According to Malkiel, reducing the number of As is important to giving students a more accurate picture of how they are performing. "If we're giving students the same grades for their very best work as for their good work we're not giving them well-calibrated guidance about the difference between very good and best, and we're not challenging them to do their very best work," she told the The New York Times.
In the campaign's first year, the percentage of A-plusses, As, and A-minuses dropped in undergraduate classes from 46 percent in 2003-04 to 41 percent in 2004-05, according to The Chronicle. Courses in the humanities witnessed the greatest decrease in As, down to 45.5 percent from 56.2 percent. The natural sciences, at 36.4 percent As, held steady.
The reduction in As in the independent research projects completed by upperclassmen may not seem as apparent. In junior-year independent work, the percentage of As fell to 57.9 percent from 59.5 percent, and senior independent work saw a decline in As from 60.2 percent in the previous year to 58.6 percent, as described in the university report released last week.
The Faculty Committee on Grading at Princeton explained the new progress: "Departments that were giving very high percentages of A grades are making real strides toward bringing their grades down; departments that were already grading according to the new expectations are continuing to hold the line," according to Princeton's news release.
In a Princeton news release, the Faculty Committee on Grading announced its satisfaction with this campaign against grade inflation. "After so many years of steady grade inflation, we have actually been able to move the needle in the other direction, in a remarkably short period of time," said the release.