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Comment by rparikh | Hacker News Reader

GPA in general is a rather baseless measure. Taking a class and getting an "A" means nothing; it's impossible for an outside evaluator to know whether that indicates a great effort in a tough class or an average effort in an easy class. I think we'd be better served with simply issuing z-scores and normalizing grades completely, so there's some real context.

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The problem with this is how to decide which students fail and which pass a course. If you just use a cutoff on the z-score you will be consistently failing a certain proportion of the students, which might sound reasonable but completely ignores the fact that one is supposed to pass only the students that display knowledge on a minimal amount of the material. Theoretically, and A student completely knows the material, a B student mostly knows, with some less important parts missing, etc, and completely relativizing grades will lose this validation.

Another problem is that being a slightly-less-crappy student in a crappy class will give you a better z-score than being a great student in an excellent class.

> I think we'd be better served with simply issuing z-scores and normalizing grades completely, so there's some real context.

So should we punish people based on who happened to be in their class with them? That makes sense if you're picking cofounders or sports teammates or something else that probably doesn't really matter, but the entire point of school is to teach. It is not merely preparation for the job market, although some jobs still require a modicum of education. It is not a social club where you network your way into a startup. It is not a way to display your superior intelligence.

Schools are good or bad based on how well they teach material, not on how well they thin the herd or propel their students towards some illusory goal.

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