The first thing you need to know about the new grading system is that it is not a cosmetic change. Your As will not become High Honours, your B+s Honours, your Bs Passes with Merit, and your C+s Low Passes.
At least not all of them will. The new system is a complete overhaul of grading at U of T and represents a thoughtful, sophisticated and positive change. Believe it or not, it actually makes sense.
The first misconception about the new system is that it was motivated by a desire to make the ubiquitous B/B+ students feel better about themselves. According to Associate Dean Ben Alarie, the new system’s primary purposes are: 1) to standardize grade distributions across all classes and 2) to provide accurate information about where students stand in each class.
Under the current “Letter” system, professors’ grades are dictated by a single consideration: a strict requirement to achieve an average of between 73.5 and 74.5 percent. Behind every letter grade is a number: C+s are 65-69 percent; Bs are 70-74 percent, B+s are 75-79 percent, and As are 80 and above. In small classes, such as small groups, the class average can be as high as 75.5 percent.
Associate Dean Alarie pointed to the twin phenomena of “lumping” and “spreading” that have consistently undermined the fairness of the current system. Some professors tend to lump their students into the middle of the distribution, giving most students B+s and some Bs. Other professors prefer to use the entire range and drop tons of As… and Cs. Because professors have so much freedom to distribute grades, the current letters fail to paint a consistent picture of what classes’ performance distributions look like.
Under the new system, professors will be required to assign student grades to “bins” that represent fixed proportions of each class. The new system’s guidelines suggest that fifteen percent of each class receive High Honours and thirty percent receive Honours grades with the remainder to be split among Pass with Merit, Low Pass and Fail.
Associate Dean Alarie estimates that fifty percent of students will receive a Pass with Merit grade in each class. Under the Letter system, it was common for eighty percent of students to receive B or B+ grades, with B+ being the most common grade given out.
Professors will be given one or two percentage points of flexibility in larger classes and several points in smaller ones – just enough so that students on the margins of each range are able to receive the grade that best aligns with their performance.
For most students, the drastic reduction in the availability of the second highest grade (which is now called Honours) will be the most visible change of the new system. The fact that grading will now tell a consistent story of where students placed in their classes is the most important and significant change, however.
These changes are not to suggest that the current system is completely without merit. The Faculty is understandably proud of the fact that it has managed to resist the pressure to inflate its grades for over forty years since the Letter system was implemented. Letter grades are also familiar to students and employers. Everyone has seen As, Bs and Cs before.
It is this final point, however, that brought on the second – but most heavily publicized – change to the grading system: the name change. U of T Students have made humorous analogies in various media – the Toronto Star, last year’s Law Follies skits and this publication – about how grades could be called just about anything and the effect would be the same.
While these statements are likely inspired by ignorance of the new distribution rules, they are correct on one point: what we call our grades is completely arbitrary. At the end of the day, the fundamental purpose of a law school grade is to provide information about how a student performed relative to his or her peers. It is with this in mind that the Faculty decided on High Honours, Honours, Pass with Merit, Low Pass, and Fail designations.
Even though all grade names are arbitrary, these ones are at least not as arbitrary as they might seem. UC Berkeley has used a system with five very similar designations for years, and Harvard and Yale use an even more restrictive system: those schools have no “High Honours” grade.
The decision to create five bins instead of four was a significant one, as an important feature of any grading system is its ability to differentiate among students. I spoke to several Toronto firm recruiters while researching this article, and while the overall reaction to the change appears to be neutral, recruiters expressed relief that U of T hadn’t gone full-Harvard on this one.
Some students might be concerned that a decline in the number of “second best” grades awarded will hurt U of T students’ chances at OCIs. Again, the firm recruiters interviewed were unanimous on this point: they only compare grades within a school when deciding whom to interview, not across schools. U of T students upset at this revelation would do well to note that most Toronto firms interview more candidates from U of T than they do from any other school.
The names of the new grades – High Honours, Honours, Pass with Merit and Low Pass – also make a lot of sense. High Honours represents exceptional achievement and is named accordingly. Honours also represents high achievement, as it indicates that you placed comfortably in the top half of your class. Pass with Merit is exactly what it sounds like: you have passed the course and met the high standards expected of U of T students. A Low Pass – like a C or a C+ – sounds bad. As it should.
Toronto firms’ ambivalence about the changes speaks to their familiarity with the quality of U of T students. Employers in other markets are not as familiar with the quality of our class, however – and will be forced to look behind the grade names to find out what they mean. This will prevent them from making lazy comparisons with grades from other Canadian institutions – and from assuming that a B is a B is a B.
What is the standard expected from a U of T Law student? One might find a clue in the incredible accomplishments – academic, extracurricular and professional – that preceded every U of T student’s entry into our program. Meeting that standard sounds a lot better than getting a B.
Marks are imperfect assessors of quality and employers know this. That is why students’ cover letters, cvs and interview performances represent vital elements of their candidacy. Grades are, however, one of the only quasi-objective comparisons that employers can make. They might as well paint the most accurate picture possible.
