Letters to the Editor: Grade inflation

To the Editor:

In response to the Cezary Podkul's column on grade inflation ("Feeling inflated," The Daily Pennsylvanian, 2/28/05), his argument is based on multiple fallacies.

First is that your cumulative GPA is of vast importance. Few jobs later in life will reject your application as a result of a low GPA in college. This false assumption distorts the argument to conclude that maintaining a high GPA is of more value than taking interesting courses, which is a shame. Just because Wharton people believe they need a high GPA to impress that 24-year-old JP Morgan interviewer doesn't mean you need to. No one is stopping anyone from taking courses that they find interesting but are not in their major.

Another mistake is to argue that grades are arbitrary for certain courses. To my knowledge, I know no one at Penn that any of their grades were purely arbitrary. People generally have a good sense of what their grades are before they are posted. Not everyone should receive an excellent grade just because they were accepted to Penn.

David Krulewitch

College '05

To the Editor:

The function of a university is to create and spread knowledge, and when a university puts its stamp of approval on its graduates, it says to the world, 'This person has demonstrated the abilities necessary to use and create knowledge. Specifically, this individual has chosen to complete a course of study in such-and-such a discipline, and we believe he has shown a satisfactory command of the subject.'

The demonstration of that command and those abilities is usually accomplished in what, in the end, amounts to an evaluation or a test. This evaluation takes the form: How good of a mathematician/historian/engineer does the University consider that individual to be?

Grades, specifically letter grades, reflect on the standards of the institution which gives them out and on the ability of its students to meet and exceed those standards. Every institution, especially Penn, should continually strive to raise its standards and improve the quality of the education it provides. Measuring students against a stricter yardstick is merely the natural expression of those rising standards.

The title of "Highly Qualified in Subject X" should not be given away so readily, and this "specialness" should be reflected not in imposed quotas, but in the University's declaration of what it means to be highly qualified and the tailoring of course examinations to more accurately probe that qualification.

Roman Geykhman

Engineering '07

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