Quote:
Originally posted by sugar and spice
. And don't even get me started on what it takes to get into a really good school these days . . . being valedictorian isn't nearly enough anymore. The kids going to college these days are used to being overextended, they're used to studying all night long, and they're used to being the cream of the crop. That's usually why college GPA averages are so high, not because colleges have gotten that much easier.
Now whether or not the reason that so many high school students have 4.0s is due to high school grade inflation, I don't know, and I'm sure it varies from school to school. I think more of it has to do with the increasing emphasis on workaholism of our culture, though. My parents wouldn't have dreamed of pulling an all-nighter in high school, but me and my sister both did it multiple times. And there have been tons of studies done about the increasing homework load that students these days are expected to deal with.
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I've pulled 3 all nighters in almost 4 years of college, compared with the at least 10 that I can remember pulling in HS. When I think about all the stuff I had to do in HS and compare that to college, it seems like a breeze (add to the fact that I hated my HS, and I was counting the days till graduation). Kids now have been so broken down, they can succeed in college with considerably less effort than in generations past. Also, they know how to "play the game" of boosting GPAs.
I also feel that, at schools that had a plus/minus grading system, those can inflate gpas. I attended a school (for one semester) that had the system, and my classmates' GPAs were all 3.9 and higher. I was impressed...until I realized that A pluses were 4.3. Not so impressive, and another reason to eschew the plus/minus system. Also, at schools where the pass/fail option can be used freely, I have known people who will take the class they know they'll make an A in, and the rest pass/fail. One A=4.0, or in some schools, 4.3.
I guess we're lucky at my school. GPAs are not calculated unless you want to go abroad (3.0 average required) or are PBK. We don't assign honors based on GPA. So, I didn't have to calculate mine until I was applying to grad school...