Is Grade Inflation really a problem at a top school? Why is it surprising that driven students at an elite institution are probably going to do well most of the time? I'd take this over moronic experiments like grade deflation at Princeton -- imagine being mandated to give only a small proportion of your students an A in, say, a Calc I class.
I'm slightly annoyed at this discourse because I went to Columbia, an institution that seemed hellbent at enforcing some vague sense of rigor at the expense of the sanity of most of its students. I certainly want to be challenged, and don't want top Universities to be glorified country clubs masquerading as academic environments, but I also think that what a defines substantive and rigorous eduction is at the highest level is actually quite hard to pin down.
I'm slightly annoyed at this discourse because I went to Columbia, an institution that seemed hellbent at enforcing some vague sense of rigor at the expense of the sanity of most of its students. I certainly want to be challenged, and don't want top Universities to be glorified country clubs masquerading as academic environments, but I also think that what a defines substantive and rigorous eduction is at the highest level is actually quite hard to pin down.