Behind the Numbers

To the editors:

Despite being a chemistry and physics concentrator, I found the comments of Alejandro Jenkins ’01 on the bias of grade inflation toward the humanities (Letters, “The Science of Grading,” Oct. 15) to be rather unfair in their interpretation of this bias. Jenkins (and many others) overlook the fact that this discrepancy has a simple explanation—class size.

Consider the math department. Last fall, undergraduate enrollment in math classes totaled 1,261 (with numerous overlaps), of which 872 were in the five introductory calculus courses (X, 1 and 21). These courses are taken primarily by non-concentrators with varying degrees of ability and interest in the material, and three of them exceed 200 students in enrollment. In contrast, the English department that semester had a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,011, with only one course exceeding 100 students (English 10a: “Major British Writers I”). So 69 percent of all undergraduate math grades were from the intro sequence (57 percent from classes larger than 200 people), while fewer than 13 percent of all undergraduate English grades came from its medium-sized introductory course.

Most grades from the English department therefore come from small classes, while the large majority of math department grades come from enormous classes—primarily of students satisfying prerequisites. A similar story may be found in the chemistry and physics departments—the majority of science grades come from the large introductory classes, where professors are much more willing to give C’s than in a four-person seminar.

In short, average science grades are lower because more of them come from larger classes. Experience suggests that a comparison of similarly-sized courses would reveal that science professors are at least as generous with their A’s as their counterparts in the humanities.

Jeffrey P. Filippini ’02

Oct. 16, 2001