Grade Inflation at Harvey Mudd? Say It Isn't So!

The Muddraker finally came out at Harvey Mudd College and the front page story above the fold is the unfortunate truth that Harvey Mudd College has been inflating the grades.

The chart indicates a rise of two-tenths of a percent. In 1990, the average GPA of graduating seniors was between a 3.1 and a 3.2. In 2007, Dean of Students Jeanne Noda reported that the new median GPA for graduating seniors is a 3.4.

(My apologies for no link, but it seems that Mudders, intoxicated no doubt by Everclear and quantum mechanics, have not made the transition to putting their issues online.)

Now to be fair, that media GPA of graduating seniors is still significantly lower than their counterparts at Harvard, M.I.T. and elsewhere. Kudos to Harvey Mudd College for tackling what once was a selling point by providing a realistic revision of the average GPA of graduating seniors.

Now what could account for that rising GPA?

While Ben Keller HMC '10 and author of the piece believes its due to pushing back the drop date for hard classes and to increased student hand-holding, I have my doubts. He cites Dean Noda, who believes as most observers of grade inflation do, that students are just smarter now than they were before. Keller may be right, but I'm skeptical.

I find it hard to believe that there was some sort of quantum leap (yes, Mudders, I too have an inner geek) in student performance since 1990.

My own theory is akin to another Harvey's -- Harvey Mansfield that is, who believes that the reason for Harvard's rising GPA is due to affirmative action. The way affirmative grading works is that professors give minority students, oftentimes unprepared for college work, higher grades than they deserve. To cover for that obviously misguided grading, they also inflate the grades of white and Asian students.

(At my old prep school, we had a similar problem. As one teacher confessed to me, any student who spoke English as a second language received no lower than a B for a writing assignment. Though I wanted to write it in the school newspaper, she wouldn't go on record and my Board overruled me. Alas.)

We know that the current HMC President Maria Klawe openly supports affirmative action for blacks, Latinos, and especially women. Might her predecessors have also supported those same increases and might affirmative action be behind that grade inflation?