The grading system at the University of Michigan doesn’t make much sense. On the scale listed on the LSA website, each letter grade increase is worth a point on the grade point average scale; going from a flat C to a B increases one’s points from 2.0 to 3.0. This rule applies until you get to the A-range, where going from a B+ to an A+ only increases the GPA by 0.7 points. This is because achieving an A+ doesn’t add any value to one’s GPA, which caps out at the 4.0 earned by a flat A. The A+ is nothing more than a gold star telling students they did a great job.
But the A+ deserves better, and so do students. Grading outcomes across classes are currently disparate — with some courses offering the A+ and others refraining — and are much in need of standardization. Students seeking to attend graduate school (a process that often involves GPA recalculation) are missing out when a deserved A+ fails to appear on the transcript. Furthermore, students and employers need an indicator of excellent performance distinct from the flat A. The University can solve each of these problems by adopting a uniform grading scale out of 4.3 that requires professors to offer the A+.
Cornell University uses a similar system, giving the University precedent upon which to base its decision. Standardizing grade offerings across courses will prevent any harmful selection effects, and students and employers alike will benefit from a genuine marker for excellent performance.
When a certain grade offers no value beyond gratification, students have little incentive to strive to achieve that grade. You’ll likely never see a U-M student refuse to attend a football game or spend time with friends out of a desire to improve from 96% to 97% in a given course — the leap needed to move from an A to an A+. As far as students are concerned, the A+ is like finding spare change on the sidewalk. Nice to have, but not something anyone will exert real effort to obtain.
Without any real bearing on a student’s GPA, professors have little incentive to offer the A+ beyond mere tradition. This can be problematic for students applying to a kind of graduate school that recalculates GPAs to include the A+ — a noted practice of the Law School Admissions Council. Say a pre-law student receives a 99% in a course. If the professor doesn’t offer an A+, that student will suffer from a lower LSAC GPA than they would have earned otherwise, effectively reducing their chances in the admissions process.
This also harms the University, an institution with an incentive to see its students go on to attend the best graduate schools possible. The imbalance in grading across courses can also motivate the savvy pre-professional students to only select courses that offer the A+, resigning interesting topics to the wayside of the road not taken.
While the admissions committees and recruitment coordinators that pass judgment on students can make more informed decisions with a better grading regime, it is for the students themselves that the University should make this change. Our pre-professional peers shouldn’t have to worry about being set back in their application process simply because a professor doesn’t offer the full array of grades. And with grade inflation so pervasive, students need a grade that can indicate real achievement rather than alignment with the status quo. The A+ can be that North Star.
Getting an A+ at the University is still an order of magnitude harder than getting a flat A. In most courses that offer the full array of grades, earning an A+ indicates high-quality work, while grade inflation has rendered the A an indicator of standard-to-good performance.
Yet, under the current grading system, the excellent and the decent hold the same value when calculating a student’s GPA. By rewarding an A+ with a 4.3 rather than the 4.0 earned by an A, the University can indicate which students performed better under the same coursework. Anyone can admit that a 99% is a very different grade than a 93%, but only a new grading regime can fully incorporate that difference into the metrics that matter.
Such a change can also help to combat the pervasive grade inflation that renders the current grading system ineffective. It’s one thing for professors to elevate student performance to the A-level, quite another to hand out the 97%. Professors are likely to reserve the A+ for truly excellent work, and the subsequent reduction in the mean GPA will give students the freedom to take courses based on genuine interest rather than the grade distribution.
Graduate schools and potential employers deserve to know the difference between the exemplary students and those who are merely good. It is also possible, even likely, that the added incentive for students to earn an A+ will induce the greater attention and study needed to achieve that grade. If we assume that students working harder and studying more is a good thing (which the University almost certainly does), then adopting a new grading system to incentivize that extra work seems like a no-brainer.
Some might argue a new grading scale is a radical change to implement, or that requiring the A+ infringes on a professor’s freedom to run their course as they wish. But something being transformative in nature cannot alone justify refusing to take that action, and professors will retain unlimited freedom to operate their classes. They will simply have to reserve some range of grades for the A+.
Under the new grading method, fewer students will obtain perfect GPAs. But the A+ is very difficult to achieve in most courses, and the 4.0 will consequently remain impressive. And this time, any A+ a student receives will boost their GPA past the 4.0. While a new system is certainly a big ask, requiring students to settle for an inferior status quo is an even greater burden.
Lucas Feller is an Opinion Columnist who writes about politics, economics and campus culture, sometimes all at once. His column, “Contrarian’s Corner,” runs biweekly on Thursdays. He can be reached at lucasfel@umich.edu.
