INTERVIEW EDGE • OCT 1992

On-campus Interviewers See Grade Inflation Soar

Interviewers will need to see more than a high grade point average (GPA) during college recruiting.

Grade inflation has been occurring in America for the last twenty-five years according to Newsweek magazine. In 1966, 15 percent of high school graduates entering college had "A" averages. By 1991, the number of students with "A" averages jumped to 24 percent, a 60 percent increase, despite a decline in SAT scores over the same period.

In a study of the country's nine best colleges, researchers found the number of liberal arts students with a "B" average or better went from 50 percent to 73 percent between 1963 and 1986. That's a 46 percent increase!

In the face of this increase, interviewers should look for other indicators of intellectual prowess, and challenge some of their own assumptions about what a certain GPA cut-off level really means.