Free resources in the case of GPA’s:
More students in the U.S. are coming homes with A’s on their report cards, while overall SAT scores are dropping, according to a Harvard study.
The Harvard Graduate School of Education found that nearly half (47%) of all high school students in 2016 had an A average on their report cards, compared to 38.9% in 1998. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600 point scale.
Additionally, the study found that only 56% of those students end up completing a four-year degree within six years of entering college.
Everyone gets a trophy and a 4.0 GPA.
As I recall, they watered down the SATs a while back so a 1000 would say it was a 1300, so students would feel better about their score. I’ll bet the drop would be higher if they were taking the same SAT, graded the same way.
This isn’t a plan, or some conspiracy. I doubt it is even race related. This is just a consequence of the r-ification of society, and how those r-selected instincts perceive the world and act within it. r-ified teachers and administrators, raised in a world where grades literally had no relation to anything, simply do not feel there is any benefit to grading students relative to one another from their perspective. And I am not sure they are not technically right, given we live in real r-selection.
It will be a shock for those who land in a STEM program in their undergraduate years, where the teaching will be sparse, grades will often average 18 out of a hundred, and the letter grade will come from laying a standard distribution curve over the grades. But those who go that route may already be performing, you just would never know it because in r-selection performance means nothing.
Tell others about r/K Theory, because it is easier than the SAT
[…] Everyone Gets “A’s” Yet SATs Drop […]
Both the SAT and ACT have been “re-centered” more than once. Note in the chart linked below the reference to “old” scores.
http://www.assessmentpsychology.com/iq.htm
Sometimes people go for the STEM programs, and stick it out, because its a challenge. And they like challenges. Easy subjects are just that- too easy.
older stem grad here, the 18 out of a hundred being any passing grade in stem is a relatively recent phenomenon. this is a form of r-selection since the program cannot afford to have no students complete the major. consequently woefully unprepared students are admitted to the programs and horribly they manage to graduate. this is often why things fall down, product and auto recalls occur and shit blows up among other disasters.
Time once was that a whole university class could fail and the world was better for it.
Times are changing. Bring it on!!!
Undoubtedly it was better for the individual when small classes were taught and had normal score distribution. I think the 18 score is partly because they are hustling 500 kids in a class with one professor, and maybe 20 foreigner teaching assistants being paid in a couple of credits, as a way of maximizing profit by reducing teaching costs and maximizing student numbers, and the idea lately that undergrad is just a trial by fire on teaching yourself the basics, to weed through for the graduate students who get a more normal score distribution.
I remember seeing that the average IQ of college graduates has dropped to 100 recently. Natural result of treating college as a prerequisite for just about any job above shit shoveler (and even then to become Manager Shit Shoveler you need at least a 2-year degree). I’d guess only about 25% of people in college should be in college, and even that seems like way too many. Employers want “college-educated” wageslaves because there’s so many of them there’s no reason to not require a college degree, and colleges aren’t going to lose that sweet federal funding by downsizing classes.
Used to be you could get a high school diploma and go off to work a well-paying job that supports a family. Nowadays that’s very hard to do. But if you go to college for 4 years and saddle yourself with 100k debt, you just may have a quality of life slightly worse than that same 1950’s high-school educated man.
i agree that some courses are weeder courses such as Organic Chemistry and that huge lecture hall classes taught by some third world teaching assistant do make things difficult. However, unless you can show 70% passing, you have no grasp of the material.
I know the university system well as I consulted for a major university legal department and knew personally many people on the inside making decisions at the department level and admin. the grading on the curve serves only to retain students. the university system is a bloated business that gives away too many college degrees, including STEM.
it is r-selection at its worst. before the fall of education, starting with the GI-bill it getting a Bachelors degree was an accomplishment that only certain people achieved. high school was a really good education and in most of Europe is quite comprehensive.
the graduates in science and stem coming out of your grade b and below universities are only a shadow of the quality and level of achievement of forty years ago. this is apparent when the equivalent graduates from abroad get the jobs and demonstrate superior knowledge.