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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is including more information on transcripts starting this fall that university officials say will put students' grades in better context.
Along with a student's grades, the school will include the median grade of all the students in the class. The transcripts will now also include a student's schedule point average, which will compute the average grade for all classes. That number can easily be compared to a student's grade point average to see if a high number is thanks to hard work or an easy class schedule.
Cary pre-med student Alex Kacvinsky said his B-plus in a recent biology class looks a lot better beside the class average of a C-minus.
"I personally would like it if my transcript had more context," Kacvinsky told The News & Observer of Raleigh (http://bit.ly/1rHqTcF ).
The new transcripts are the end of a seven-year effort to find a way to counter grade inflation. A 2009 university study showed that the average grade at UNC-Chapel Hill had climbed to a 3.2 in 2008, and 82 percent of all grades were A's and B's.
The new transcripts were approved by the university's Faculty Council in 2010, but it took four years to finalize the statistics for the new reports and install new software to compute the information.
Sociology professor Andrew Perrin pushed for the new transcripts to counter grade inflation. He said anything less than an A is unacceptable to some students, and that leads to shopping for the easiest courses.
"Elite universities, both elite state universities like ours or elite private universities, face a particular challenge, which is that everybody here is used to being the best," Perrin said. "And in many cases, they're used to complaining if they're not the best."
There was no organized student opposition to the new transcripts, and many students interviewed did not know they were being sent out starting this fall. Others aren't too sure they are a good idea. Will Weidman, a senior from Charlotte, said the new system could add to the competitive climate on campus.
"It's going to add more stress to people's lives," Weidman said. "People here are already stressed out."
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Information from: The News & Observer, http://www.newsobserver.com
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