A; the most sought-after grade on every single assignment and assessment amongst every student. A is the representation of personal success, evidence of excellence in teaching and a single brick in the monument of school esteem. No wonder everyone wants to present an A, but who actually deserves it? Are A’s being given out at such a high rate that it is unclear whether or not the deserving students are actually earning their recognition? Is it a participation trophy?
According to the U.S. Department of Education, an A is the most common grade given out to students nationwide. This fact raises the question: are the teachers and professors really that excellent, or are students becoming increasingly brilliant? For Finn Mullin ’26, who experienced life at schools in Connecticut and Iowa before finally landing in Grosse Pointe, it’s an individual battle.
“AP teachers are so overworked that I don’t think they really care to enforce some strict grading system,” Mullin said. “You don’t want to punish student ambition.”
Grade inflation, or the increase of 4.0 GPAs and A’s in society, has been proven by studies from the Department of Education. Mullin’s idea of the overworked teachers coincides with another theory regarding school-caused anxiety and depression.
“The school system has these standards,” Mullin said, “Students must perform at this level and learn X amount of material in a short period of time. This puts so much pressure on students to achieve and do so without wrapping their own sense of logic around the material around them.”
School-caused depression isn’t a mystery. There isn’t some answer out there that is waiting to be uncovered. Students want to make their peers, parents, and teachers proud; it’s a natural human instinct. Failing to do so makes student life dreadful, or so thinks academic counselor Nick Bernbeck.
“I’ve been a counselor for 11 years… and I do think grade inflation exists,” Bernbeck said. “Stemming from test corrections or extra credit. But that is essentially student mastery. Our students and teachers are teaching and learning that content, so the grade itself is still earned.”
Giving the second chance, the test corrections, and the extra credit promote student engagement, according to Bernbeck. Giving students a promising and easy field in which they can learn and excel in their studies results in more 4.0s but also more prepared students.
“The focus being just on the grade is problematic; it’s the same as thinking if I don’t get into a certain college, then I’m a failure,” Bernbeck said. “But I think [test corrections] actually help teach student perseverance, how to push forward. Even if the student’s focus is just on getting a better grade, they are doing so by mastering the content, the second time around.”
The first semester out of high school can be an influential one; it reflects how prepared the student was. Does a 4.0 signal how prepared a student is, though? MSU admissions counselor Iris Shen-Van Buren said.
“I’ve had 4.0 students who bomb their first year, I’ve seen C students who excel,” Shen-Van Buren said. “It comes down to study habits, who learns how to prepare themself, rather than just not needing to study because you do well anyway.”
That’s where the ambiguity of the 4.0, or the aspired A, manifests itself. Shen-Van Buren further introduced the landscape of the college classroom.
“Most of our kids come in top of their class at home, but now they’re amongst similar people and all of a sudden they are in the middle, or maybe even the bottom,” Shen-Van Buren said. “Grades and the school system are something that each student has to take time to figure out for themselves… engage with your teachers, go get that extra credit. Be involved.”
