[Philo]

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I find your comments hard to believe. Do you stand by them comparing, lets say, Georgia Tech and Cal Tech?

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No, I can't compare Georgia Tech and Cal Tech because I have from no first-hand knowledge of grading standards from either school, nor any statistics from those particular schools.

I certainly wouldn't go so far as to generalize across all schools, but speaking from my personal experiences in higher education (which I've been in for over 20 years as a student, professional academic, and administrator), it seems clear to me that many schools not considered top-tier for an undergraduate education do not have the same level of grade inflation as Ivy League schools and many top-tier private colleges. I have had numerous discussions with colleagues from different institutions around the country about this very topic which seem to confirm this as well.

From a quick search on the internet here are two examples of grade inflation from Ivy League schools: The Dean of the College at Harvard reported that for the 2002-2003 school year 47.8% of grades for undergrads were either A's or A-'s. The American Academy of Arts and Sciences reported that in 1997 43% of grades at Princeton were A's, and only 12% were below the B range. I saw the same grading practices at Amherst College as an undergraduate.

I was a doctoral student at Columbia University, where I taught undergraduates and also worked in the Dean's Office and read the internal reports from Ivy League institutions about grade inflation. I have taken classes at eight different colleges and universities, served on graduate school admissions committees at both Columbia and UCLA, and worked as an academic counselor for the College of Letters and Science at UCLA.

The toughest grading institution I have ever taken classes at was the University of Louisville. It was much harder to get an A at U of L than it is for undergrads at Amherst, Columbia, Harvard or Princeton to get an A.