Cambridge considering using American-style GPA

I’m quite sure that’s exactly the thinking of some of the current government. “Allowing universities to set their own course content is far too much freedom in the hands of a bunch of lefties.”

yeah tbf I’m gonna scrape a 2:1 like 61% don’t really deserve the same grade as the dude who almost got a first

easy mistake to make i guess but the bear is actually over 60 years old

The GPA method is useful because it generally comes along with year-wide assessments as opposed to one or two at the end of the year. Having a concrete number is pointless, as we have one already. What is important is to have more assessments and for universities to see more of the capabilities of their students. Monthly summative essays, vivas, class projects. All that other doss stuff.

But that in itself breeds informality and leads to grade inflation, so I am not sure how it is a solution in any way.

I absolutely disagree. The problem with this in American universities is that, perversely, it encourages a mindset of always focussing on immediate grades rather than actual learning. Further, it ramps up the pressure on students all the time rather than just at the end.

In the first two terms of the year I always knew that I wasn't being formally assessed, so all I had to do was learn and prepare for the inevitable reckoning. I was perfectly happy to leave a question on a problem sheet after struggling with it for a few hours and go to my tutorial saying "I really didn't get this, what am I missing?". If my problem sheet marks had counted towards my final degree I would absolutely not have been so laid back, but would this addition to my stress-levels have helped my learning? I think not.

Further, the fact that individual problem-sheets/essays/class tests count towards GPA in American colleges is one of the reasons why standardisation is absolutely impossible. There's just too much variation in the system.

There's no indication Cambridge would also drop their end of year exams as the main source of grading.

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This is clearly part of it, but it is not the only element

My facetious comment about cricket is significant. At my Oxford college the alumni usually beat the college despite the average age of the alumni team being well north of 40. Academic ability was not as important in recruiting even in an era where a level of state school admissions were achieved that has only been achieved today with enormous effort.

Study is practically easier today. That is the result of computers. Material is online. High demand materials are digitised. Copying printed material is far easier.

I suspect students in the past studied for longer than they do today but far less productively.

However, students are less willing to go off piste.

Studying to the exam is a post 1990 phenomenon.

Lazy employers filtering on degree classifications doesn’t help. That doesn’t put pressure on universities though - it puts pressure on students to understand their results and marking in order to meet that requirement.

There’s no exam board sat there saying “well yes but KPMG won’t offer any of these 2:2 graduates a job so let’s change their classification”.

And given that employers already have access to vastly more detailed information (the HEAR format became compulsory in 2012 iirr) switching to GPA isn’t going to address their laziness or stop students tactically working towards meeting whatever filters they apply under a new system.

I think increasingly they will use their own assesments instead of filtering on a 2:1.

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That's interesting, thank you. I would have anticipated that students today spend, on average, more time studying than previously, but can't verify this. Certainly I do think that the internet, or more specifically the wealth of information that can be easily found on it for free, has changed studying quite significantly.

Whose to say the GPA system won't eventually suffer the same inflation as the current system?

Employers have no appetite to use HEAR despite it being rammed down our throats for the last 6-7 years. Why on earth would an employer want to read through an 7-8 page document to try and deduce something. They don’t even want to read a 2 page CV. Plus HEAR has some major flaws and has been shown to heavily discriminate lower SEB groups, carers and commuters.

Plus universities haven’t even used it consistently, so why would an employer try to use something that isn’t being rolled out to every graduate well?

Whose to say the GPA system won't eventually suffer the same inflation as the current system?

the bear's time? By the posts he makes, I thought he was barely older than typical graduate age

Doonesbury thinks i am like well old

Some of us are so old we remember when only 4-5% of students on our degree achieved a First. Nowadays, for that same course and university, the figure is around 25%. I do find myself wondering how that can be when today's students produce about half the amount of work we did and have a fraction of the contact hours...

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Some of us are so old we remember when only 4-5% of students on our degree achieved a First. Nowadays, for that same course and university, the figure is around 25%. I do find myself wondering how that can be when today's students produce about half the amount of work we did and have a fraction of the contact hours...

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