Editorial: Curve grading needs to go

Everyone’s heard the horror stories of collegiate sabotage: students ripping pages out of their peers' textbooks, pulling fire alarms in the library during finals week or intentionally giving their classmates incorrect notes. While these tales are extremes of questionable veracity, undoubtably there exists a certain level of competitiveness between students when it comes to classes graded on a curve. Curve grading, where students' raw grades are adjusted so that the class scores fit within a standard bell curve distribution, is common on college campuses, particularly in the fields of math and science. However, there are a growing number of concerns surrounding the effectiveness of grading on a curve, and heightened criticisms of the cutthroat academic environments curve grading can create, calling into question the place it holds in higher education.

Why grade on a curve? A common argument in favor of curves is that they foster competition that encourages students to aim higher. However, studies have proven that students are less inclined to study when they know an assessment will be curved.  The knowledge that failing scores could likely be converted to passing scores — and that particularly high scores may not be rewarded — discourages studying. Low- and high-achieving students alike are led to assume that the process of curving will alter their performance in one direction or another, and the goal of mastering the material can quickly become muddled by the drive to merely perform better than peers.

Furthermore, curved classes tend to be large STEM lectures preparing students for fields that are inherently collaborative. Teaching undergraduate students that another’s failure is their gain in preparation for collaborative, team-based careers is highly counterintuitive. If the university seeks to foster a constructive environment that promotes growth, students should not be pitted against one another. We should be promoting the idea that students should strive to do their personal best, whatever that may be, rather than arbitrarily working to 'outshine' classmates. Innovation and learning are not insular activities by nature -- there is so much potential to learn from each other and share new perspectives, but much of that intrepid spirit to work together can become lost when students feel an internal drive or obligation to outperform their peers. As the old adage goes, two heads are better than one. And when the average grades in particular historically challenging courses are fairly low, we could instead employ a standard conversion system to translate raw scores across the board and solve the issue of precariously low scores. An alternative grading system like this would mitigate direct competition between students whose focus should be achieving independently-earned success alongside synergistic collaboration.

Considering the statistically-proven disadvantages to curve-based grading, as well as its discouragement of collaboration, it’s time to call into question the system's validity in our university as well as those across the country. Classes and individual students alike would greatly benefit if classmates saw each other as collaborators rather than competitors. Furthermore, with growing rates of anxiety and depression at American universities, there is no doubt that reducing competitive peer rivalry, while boosting collaborative encouragement and support, could make a positive impact on the mental health of college students. Changing the curve grading system would spur numerous positive results for universities and students alike, and it is a change that could not happen soon enough.