MA Grade Inflation

[objectivityofcontradiction]

Some one brought this up recently and I was curious to hear what folks have to say about the issue.

 

It seems to me that those without an MA like to grip onto this much-discussed idea as some sort of self-reassuring mechanism that tells them that though they lack an MA this will not put them in a worse-off position than those with MAs because it seems to be a known fact that MA programs inflate their grades and therefore admissions committees will obviously take this into account. I am not sure this is valid. 

 

At my program (in Europe), both myself and my best friend in the program graduated with 4.0 MA GPAs. We'd sometimes joke about the issue of grade inflation in our program (partly out of shock that we were doing so well). That only lasted until we spoke with some of our peers who were not receiving As on their work. I also had a professor mention to me once, in typical dry, British humor, how easy it is to get an A in America. He said something along the lines of, 'they just give out As in the states.' So he seemed to think that grade inflation is a more general epidemic. 

 

In the end, I have to believe that most good, honest philosophy professors do not inflate their marks and that even if the issue is real, a quick scan of one's WS should be able to offer up the proof as to whether or not student X is actually capable of producing A-type graduate scholarship. 

Edited January 21, 2014 by objectivityofcontradiction