{"id":6101,"date":"2014-12-16T07:29:19","date_gmt":"2014-12-16T07:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6101"},"modified":"2014-12-16T07:29:19","modified_gmt":"2014-12-16T07:29:19","slug":"my-how-smart-those-americans-are-getting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2014\/12\/16\/my-how-smart-those-americans-are-getting\/","title":{"rendered":"My!  How smart those Americans are getting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A while back, The Economist recently had a brief\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/united-states\/21615616-not-what-it-used-be-grade-expectations\">piece<\/a> (and nice graph) on grade inflation in the Ivy league, reporting that the median grade at Harvard is now <strong>A\u2013<\/strong>, with <strong>A<\/strong> as the mode. \u00a0But hang on, the Economist said, citing data, in 1950 Harvard's mean (sic)\u00a0grade was a\u00a0<strong>C<\/strong>. \u00a0Of course, given who goes (and teaches) there, this might be expected, as the Economist noted in its characteristically measured fashion:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\"The students may be much cleverer than before: the Ivies are no longer gentlemen\u2019s clubs for rich knuckleheads.\"<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However, it concluded its piece:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Universities pump up grades because many students like it. \u00a0Administrators claim that tough grading leads to rivalry and stress for students. \u00a0But if that is true, why have grades at all? \u00a0Brilliant students complain that, thanks to grade inflation, little distinguishes them from their so-so classmates. \u00a0Employers agree. \u00a0When so many students get As, it is hard to figure out who is clever and who is not.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This\u00a0pumping-up couldn't happen here, could it? \u00a0Before you say: \"Of course not!\", read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.co.uk\/story.aspx?storyCode=2016467\">this<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A while back, The Economist recently had a brief\u00a0piece (and nice graph) on grade inflation in the Ivy league, reporting that the median grade at Harvard is now A\u2013, with A as the mode. \u00a0But hang on, the Economist said,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}