Another good gauge is the attitude towards Latin
honors at graduation.
Again, I don't know what the deal is with Williams. At
nobody but nobody got cum laude or higher. Lou didn't. I certainly
didn't. My roommate got magna, but didn't anticipate/find out about it
until we found her name in the pamphlet on class day. In addition to
whatever GPA you had to have (which was really high- at least a 3.7),
you had to be specifically recommended by your department. And if you
were in two departments, as a good number of us were, then you had to
get it from both.
Meanwhile, over at Harvard a couple of years ago they realized that
they had to do something, because something like ninety percent of the
graduating class was getting cum laude or higher. All you needed was a
3.3- for *magna*! They recently changed the rules and it's down to
something like sixty percent. When the rules changed there was great
hew and cry. Some administrators liked to claim that
these high
numbers are due to how impossibly talented the students are. Ha. I and
others like me think that it is due to an emphasis on resume over
substance. How else could they justify one of the most popular classes
a few years ago being Psychology's "Human Sexuality" class, taught by
a non-professor, where discussion sections consist of sitting around
talking about your orgasms, homework is the occasional two-page paper
about your feelings, and fully 40% of class time is spent watching
videos? This is the *most popular class* of a couple of years ago.
Here's an article about the change:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=508139