In August 1998, the Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies prepared a report entitled An Analysis of Grades in the College. The purpose of the study was to analyze the extent to which students' grades in the College of Arts and Sciences are higher today than in the past and to offer possible explanations for higher grades. In order to do so, the study examined the grades of degree recipients as well as grade distributions for all students in all courses during an eight year period of time, ranging from the academic years 1988-89 to 1996-97. The following is a restatement of some of the findings of the study.
Grade Point Averages for All Degree Recipients
In a comparison among the university's undergraduate schools (including the College, Architecture, Engineering, Nursing, and Commerce), between 1989 and 1997, graduating GPAs increased in all schools. While the largest increases occurred in the Nursing School and the College, the actual cumulative GPA of students in the College ranked second lowest in both 1989 and 1997, with Engineering School graduates ranking lowest. At the current rate of increase, though, the cumulative GPA in the College will be second highest, eventually passing those of the Architecture and Commerce schools.
SATs in the College
While grades increased between 1989 and 1997, SAT scores have remained roughly the same -- the graduating class of 1989 had a mean combined score of 1291 while the 1997 score declined only slightly with a mean of 1285. Whereas verbal scores dropped six points between 1989 and 1997 (from 647 to 641), math scores rose by ten points (from 643 to 653). The Office of Institutional Assessment and Studies has found that SAT scores, both verbal and math, are good predictors of students' college grades. SAT scores cannot explain the grade increases for this period, since SAT scores themselves have not increased significantly.
GPAs in the College
In the College, graduates majoring in the humanities showed not only the highest cumulative GPA, but also the largest increases in cumulative GPA. Meanwhile, graduates majoring in the social sciences showed the lowest total GPA and the smallest cumulative GPA increases. To some extent, these increases can be explained by gender and race factors. In addition to making higher grades, women are represented in disproportionately high numbers in the humanities. Likewise, African-Americans, whose grades have been shown to be generally lower, are represented in disproportionately high numbers in the social sciences.
While mean SAT scores have not changed overall, the scores have changed for particular segments of the student population. There have been significant GPA increases for African-Americans of both genders and for Asian-American women, and those groups also have had significant increases in their SAT scores. The significant GPA increases for white women and men, however, cannot be explained even partially by increases in their SAT scores.
A Growing University
From 1989 to 1997, the undergraduate population increased by 8.4%, or 841 students. Most of the growth occurred in the College where overall enrollment increased by 8.1% or 665 students. With women making up 60% of the incoming class for 1997 (as compared to 54% in 1989), significantly more white women attend the university now than in 1989. Because almost all of the enrollment increase was made up of women, particularly white women, grade increases for the overall student population can be attributed, at least in part, to white women earning higher grades.
White women are not alone in contributing to the increasing mean GPA. Even though men score higher on their SATs, women at U.Va. traditionally make higher grades than men. Therefore from 1989-1997, the steady enrollment of African-American women and the decline of African-American men's enrollment was a contributing factor to the increasing GPA. Likewise, the increasing enrollment of Asian-American, Hispanic-American, and international students, the majority of whom were female, also contributed to grade increases for the overall student population.
GPAs for All Students and All Courses
Because the first half of the study examined only students who successfully finished their degrees and graduated, the cumulative GPAs may seem artificially high. But despite the fact that the second half of the analysis took this into account and includes students who did not graduate, GPAs still increased significantly. Grades for science/math graduates were notably higher than those of all students taking science/math courses. Meanwhile, humanities and social science graduates had grades much like those of all students taking humanities and social science courses.
Grades increased for everyone in the All Students and All Courses category but they have increased most for African-Americans and Asian-American women. While these two groups are also the only groups that earned significantly higher SAT scores, their GPA percentage increase is higher than their SAT percentage increase. As with the GPAs for degree recipients, white women still score the highest GPA in the College, but for all of the university's undergraduate schools, Asian-Americans have the highest GPA in the All Students and All Courses category.
Grade Distributions
While studying categories of students such as "all students in all courses" and "degree recipients" is one way to analyze grading patterns, another approach is to examine grade distributions. The study shows that more A's being given, coupled with fewer B's and C's and the same number of D's and F's, has caused an increase in the mean GPA in the College. In the humanities and social sciences, the overall GPA increase can be explained by an increase in the number of A's given. Meanwhile, in science/math, the overall increase can be attributed to an increase in A's and B's and a decrease in C's.
Conclusions
This study has shown that grades in the College clearly were higher in 1996-97 than in 1988-89 and offers possible explanations for the grade increases. Two possible explanations were suggested. One explanation for a small portion of the higher grades is higher SAT scores. A second partial explanation for the overall higher mean GPA is that there are more women, especially white women, in the College now than eight years ago, and women make higher grades than men. But these two explanations for higher grades do not explain most of the grade increases that have occurred in the College over the past eight years.
If one were to carry the results of the study to its ultimate extreme, and if the rate of grade increases over the past eight years were to continue, the mean cumulative GPA as well as the mean grade in all courses in the College would be expected to reach 4.0 in about 68 years, or around the year 2065.