Imagine you and a student at Texas A&M University both get a 92.67 in a class, but their transcript read 4.0 and yours read 3.67. Now, your overall GPA looks worse in an admission officer’s eyes. This is the threat plus-minus grading poses. In today’s incredibly competitive environment, even the smallest difference in GPA becomes magnified. When a few hundred Trinity students are competing with tens of thousands of other students whose GPAs are calculated under a friendlier system, it’s clear who has the disadvantage.
Being a Trinity student comes with quiet anxiety that people don’t talk about. We spend many late nights on school and extracurricular activities with the expectation that — for all the money and time spent — we should be able to get jobs.
Emphasis: Get jobs, not actually learn material. Ideally, we should be able to do both, but the reality is that graduate school programs and jobs care about the result: GPA. With this ever-present anxiety in mind, the plus-minus grading system doesn’t make things better. It’s impractical and takes away from the joy of learning.
In one study published in Gale, more than 60% of students say the plus-minus system is unfair because it fails to differentiate performance effectively, and that the lack of higher offset grades, such as A-plus, increases stress. Empirical studies have also found no clear evidence that introducing plus-minus grading will increase a student’s motivation or effort compared to straight letter grades. This inability to offset an A-minus leads to lower chances at scholarships, job applications and graduate school programs.
I’m on the pre-med track, so in a way, my time at Trinity is an all-or-nothing gamble; I either end up getting into medical school or I’ll have an expensive degree that doesn’t hold much use on its own. Any Trinity student considering other graduate programs, internships and job applications likely have similar concerns. The average medical school matriculation GPA is a 3.81, and the average law school matriculation is a 3.55, requiring a 3.86 for the top 20.
The plus-minus system impacts our GPAs and applying for summer research, lab work and internships. It’s a much harder uphill battle than at a school like A&M, which doesn’t utilize the plus-minus system. Given that it’s basically required for those applying to graduate schools to have completed at least one of these during their undergraduate career to even be considered for most programs, we should be making it easier for Trinity students to apply by getting rid of this system.
I get the argument for plus-minuses. This fairness rewards precision: a 90% versus a 99%. One gets an A-minus and one gets an A+. Admittedly, this motivates people to work harder and also allows differentiation, but the reality is different. Who are we differentiating ourselves from: our Trinity community or our future graduate school and job competitors?
Trinity is a small campus, and I would argue that we aren’t well-known even within Texas. I feel like other college students think of us as a bunch of rich, researching, liberal crackheads… if they’ve even heard of Trinity to begin with. Out of state, we are a less marketable college brand name, especially when compared to massive Texas state schools. Although Trinity students are generally successful in finding jobs and getting into graduate programs, we have to work much harder than our peers who don’t have to deal with plus-minus grading to get there.
Job applicants don’t get the luxury of a GPA recalculation, like some graduate students do, depending on the programs they apply to. What if their grades aren’t good enough to compete with the other students who have an easier grading system? How many more jobs must they apply to just to have a chance? Is it worth spending tens of thousands of dollars to come to Trinity?
I shouldn’t let the constant stress from GPA drive my motivation, and yet I feel like it impacts the way I approach learning. Instead of learning for the sake of interest, I study to avoid the minus. Must I forsake my love for learning for a higher GPA? Yes, I must in order to survive in this cutthroat world.
My concern is that Trinity’s plus-minus grading system puts us at a disadvantage. Don’t get me wrong, I love Trinity academically in many ways — from being able to connect one-on-one with my teachers to taking advantage of study resources. However, in today’s increasingly competitive environment, our goal should be to help students succeed in their future careers, rather than adding to the already stressful process of figuring out post-grad plans. I suppose I just have to thug it out just like everyone else here.
