Freshmen looking for a surefire GPA boost this semester might want to reconsider: That easy A now comes with a few strings attached.

Starting in the spring of 2009, class-wide median grades will be listed on academic transcripts for members of the Class of 2012 and beyond. The change will be positive for students enrolled in difficult classes, but any second-semester freshman with an A+ in Essential Desktop Applications will have to find something else to brag about. Now, graduate schools and potential employers will be able to calculate an applicant’s performance relative to the rest of his or her class. The result: Courses with high median grades could soon become a lot less popular.

The decision to list median grades on academic transcripts was made by the Faculty Senate in April 1996, now almost 13 years ago. Back then, the Senate decided a change would give students “a more accurate idea of their performance … [and assure students] that users of the transcript will also have this knowledge.” Prof. Peter Stein, physics, dean of faculty in 1996, recalled a storm of criticism that errupted in response to the decision, a controversy that started and ended with the student body.

“This was controversial with students,” Stein said, “because students thought it was an attack on them. The faculty [felt differently].”

In fact, Stein said, the faculty believed just the opposite, that the inclusion of median grade reports on academic transcripts would be helpful for students applying to graduate school or to join the workforce. Especially in a school that grades as stringently as Cornell, Stein said students deserve to have their grades reported in context. The observation, Stein said, “was that the GPA is a significant factor in evaluating students, but no one really knows what the GPA means. That bothered people, because students [from Cornell] seemed to be placed at a disadvantage.”

The so-called “Truth in Grading” proposal was subsequently approved by the Faculty Senate, but until this spring, the only tangible result of the decision was an online list of median grades from previous semesters. Designed to give students a better perspective on their relative academic performance, the online reports may have had a counterproductive effect.

Easy A

According to a 2006 paper by Prof. Vrinda Kadiyali of the Johnson School, and Profs. Talia Bar and Asaf Zussman, economics, the online listing of median grade reports in fact draws students “to leniently graded courses” instead of encouraging students “to take courses in which the median grade is relatively low,” as the Faculty Senate had hoped.

13 years later, the core of the change will now be implemented. Registrar David Yeh blamed the lapse between decision and implementation on technical issues, stating that University software used to produce academic transcripts had to be updated before transcripts could include median grades.

For his part, Stein called the explanation “ridiculous,” but sounded heartened that the Senate’s nearly decade-and-a-half old decision would finally have its desired effect.

To the registrar and others, the inclusion of median grades on academic transcripts serves two functions: To provide a student perspective on his or her academic achievement, and to provide an outside observer with context for evaluating an individual’s academic performance. Implicit in that rationale is a simple fact about Cornell: Some classes here are easier than others. Today, leniently-graded courses continue to appear on the course roster, although some have recently come under fire from the Academic Standards Committee.

The School of Industrial Labor Relations course Essential Desktop Applications, once a staple for students looking for a quick tutorial in Microsoft Word and an all-but-guaranteed two-credit A+ to boot, must now look elsewhere for the GPA boost. Prior to this semester, the ILR Academic Standards Committee moved to grade the course exclusively on an S/U basis, a move Prof. Christina Homrighouse understands, however unfortunate it might be for her students. Homrighouse, who continues to teach Essential Desktop Applications, looks at her course as a necessary prerequisite for most real-world work experience. And if her students did not excel, she said, she would feel like a failure herself.

“The thing that’s different for me is that one of my goals is that everyone gets an A+,” she said. “It’s a really easy but important skill to learn, and I’m willing to work with any of my students for as long as it takes for them to get it.”

Former Dean of Faculty Charlie Walcott has heard this and other explanations for high median grades before. “There are those who say Cornell students are vastly superior and deserve those higher grades,” Walcott said.

Among those who point to the superior performance of Cornell students is Prof. Thomas Silva, plant biology, who teaches Green World/Blue Planet in the fall. A science course for non-science majors, Green World/Blue Planet reported a median grade of A+ for Fall 2007. Silva explained his grading simply: His students do well on his tests.

Because professors closely guard their autonomy when it comes to class grading and instruction, any real standardization of median grades across the University is practically impossible. In 1965, though, the Cornell faculty adopted a standardized grading system of sorts — outlining, albeit in general terms, the qualifications for A, B or C work and so on. Since then, the number of As distributed has risen from 17.5 percent of all grades to 40 percent in 2000, according to Sun archives.

Now, all those As could spell trouble for students who draw easily toward leniently-graded classes. With median grades appearing on academic transcripts, grade inflation could come back to haunt future classes of Cornellians. But worry not, says Prof. Paul Chirik, chemistry: This could be a good thing after all.

“The first reaction of students could be: this is a bad thing,” Chirik said. “But this will provide the person reading that transcript with calibration. Med schools know that a B- in Chem 207 really means something.”

Iona Machado ’12 will be among the first affected by the core of the Faculty Senate’s 1996 decision. She agreed that, although difficult for some students, the new policy will benefit her classmates in the long run.

“I think this will get people out of easy classes,” Machado said. “It will prevent people from cheating the system and getting a 4.0 [just by taking easy classes]. It seems like it would devalue your grades, but it’s only fair.”