Debunking the “Batten Curve”

Since I arrived at the University of Virginia three semesters ago, apprehensive whispers about the so-called Batten Curve have loomed large in conversations about course enrollment. The notorious curve established that in a Batten class, your grade may not reflect your hard work as professors may give a lower grade than earned to enforce the rigid 3.5 average GPA distribution. This policy seemed deeply antithetical to my long-held beliefs about learning as an individual pursuit of knowledge rather than a competition among peers constrained by an arbitrary number. Intrigued by the controversy, I set out to investigate whether the Batten Curve is as consequential as the rumors make it out to be. On my journey, I found results that tell a story in stark contrast to the prevailing narrative.

Perhaps responding to my initial intrigue, the Cavalier Daily has delved into coverage of the curve over the past two months. In November, an article confirmed with the Batten administration that the curve has existed since 2017, and professors must receive special permission to opt out of the policy. The same article interviewed students who expressed concern that the curve negatively impacted post-graduate opportunities, was unfair, and turned away potential applicants.

Building on previous reporting, the Editorial Board published an op-ed calling for the end of the Batten Curve. The article asserted that the curve was “toxic,” destabilizing, and part of a “dangerous philosophy of a zero-sum world.” The article put pen to paper the rumors and whisperings about the unreasonable grading policy.

After reading the article’s unforgiving verbiage, I felt compelled to turn to my reliable lens for understanding the world – data – to understand the true impact of the Batten Curve. The Institutional Research and Analytics (IRA) office regularly publishes data regarding various aspects of UVA operations. Chief among its products is the GPA trends report, which anyone can access.

This report, accessed in full here, contains many insights about UVA’s undergraduate GPAs. For example, it’s interesting to see how grade inflation specifically impacted Batten. The syllabus statement on the Batten Curve pointedly attributes the policy as a way to curb grade inflation. Yet, Batten appears to have GPA growth like other schools without a curve policy. Moreover, Batten’s GPA growth surpasses other parts of the university, like the McIntire School of Commerce.

Turning to the most recent GPA data, Batten has the second-highest undergraduate GPA of any school at the university. For students who discussed being afraid of enrolling in Batten for the curve, the data reveal that the average Batten student has a GPA of 3.68, compared to 3.59 for the average student in the College of Arts & Sciences. This 3.68 number stood out to me. If the 3.5 Batten Curve were enforced, we might expect an average Batten student to have a GPA close to 3.5, although there are circumstances under which this doesn’t have to be true. At the very least, this initial data work necessitates further exploration.

Thankfully, there’s more data available to answer that. The IRA also published individual course statistics that allow for a deep dive into what grades every professor in every class at UVA has given out over the past five years. Filtering to focus on Batten classes created the below histogram to display the results. If the Batten Curve had been adopted, one would expect a dramatic clump of courses with an average 3.5 GPA. That is, after all, the rule. Here’s where data tells a very different story.

The plot’s red line indicates approximately where a 3.5 GPA would lie. There is no discernable concentration of courses with an average GPA of 3.5. Moreover, most Batten courses over the past five years have had GPAs above 3.5, including a large number with an average above 3.75. Thus, most professors do not adhere to Batten’s stated policy of maintaining a 3.5 GPA for each course. Dean Eileen Chou claims that professors must receive permission to deviate from the established curve. This figure begs the conclusion that either the vast majority of professors receive exemptions or the Batten Curve does not exist in reality.

While the Batten Curve exists on paper, implementation is a very different matter. Prospective and current Batten students should rest assured that the curve, as it stands, does not seek to jeopardize their future by curving down their hard work. While exceptions may exist, Batten majors have some of the highest GPAs at the University, and most classes have a GPA much higher than 3.5, which itself is not an unreasonable target GPA compared to other schools at the University.

Beyond this observation, the policy itself raises questions about the ability of the University and Batten administration to enforce policy and address grade inflation, a topic they themselves identify as a concern. Maybe the Batten administration will seek to double down on enforcing their grade curve. However, I hope this data opens the door to conversations about how universities can adapt their education and grading models to a changing world, using grade inflation as a springboard to reflect on how we evaluate student performance rather than applying the rudimentary and ineffective band-aid of a top-down curve. This question, perhaps more than the curve itself, deserves our attention.