Starting with the current freshman class, median grades will be reported on all students’ transcripts alongside the grade that they earned in the class. This new policy pits students against each other, creating an unnecessarily competitive climate. The University should reconsider this move, and allow students the choice as to whether or not median grades appear on their transcripts.

Median grade reports have been published online by the University registrar since 1996. A study published in the Journal of Social Science Research Network by three Cornell professors, “Quest for Knowledge and Pursuit of Grades: Information, Course Selection and Grade Inflation,” revealed that students use these grades during enrollment and Add/Drop periods to choose more leniently graded classes. This discourages students from choosing classes based on their academic interests and places more of an emphasis on letter grades than how much a student learned in a class. As the study concluded, when median grades are published, the “pursuit of grades compromises the quest for knowledge.”

Publishing median grades not only online, but also on each student’s individual transcript, puts an even stronger emphasis on grades over knowledge. It will increase grade competition among students in an already competitive environment, adding increased pressure to perform over simply attaining knowledge. Classes will become an exercise in testing well rather than in academic inquiry.

When median grades are published alongside GPAs, the University is incorrectly assuming that a class’s median grade is an accurate indication of the difficulty of that class. Evaluation criteria and grading scales vary across departments and colleges. For example, an engineering class with a B average is likely not as difficult as a communications class with the same average. Similarly, it may be more difficult to assess achievement based on grades in some disciplines, such as English, fine arts and the humanities, than in quantitative-based classes. Thus, median grades are misleading, particularly when the readers of transcripts are comparing Cornell students across colleges and disciplines.

Proponents of the new transcript inclusion claim that it will encourage students to enroll in classes with lower averages, and thus enroll in more challenging classes. Yet the University fails to recognize that ultimately it is a student’s GPA — the student’s combined grade achievement — that employers and graduate schools will likely look at. A GPA is not calculated based on median grades. Students will thereby be just as likely to take classes with a high average because in the end high grades lead to a high GPA.

Additionally, some students simply do well on tests. The publication of median grades puts pressure on professors to grade on a curve, or to deflate students’ grades in order to reduce their class average. Further, the publication of median grades may discourage students interested in traditionally higher-graded subjects to pursue the studies that interest them out of fear that they will appear to have taken the “easy way out.”

This is not to say that high-achieving students should not have their achievements recognized. A student who consistently earns higher-than-average grades should be able to show off his or her success to employers or graduate programs. However, this should be a choice actively made by that student. Students should not be forced to endure the added pressure of having median grades on their transcript in the midst of maintaining a high GPA and taking classes that interest them. Rather, having median grades on one’s transcript should be a matter of personal choice.