In the past decade, there has been a massive uptick in average university grade point averages (GPAs) in the United States (most notably) but also in countries such as  the United Kingdom. This data became especially alarming after university reports identified top U.S. universities such as Yale and Harvard as major culprits. At Yale, the average undergraduate GPA rose from a 3.60 in 2014 to a 3.70 in 2023, and the distribution of As and A-s rose more than 11 per cent. At Harvard, the percentage of A-range grades rose 19 per cent between 2010 and 2020.  

While GPAs at US universities have risen rapidly, those at McGill have not. Based on a compilation of McGill crowdsourced data, the average grade in PSYC100—a requirement for Psychology, McGill’s largest major concentration program—was B+ (3.3) in 2014. In 2022, that average had not changed; in COMP202—a requirement for the Computer Science major, one of the top five largest at McGill—the 2013 class average was an A- (3.7) while the 2023 class average was a B+ (3.3).  

The surge of American grade-inflation data and discussion in the media in just the past year has fueled animosity in McGill’s American students towards its less lenient—or, as one American student wrote in a College Confidential online forum, “sadomasochistic”—grading policy. The growing GPA disparity between Canadian and US universities has left McGill’s American students questioning their post-graduate viability in the American job market, overrun by our American-educated peers who, with equal effort, boast higher GPAs. 

However, fundamental to the oversaturation of A-level students is a devaluation of the American A, and a subsequent uncertainty regarding students’ true aptitude. When the GPA of a stand-out student differs by half a point from that of a student who barely attends class, an employer or admission office will logically consider the two equally-qualified, or equally unemployable. It is debatable which is worse.  

Meanwhile, the guarantee of an easier A is a threat to the work ethic and grit of a university student, as well as the student’s necessary excavation of their own intrinsic motivations. Where an A feels ever within reach, there is less, if any, urgency to do more—to talk one-on-one with professors, to restart a paper when the argument proves itself misguided, to move away from a subject to one more interesting.  

It is no fault of the university student that the drive for good grades often overshadows commitment to learning itself, as graded performance is held on a high pedestal from an early age. But to dangle the gold-plated 4.0 in such easy reach melts American college graduates into one homogenous, unmotivated puddle. 

That said, the McGill student still faces the reality that their GPA is likely to be lower than the (still increasing since 1990) American standard. To that, I see a clear rebuttal in both the short and long term.  

Short-term, McGill students are working through school with both a stronger work ethic, and a built-in conviction that there is more to learn and ever-more room to improve–a universal truth from myself to Einstein. This is an invaluable asset that plays the key secondary role of pulling a student into uncomfortable or unpredictable territory where they can explore what they find individually interesting. It is in these positions that the best thinking happens.  

In the longer term, while an American student might enter the vast real world and find themselves lost when success is no longer given so readily in letter grades, a McGill student will have already come to terms with failure and with deserved success. They will have embraced the world that waits to be explored outside of a four-point scale: hands-on experience, travel, personal creative endeavors, and more.They will, in short, be prepared for success, however they choose to define it.  

There is a groundedness inherent to McGill’s unapologetic grading that is the single most valuable gift to receive from a college education. Americans may bask in their fleeting 4.0s, but when such statistics are so easily won, the student loses in the end. American students at McGill dodged a bullet.