GPA Scale
By SAMUEL ALTMAN ‘26
It’s safe to say that the culture surrounding GPA at Exeter is not exactly healthy. For many, a single test grade can cap the letter grade in a class at one rung lower than they wanted, subtracting a whole precious 0.2 points from their GPA. While seemingly insignificant, this loss may be devastating under grade inflation and constantly increasing competition. For this, part of the blame lies in the large disparities in the difficulty of courses at the same level, but the lack of a weighted GPA also takes part.
Firstly, though this point is reiterated quite frequently, it is nevertheless true that our completely un-standardized grading system is a major problem with Exeter. One’s actual grade potential from term to term fluctuates massively due to the large swings in difficulty of teachers, while one’s expectations for themselves remain fixed, if not increase, throughout the years. It can therefore feel like the whole world is against you if you happen to have a particularly difficult term. It is one thing for different teachers to have different teaching styles or ways of explaining, but it is a whole other matter when some tests ask what is essentially just a question from the textbook while others present a whole new situation that draws from multiple concepts at once. Not every teacher will be the same, but there should be a general standard as to what level of questioning is appropriate for students in a certain course. If there is one now, it’s certainly not being enforced.
Secondly, Exeter should consider a weighted GPA. In truth, it is hard to even describe, for example, how much more difficult the Math 400s are than the Math 100s. And yet, depending on several factors, a new student in the same grade might find themselves taking either of these options. Of course, most know this to a certain extent, and so colleges factor in your course rigor, and the Academy even considers it when awarding things like Early Cum Laude (although it’s hard to be certain that their evaluations would be accurate).
Nevertheless, our culture still suffers, and it’s because even if a given student does know that their course rigor will be taken into account (and many don’t), no matter how much they try to convince themselves, their GPA is still a number on a paper, and when people ask about it, they’re not going to have time to justify themselves. That is, most people at the very least act as if the only thing that matters is getting the A. Thus, students in higher-leveled courses face an immense amount of pressure to achieve near-perfection while others who have opted for easier routes coast as if it were the same challenge. As most of us are extremely prone to comparison, mental health problems often arise.
Often, as a result of this, very high-achieving students will intentionally take classes they know are easier because they are so afraid of not reaching that absolute perfection. We should be encouraging our students to truly challenge themselves and ensure that they don’t have to pick between intellectual curiosity and taking an easier route for the same material result. At Exeter, most will choose the latter. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with taking easier courses if you’ve used your prudence and decided that’s what’s best for you, but there should be a tangible difference in GPA to reflect that.
One might offer in response, as I mentioned earlier, that this already happens to a certain extent because our courses are numbered and difficulty is reflected in that. However, there is no good reason to leave it up to the outside observer to judge how much more difficult one schedule is than the other when we can determine that ourselves. Further, even if this were true, whether we like it or not, students will still always compare the number of their GPA itself, as that is what is easy and available, and so it should reflect the rigor of their classes.
You could also say that, because most of us are competitive, a weighted GPA would lead to almost everyone attempting to take the hardest courses, which would be even worse for our mental health. However, we have to reconsider what the purpose of a grading system is in the first place: to show distinction among the students and to keep everyone accountable for their academics. Those who pursue the objection in this paragraph might also say, by the same logic, that we should get rid of grades altogether, because they cause people to be more concerned about academics, and thus be more mentally strained. But of course, that’s ridiculous. As a school, it’s our duty to have a grading system that accurately reflects the achievement of each student as objectively as possible. Fixing the two issues I have touched on in this essay would help to diversify grades, reduce grade inflation, more accurately distinguish hard workers, decrease unfair comparison, and thus improve our grade culture as a whole.