No comparisons for Hillsdale student GPAs
Joy Pavelski
Issue date: 3/12/09 Section: News
Hillsdale College students have long griped they work harder for lower grades than average college students, but administrators have never compiled data to prove or disprove this belief. Junior Zach Howard decided to try.
For a business statistics class project, Howard secured the junior class GPA list from the registrar's office. (It came without names to guard student privacy). Howard selected 35 GPAs at random from the entire junior class, ran numbers and analyzed the results.
It showed a bell curve shifted to the right, indicating that more Hillsdale students nab between a 3.5 and 4.0 than between a 3.0 and 3.5. That could indicate better students, or it could mean easier As. The average junior GPA, or mean, is 3.1.
"The mean is higher at other colleges, which suggests Hillsdale is good at weeding out bad students and getting better quality students," Howard said.
But, he admitted, there is no way to know for sure without comparing these numbers to students at several other schools. That's a further project which, with two 30-page papers due before end of term, Howard doubts he will complete.
Many colleges calculate class GPAs to provide a point of comparison among their students. Hillsdale doesn't, Registrar Doug McArthur said.
Howard said he had hoped to find numbers to demonstrate to future internship supervisors and employers the "better weight and significance of a Hillsdale GPA."
"There is more rigor and no grade curving, especially in the humanities," Howard said.
Provost Robert Blackstock said he would like to know how a Hillsdale GPA compares to those at other colleges, but that time constraints and the massive two-year shift into new recordkeeping with Datatel, Inc., software have likely precluded the registrar's ability to add such responsibilities lately.
Most related and available information is anecdotal, Blackstock said.
"The placement office works to help employers and graduate schools understand that a B at Hillsdale is worth more than a B at other schools, or even an A," Blackstock said. "I think our reputation for this is pretty widely understood."
For a business statistics class project, Howard secured the junior class GPA list from the registrar's office. (It came without names to guard student privacy). Howard selected 35 GPAs at random from the entire junior class, ran numbers and analyzed the results.
It showed a bell curve shifted to the right, indicating that more Hillsdale students nab between a 3.5 and 4.0 than between a 3.0 and 3.5. That could indicate better students, or it could mean easier As. The average junior GPA, or mean, is 3.1.
"The mean is higher at other colleges, which suggests Hillsdale is good at weeding out bad students and getting better quality students," Howard said.
But, he admitted, there is no way to know for sure without comparing these numbers to students at several other schools. That's a further project which, with two 30-page papers due before end of term, Howard doubts he will complete.
Many colleges calculate class GPAs to provide a point of comparison among their students. Hillsdale doesn't, Registrar Doug McArthur said.
Howard said he had hoped to find numbers to demonstrate to future internship supervisors and employers the "better weight and significance of a Hillsdale GPA."
"There is more rigor and no grade curving, especially in the humanities," Howard said.
Provost Robert Blackstock said he would like to know how a Hillsdale GPA compares to those at other colleges, but that time constraints and the massive two-year shift into new recordkeeping with Datatel, Inc., software have likely precluded the registrar's ability to add such responsibilities lately.
Most related and available information is anecdotal, Blackstock said.
"The placement office works to help employers and graduate schools understand that a B at Hillsdale is worth more than a B at other schools, or even an A," Blackstock said. "I think our reputation for this is pretty widely understood."
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