It also matters a bit more in the sciences, where an undergraduate degree is just a ticket to get a Ph.D. unless you want a career as a lab tech.
Also, this is in the context of Princeton, one of the best of the Ivies, I'm told the most academically rigorous. I suppose ... ah, here's the key: the Ivies have to admit way too many "legacies", children of alums. Enough that it makes a massive difference in their student bodies compared to MIT, where being the child of an alum doesn't hurt, but is no help at all if MIT judges you can't do the required calculus and calculus based physics. So maybe it does make sense to grade on a curve ... still, MIT grades on mastery, and I know if I found myself in this situation:
The undergraduate student body president, Connor Diemand-Yauman, a senior from Chesterland, Ohio, said: “I had complaints from students who said that their professors handed back exams and told them, ‘I wanted to give 10 of you A’s, but because of the policy, I could only give five A’s.’ When students hear that, an alarm goes off.”
I'd find another school to transfer to, or at the minimum work out an arrangement for a great grad school recommendation from the guilty faculty (would not be hard since I can/could do research).
>The undergraduate student body president, Connor Diemand-Yauman, a senior from Chesterland, Ohio, said: “I had complaints from students who said that their professors handed back exams and told them, ‘I wanted to give 10 of you A’s, but because of the policy, I could only give five A’s.’ When students hear that, an alarm goes off.”
This exact thing happened to my friend in our 2nd year intro circuits course. The prof (awesome guy) wanted to give him an A but couldn't because of the quota and told him this in person. Said friend, as fate would have it, is thriving at MSFT and is currently a Senior Program Manager there.
I agree that the curve should really be at the discretion of the instructor, not administrators, who is best fit to apply it reasonably. One of my colleagues was actually told the opposite in a class he taught recently: that he was failing or not giving A's to enough students in the classes he was teaching! It definitely goes both ways, but instructors are reasonably fit to decide how to do their curves.
The latter happens more than a little at MIT, and I've witnessed a department head tell a professor you've very possibly heard of that he'd never be allowed to teach a particular course again. That was after making him read every student evaluation, were were uniformly negative except for a single special case, which wasn't exactly positive.
Also, this is in the context of Princeton, one of the best of the Ivies, I'm told the most academically rigorous. I suppose ... ah, here's the key: the Ivies have to admit way too many "legacies", children of alums. Enough that it makes a massive difference in their student bodies compared to MIT, where being the child of an alum doesn't hurt, but is no help at all if MIT judges you can't do the required calculus and calculus based physics. So maybe it does make sense to grade on a curve ... still, MIT grades on mastery, and I know if I found myself in this situation:
The undergraduate student body president, Connor Diemand-Yauman, a senior from Chesterland, Ohio, said: “I had complaints from students who said that their professors handed back exams and told them, ‘I wanted to give 10 of you A’s, but because of the policy, I could only give five A’s.’ When students hear that, an alarm goes off.”
[ Followed by the dean of the undergraduate college admitting they've got a fixed quota system. ] (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/education/31princeton.html)
I'd find another school to transfer to, or at the minimum work out an arrangement for a great grad school recommendation from the guilty faculty (would not be hard since I can/could do research).