But what about within majors at a specific school. Let's say you got 2 resumes from Cornell: one was 3.75 majoring in Human Ecology from Cornell and one was 3.75 majoring in Philosophy. To the untrained eye, they both seem like "Liberal Artsy" majors that should be about equatable in GPA terms.
Assuming you didn't care about the subject matter and just wanted to know how well they performed relative to their peers, who would you know how to hire?
Some revealing data has been published that might shed some light on the subject.
The percentage of classes in Human Ecology with a median grade of A- or better: 100%
The percentage of classes in Philosophy with a median grade of A- or better: 35.7%
So academically, the Human Ecology major could have ranked right in the median of their classes and the Philosophy major conceivably could be ranked in the top 10%, yet how would you know from looking at their resume?
The need for some standardization here is huge. Either do away with grades, reformulate via rankings or grade on a strict curve. There really should be standardized exit exams for every subject for every graduating college student in the nation, in addition to GPAs.
