To the Editor:
Concerning your article on Monday about grades at Dartmouth ("Registrar releases fall median grades", Jan. 23), you reported that History 98 had one of the highest median grades at Dartmouth, which is quite true.
However, you should have informed your readers that History 98, the Honors Seminar, is only open to Senior majors with a grade point average of at least a 3.5 [in History]. Furthermore, History 98 is the prerequisite course for the Senior Thesis in History. So of course the median grade in History 98 was going to be close to a 4.0--everyone in the class was smart with the motivation to back it up. I am sure something of the sort was true for some of the other courses with very high median grades.
You should have spotlighted the average courses where there is rampant grade inflation. Everyone at Dartmouth knows about these courses, and though it's nice to take them once in a while to pump up our GPAs, we should all acknowledge that these courses cheapen Dartmouth and the degrees we are receiving.
