b+ and a- was really inflated.

I guess you mean it is really inflated in absolute terms but it is not unfair in relativr terms (if 3.5 at harv equals 3.5 at UVa)

What I get confused about is when people come on here (not you) and complain that grade inflation at good schools is unfair - that seems to be the context grade inflation comes upmost frequently; I don't see people from elite schools complaining about having it tougher that often

I understand why you say that I think you are referring to this post:

well if what you say is true, then your point would be solidly supported. I'm not familiar with how the teachers grade at Harvard, but if they set the curve to have median at B+ then that is a pretty lenient curve right off the bat.. but since the mean GPA is at 3.5, I'd say that the curve is centered as close to A- as it is to B+ meaning there are probably about as many A- given out as B+. I think the mean gpa at those schools show that teachers are perfectly willing to give out a lot A's (and probably as many A's as B-). If they weren't then the mean GPA would be closer to 3.0 than 3.5. Now that may not seem like inflation to you but it seems a lot like inflation to me.

I was arguing two points here:
1. that stiffer competition doesn't result in deflated grades (since the mean is so much higher)
2. that grades themselves were inflated compared to others

with all that taken into account I guess my final position is that Harvard and other IVY students don't have an unfair advantage due to inflated GPA's... However, their GPA should also not be valued higher than most other schools either since we can see that they do have about a half a letter grade boost (in mean GPA) compared to a lot of other schools. The supposedly better collective quality of the students is adequately taken into account by the unusually high mean GPA.

that's me changing my mind about point #2

[kwu]

A matter of clarification:

The mean GPA at Harvard is a 3.57. The median GPA is 3.60.

These statistics apply to the most recent graduating class.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528363

[somewhatwayward]

That 3.57 is the result of a crimson poll that is biased by self-selection. They send an email to all seniors and ask them to answer a whole bunch of questions.

The likelihood is that 1) you don't answer that question if you have a low GPA and 2) the people who don't fill out long surveys have lower than average GPAs

Like I said LSAC says 3.45
11 percent 3.8+
26 percent 3.6 to 3.79
26 percent 3.4 to 3.59

[hoopsguy6]

This thread is full of stupid.