We Can’t All Get A’s

We can’t all get A’s. That has always been what traditional wisdom has told us. For years now, grade inflation has seemed something of an invective, an indictment of academic mediocrity. But what if we all deserved A’s? Imagine a philosophy class of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, Camus and Thoreau. As long as they did the work to the best of their abilities, would that Thoreau might have enough self-restraint not to make a point of civil disobedience or Camus a curiosity for self destruction, it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to imagine that all ten students would receive A-level grades.

For almost four years, Princeton has limited the number of A’s offered in each class to 35% in an effort to curb grade inflation. Since it’s inception in 2004, the policy has been met with praise, criticism and sheer curiosity inside and outside of the Princeton community.

Dennis Deturck, Mathematics Professor and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, expressed enthusiastic interest in the grading policy four years ago. “If this really takes root, and I’m hoping it does, then it’s something we can use.” But after four years, the roots of this policy haven’t left Old Nassau.

At other schools, professors are informally pressured not to treat their A’s as flippantly as handout flyers. But conversations inside faculty dining rooms and the less frequent contextualized transcript are about the extent of grade-inflation deterrents.

To be fair, Princeton’s policy is often circumvented by strong-willed and caring professors. The truth is that the academic experience at Princeton is not nearly as affected by the policy, as it might seem. At a school with such academic rigor, it would be difficult for any class to break the 35% ceiling.

Yet with a supply of many highly talented students, like the one I proposed, it is not unimaginable that a majority of students in a certain class might demonstrate a mastery of the material deserving nothing else but the highest possible grade.

The presumption of a formal grading policy that limits the number of A’s is that only a select few can fully understand the substance of a course. Princeton’s acceptance rate this year was around 10%. Is a select few even less than that?

A’s should mean something and they should be valued highly. But the value they signify has nothing to do with a relatively marginal superiority of one student over another. Education isn’t a capitalist system and its merits do not rest on the natural products of competition. Learning benefits from cooperation. A policy which promotes an environment naturally incompatible for cooperation is counterproductive at America’s colleges and should be abandoned if only out of principle.