Awash in A's, UNC considers new yardstick

CHAPEL HILL -- At UNC-Chapel Hill, where A is the most common grade, there's talk of a new way to distinguish between the good and the excellent.

The Faculty Council is scheduled to vote today on whether the university should adopt a second measure along with the traditional grade point average. It's called the Achievement Index, and it would be a supplemental score added to a student's transcript. The "AI," as it's known around campus, would be calculated through a statistical model that compares a student's performance with that of other students at the university.

UNC-CH apparently would be the first university to use the method.

Opponents say the system would pit student against student, feeding an atmosphere of cutthroat competition.

Its backers say the index is a more accurate measure and would correct for differences in grading practices among departments and individual faculty members. They say it would cut down on shopping for easy-grading professors, and help those who gravitate to the natural sciences, where grades tend to be lower.

"I believe it would improve the intellectual climate by reducing disparities in grading that may cause students to choose courses based on grading rather than on what they learn and what they hope to learn," said Peter Gordon, a psychology professor and supporter of the change.

But some faculty worry about using a calculation that only a statistician can understand. At a recent forum, a professor likened the AI to a little black box, with data going in and results mysteriously popping out.

As for students, many give the AI an F.

By Thursday evening, 590 students had joined an online petition that called the Achievement Index "a solution in search of a problem."

"It's too complex, and it lacks transparency," said Mike Radionchenko, a sophomore from Hickory who has organized against the proposal. "I tend to disagree with a philosophy of grades being relative rather than individual."

In essence, one student's higher score would depend on a classmate's lower score. Radionchenko said the new system would create a ethos of intense competition.

'Pick-A-Prof'

The grade-grubbing culture is firmly entrenched at top U.S. universities, according to studies that document ever-increasing average grade point averages. At some Ivy League campuses in recent years, more than half of grades awarded were A's. C's are scarce, and D's and F's are almost nonexistent.

Some attribute the escalation to the rise in a consumer-oriented approach by universities who treat students as customers. Professors who grade stringently face negative reviews by students on teacher evaluations. Worse, students may avoid tough classes and tough graders altogether.

An industry has grown up around the easy A. One Web site, Pick-A-Prof, allows students to look up the grading histories of professors at their universities.

That can lead the public to lose confidence in higher education, some say. "I think the existence of a service like Pick-A-Prof is frankly an embarrassment to the university," Gordon said.

While grade inflation is widely noted, few universities have done anything about it. In 2004, Princeton University announced a plan to decrease the number of A's awarded to undergraduates. Other schools, such as Dartmouth College and Indiana University, list median grades next to students' grades on transcripts.

At UNC-CH, professors have debated the issue for years. In 2000, a report documented the rise in grades over time. An update in 2004 showed that about 41 percent of all undergraduate grades were A's, compared with 39 percent that were B's.