To the Editor: As an undergraduate at Princeton, I currently experience the opposite of grade inflation — grade deflation.
Stuart Rojstaczer, a critic of grade inflation, has estimated average grades over time by combining dozens of unofficial and official sources.
But in an era of widespread grade inflation, grades here actually went down.
By ordering the estimates of the time-specific student effects we obtain a measure of class rank that is purged of grade inflation.
But PC Drivers Headquarters appears to be just one of many examples of grade inflation.
She said that the college began working on the issue of grade inflation about six years ago, but that grades had continued to climb.
Most academics trace the beginning of grade inflation to the student deferments of the Vietnam War-era of the 1960's and early 70's.
And just as the number of rating systems has multiplied, so too have the awards at the upper end of the spectrum, suggesting that a creeping wave of grade inflation may be washing away the boundaries of exclusivity.
A HARVARD UNIVERSITY report last spring complained of grade inflation that makes it easier to get high grades.
They also put a question mark over the validity of improving exam results in the UK and lend credence to claims made by Education Secretary Michael Gove - among others - of grade inflation, particularly at GCSE level, over the past decades.
