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- by  SRQMagazine.com
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Those attending New College graduations remark on the unalloyed joy with which graduates revel in one another’s success. They wonder if there are things in the culture that encourages this. There are. Or rather there aren’t: grade point averages.
Quantum mechanics teaches that the mere process of measurement fundamentally alters the nature of the object being measured. Behavioral economics teaches that how one measures and frames questions affects the results obtained. And life teaches that how one evaluates another matters profoundly to both parties.
So why should we be surprised that using grade point averages to evaluate students has entirely predictable and deeply perverse consequences?