THE ISSUE: UNC students and their prospective employers will soon find student transcripts have been beefed up. Two entirely different people argue for and against the new contextual transcripts, which include information like overall grade distribution and section size.
See the other viewpoint here.
Like it or not, UNC will provide students with contextualized transcripts beginning this fall. This an honest effort by the University to furnish more accurate and transparent transcript information. Students whose classes tend to have significantly lower class averages than those of their peers will be recognized for their hard work.
Among UNC students, there exists an understood continuum of majors. At one end lie the liberal arts majors, as well as the notorious-yet-ranked-number-six-in-the-country Kenan-Flagler Business School program. At the other, more difficult end of the continuum are the physical science and math majors.
The new transcripts will also address grade inflation, universities’ trends of giving students higher average grades. In 2012, almost three time as many A’s were given as in 1960.
To say this is not discrediting any majors. It’s simply acknowledging conventional wisdom and correcting for it.
Students shouldn’t be upset by this change in policy. Grade inflation creates frustrating inequalities for students. Contextualized transcripts will level the playing field among UNC graduates and provide potential employers and graduate schools with a more accurate representation of a student’s academic history. And anyway, hasn’t learning been the goal the whole time?
