As graduation week unfolds for grade 12 students across Canada, some of them are quietly wrestling with an uncomfortable question, CBC News Toronto reported. They are asking whether they genuinely understand and deserve the high marks that have secured them spots at the universities of their choice, or whether those grades are inflated.
One graduate, Mabel Winter, earned grades strong enough to get into her program at the University of Waterloo, yet she worries she benefited from grade inflation. She recalled finishing her favorite class with a 96, but found herself wondering whether she truly earned it, since nearly everyone else in the class had landed a similar mark.
Experts trace much of the trend to the pandemic. The plus marks in the final year of high school accelerated sharply during that period, they say, when school boards decided to mark more leniently or to omit exams entirely in an effort to compensate for the broad disruptions to student learning.
The effect on university admissions has been striking. According to the report, some university programs now find that as many as 30, 40 or even 50 percent of their incoming class arrives with a 95 percent average or higher, a concentration of top grades that would have been unthinkable in previous years.
The reckoning often comes in first year. Students who walk in with a 95 percent average can suddenly find themselves scoring 60 percent or even lower in demanding courses, a steep fall that experts describe as a genuine psychological shock for young people who believed they were among the strongest in their cohort.
The phenomenon is not confined to high schools. Harvard faculty recently noted that in some classes 60 percent of students were receiving A's, prompting the university to adopt a policy under which only 20 percent of students in any class can be awarded that top mark.
Because grade inflation varies from one school to another, some Canadian universities now use a formula to account for the differences, meaning a 95 percent average at one school could be treated as no better than an 80 percent average at another. The deeper concern, experts say, is that ever-rising grades have left many believing that high marks are simply something to be expected.