In the conclusion of PLOS ONE: Inflated Applicants: Attribution Errors in Performance Evaluation by Professionals there is a reference to, In Law Schools, Grades Go Up, Just Like That – NYTimes.com. That article is about law schools that change their grading to help their graduates get better jobs. For example, Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, retroactively inflated everyone’s grades .333 overnight. There are other actions that other schools take, from changing grades to paying law firms to hire their students. These are discussed in the Times’ article.
The article notes that Loyola students felt that they were at an unfair disadvantage since other schools had raised their averages.
The article also notes that smaller firms don’t have the resoures to keep up with all of this grade inflation. It seems to me that the small firms are likely to be losers in the process, along with clients who may mistakenly think they are getting an honors graduate to handle their work at a large firm.
Whatever happened to assessments by professors of how well students learned something? Do the graduates know “contracts” well or not? Does the grade have anything to do with that? And what are we teaching our future lawyers? That, if everyone is doing it, it is ok, even if most people know that on many levels it is not the right thing to do?
On a final note, the article points out that the University of Chicago hasn’t changed. I find that interesting since Chicago is the school where the faculty fought the business and marketing model of higher education. (see “Content Deflation” Part II: University of Chicago Felt the Heat)
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