I was intrigued by Ed Felten’s report that Princeton has a plan to cap the number of A grades a department can issue. Compared to my day (1974-78), grade inflation has apparently struck even Princeton.
My personal interest is heightened by one distinction in my academic career. I did pretty well, graduating magna cum laude and winning a scholarship to Oxford, but my record did include an F — from a class in Latin American History.
When I had my obligatory interview with then-provost Neil Rudenstine, who vetted scholarship applicants, his eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling over that mark. I think it probably puts me in a vanishing class, like the one person I know who received a “gentleman’s fourth” (since abolished) at Oxford in the late ’60s.
Emily, who write It Comes in Pints, offers seven very sensible rules for anyone planning to write about politics.
I particularly like rule seven: “Know the sources of your information, be aware of their biases (and they all have them, no matter how much they might like to pretend they don’t), and form your judgements accordingly.”