Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
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Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
Gilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegean NielColby CollegeFollow this and additional works at: https 7/digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorsthesesdr Part of the Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research Commons, and the other Economics CommonsColby College theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed or downloaded from this si Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegete for the purposes of research and scholarship. Reproduction or distribution for commercial purposes is prohibited without written permission of theRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
author.Recommended CitationVan Niel, Nicholas. 'Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College' (2010).Honors Theses. Paper 573.httpsGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeital Commons @ Colby. It has been accepted for inclusion In Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons ® ColbyRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College1Nicholas Van NielColby College40299AbstractConsistent with trends at American colleges and universities n Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeationwide, grades have been monotonically increasing at Colby College over the past decade while controlling for student aptitude. A rich data set thaRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
t describes every Colby student over three cohorts is used to predict student performance. By comparing the mean predicted grade to the mean actual grGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeactors. With some departments giving significantly higher grades than other departments, the current grading system is susceptible to awarding unwarranted higher grades to students who major in those departments. Therefore, a normalized system of class rank is proposed in which performance is standa Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegerdized against the mean grade at that particular class level in the respective department. The alternative system of class rank appears to mitigate thRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
e detrimental effects that large discrepancies in mean grades between departments engender.11 would like 10 thank Piofessoi Philip Brown and ProfessorGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeAverage grades have increased at such a drastic pace over the past half century' that nine in ten grades awarded al Colby College are in the A or 13 range. Such findings arc not unique as evidenced by die literature, which demonstrates that grades have increased significantly at American universitie Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Colleges and colleges since the 1960s." l or example. Juola (1976. 1980) fmd that the average GPA rose by 0.432 points, on average, between 1960 and 1974 inRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
their sample of over 180 colleges (Table I). Sabot and Wakeman-T.inn (1991) find that the mean grade in introductory courses of eight large departmentGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegey courses of the same eight departments rose from 2.38 in 1962-1963 to 2.91 in 1985-1986. In a survey of 4.900 undergraduates from all types of institutions between 1969 and 1993. Levine and Cureton (1998) find that the percentage of A’s awarded increased from 7 percent to 26 percent while the share Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College of C’s decreased from 23 percent to 9 percent. Kuh and Hu (1999) compare the GPAs of 52,256 students from 112 institutions to find that student gradeRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
s rose from 3.07 in the mid-1980s to 3.34 in the mid-1990s. Gose (1997) finds that the mean GPA al Duke University' rose from 2.7 in 1969 to 3.3 in 19Gilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeersity’ of California. Berkeley' it rose from 2.95 in 1986 to 3.10 in 1996: and at the University of Washington, it rose from 2.31 in 1964 to 3.12 in 1996. ■ McSpiril and Jones (1999) also find a consistent climb—more than 0.10 grade points every five years—in die• There is a large debate in the lit Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeerature concerning whether the increases in grades can be labeled as ’grade inflation.’ In order to remain agnostic. I avoid the term.■ Eckert (1988),Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
Alexander (1993), Cole 11993), shea (1994), Johnson (1997). and Healy (2001)also report conclusive evidence that support steady increases in the averGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College A summary of this data was published on April 1 s. 2010 in the New York Times: Data; A as the Anr 5.2average graduating GPA between 1983 and 1996 while controlling for aptitude, institutional, and other demographic factors.While the evidence presented above indicates the prevalence of rising grades Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College across a wide range of educational institutions. Rosovsky and Hartley (2002) report that increases in grades are especially prevalent at elite, selecRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
tive colleges and universities; 91 percent of Harvard University's Class of 2001 graduated with Latin honors. Indeed Lambert (1993) reports that the pGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College993) finds that 88 percent of grades awarded at Stanford University were either in the A or B range between 1991 and 1993. Archibold (1998) reports that 83 percent of the grades awarded at Princeton University between 1992 and 1997 were between the A+ and B- range, compared to only 69 percent betwee Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegen 1973 and 1977. In addition, the median GPA at Princeton University rose from 3.08 for the Class of 1973 to 3.42 for the Class of 1997. These increasRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
es in average grades awarded over the past half century may be warranted if student ability has increased proportionally over the same period; howeverGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas Va Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College do not appear to be justified.Birnbaum (1977) and Winzer (2002) note that there are institutional pressures that help explain some of the increases in grades over the past half century. Rosovsky and Hartley (2002) point to the Vietnam War- and the tunnoil of the 1960s as the primary driver of incre Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby Collegeases in grades, for professors knew that awarding poor grades caused students to drop out of school and made the students subject to military serviceRevitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby College
in Vietnam. In addition, there have been curriculum adjustments that have engendered increases in grades. During the tunnoil of the 1960s. schools3Gilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas VaGilby oColby CollegeDigital Commons @ ColbyHonors ThesesStudent Research2010Revitalizing the Signaling Power of Class Rank at Colby CollegeNicholas VaGọi ngay
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