There are certain tools that every Cornell student has been making good use of this week in order to successfully beat CoursEnroll: Schedulizer, credit summaries, web forums and coffee to wake us up bright and early on our day to enroll (how we managed to wake up at 7 a.m. everyday in high school is anyone’s guess). Perhaps most treasured by students in these weeks of frustration and agony, however, is the Median Grade Report published by the University. While originally intended to provide students with a means by which they could assess their performance, the publication of median grades has instead become an informal grade inflator. The nature of post-graduate placement and fundamental problems with the reports themselves put students in a position where they find it favorable to sacrifice intellectual exploration in pursuit of a perfect GPA.

The publication of median grades at Cornell began in 1997 as the result of a resolution passed by the Cornell Faculty Senate. According to the Office of the University Registrar’s website, the purpose of publishing median grades is so “students will get a more accurate idea of their performance, and they will be assured that users of the transcript will also have this knowledge.” The University reasoned that students would get a better perspective of what their GPA actually meant and how their performance compared to other students who pursued similar courses of study. So, while it was informally understood that a B in CHEM 2070: General Chemistry was (slightly) more impressive than a B in ASTRO 1101: The Nature of the Universe, median grade reports made this assumed difference official.

To say the least, the publication of median grades affected course selection profoundly. The Office of the University Registrar’s website states “more accurate recognition of performance may encourage students to take courses in which the median grade is relatively low.” Instead of taking more difficult courses, however, students gravitated toward classes with high median grades in order to boost their GPAs. A study conducted by three Cornell professors published in 2007 found that between 1998 and 2004 enrollment in classes with an A median grade increased by 50 percent. I think it’s safe to say that many of us could have predicted such a dramatic increase. After all, GPA is important and it’s a lot easier to convince the parents to pay fraternity dues when you’re bringing home As instead of Cs.

The University began listing median grades on transcripts starting with students in the Class of 2012. Not that the listing of median grades on transcripts has much of an impact on course selection. From talking to my classmates, the primary concern is GPA and GPA alone. When it comes to seeking employment and graduate school admissions, the commonly held perception is that employers and admissions officers aren’t analyzing your transcript or giving it much individualized attention. A major GPA is important, but again, it’s the aggregate that is the factor. The immense pressure on students to succeed beyond Cornell leads us to select courses that will give us the best shot of landing jobs or graduate school placement. Ironically, in sacrificing a rigorous course load and valuable intellectual experiences we are probably forgoing the best preparation for jobs and graduate school. 

There are also fundamental flaws with the Median Grade Reports themselves. First and foremost, the reports list median grades for courses but not specific professors. Any ILRie can speak to this. A freshman requirement for us, ILRLR 110: Introduction to United States Labor History, is taught by several professors a semester. Amongst students, the professors have nicknames that correspond to (and in some cases alliterate with) their perceived difficulty. Despite the disparities, the Cornell Median Grade Report only lists one median grade for the course per semester. In this case, the Median Grade Report actually serves as a false indicator of how students did in the course. The fact that median grades are listed on transcripts exacerbates the problem and — if an employer or graduate school actually analyzes the transcript — leads to false conclusions about the students’ performance in the course.

Another fundamental flaw with the system is the time lag in the posting of median grades. As of this writing, the website still fails to list median grades from the Spring 2010 semester. Since the Spring 2010 median grades would prove most beneficial in helping students select courses for next semester, the helpfulness of the website is limited. I know they have been calculated because I have seen my transcript, so I stand to wonder why they haven’t been posted. Even if a student does, for some reason, seek to take classes with a lower median grade because of the policy, they can’t get a realistic estimate.

At the end of the day, the problem is not with the Median Grade Reports but with University grading policies themselves. The wide discrepancies in grading policies between colleges, departments and even professors of the same courses lead to the irrelevance and invalidity of GPA as a barometer of student performance at Cornell. Unfortunately, to employers and graduate schools, the intricacies of our University are unknown and GPA is all they have to work with in making decisions. 

In order to make GPA valid and a realistic means of comparison, major reform would be needed in grading policy that would require professors, departments and schools to consider sacrificing considerable autonomy. As my Introductory Statistics professor would tell you, standardization of grades would be unwise as well as incorrect. A uniform University median grade, however, could go a long way in remedying the problem. But what should the median of student performance be? Would employers and graduate school be able to look past lower numbers? These are the types of questions that need to be asked if we want to make our grades meaningful at Cornell.

Jon Weinberg is a sophomore in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. He may be reached at jweinberg@cornellsun.com. In Focus appears alternate Thursdays this semester.