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The Evil of Mystified Educational Metrics

-- By ZongweiHu - 21 Feb 2025

Introduction

I was startled recently by the degree of attachment I felt towards grades. I tried to convince myself that I only saw grades as an instrument which could help me attain my goals. Earnestly reflecting on my beliefs, I discovered that grades were more intertwined with my sense of self-worth than I previously realized.

The myth of grades as an inherent good

Under the pretense of being a shorthand for academic achievement, grades have in fact become the very good that students pursue. Unconsciously, students measure self-worth and relative worth to other students by their grades. In China’s education system, students are ranked by their test scores, with rankings publicly available within the class. Their rank therefore translates directly into their relative status among students in the class. The top-ranked student is glorified but scared that they will lose their place next time. Lower-ranking students will face higher scrutiny and pressure to improve from their family and teachers. The second- and third-place holders want to take the throne. Most of the time, they are asked to “improve their grades,” which presupposes that grades are themselves what is valuable, rather than the underlying academic achievement that grades may represent.

One practical view that many Chinese parents adopt in fact does not dispute this proposition. This view concedes that grades are valuable because under China’s culminating annual entry exam for universities, a single grade determines one’s university and job prospects.

The problem of demeaning education

Viewing grades as a inherent good has various problems. First, this view reduces the role of education to that of helping students obtain the best grades that they can. Thus, education has no other function apart from connecting students with a numerical identifier. The influence of such identifier on any individual is uncertain, unless we presume that the government which implements such an education system has corresponding mechanisms to ensure that grades do in fact perfectly correlate with future earnings or other outcomes. In that case, a flood of questions about equality and the integrity of the grading system would ensue. The absurdity of having years of education only to produce a numerical label is therefore apparent.

The problem of internalization

One consequence of accepting that grades are valuable in themselves is what I term the problem of internalization. Students who are pressured continually to get better grades become gradually convinced that grades themselves are a goal worth pursuing, and come to forget what in the first place motivated them. Like hunger and thirst, grades become a need never satiated, never questioned, always driving students to want for more, and occupying their time and effort to the exclusion of other beneficial activities. After having internalized a need for better grades, students will unconsciously confirm and protect it as part of their belief system. Even in the rare instance where their assumption comes into challenge, ample explanations prevent the meaninglessness of grades from being exposed.

The overzealous pursuit of educational clout

Relatedly, other metrics associated with education inspire internalization and cult-like worship similarly to grades. University rankings and international education are prominent examples.

Rankings are overwhelmingly used without consideration of their methodology and limits, but as a comprehensive indicator of value. Parents and students would feel compelled to pursue higher-ranked schools, not because the rankings correspond to some comparative benefit that they hoped to obtain, but simply due to the prestige attached to a number in a ranking list. This obsession is only exacerbated by companies that only hire from, for example, schools that rank within top 100 on QS.

The hunt for prestige similarly motivates parents who send their children overseas for school. My transfer to an international school in third grade, and decision to study in the US, stemmed from my parents’ belief at the time that China’s education system inhibited creativity and produced test-taking machines instead of independent thinkers. That may well be true. However, more parents in China send their children overseas simply because it appears fashionable to do so – the parents will be seen as open-minded, progressive, and wealthy enough to pay for expensive private schools abroad. Many parents and students care little about what the education entails. The student will be satisfied to return home after graduation with a foreign diploma and a degree which they had no interest whatsoever in.

The pursuit of educational clout is a great waste of resources. The student’s precious time and effort go to waste, as well as significant amounts of wealth expended for these fancy endeavors. Tuition and living costs aside, parents pay handsomely for counselors who help craft application packages to enroll students in the most prestigious high schools and universities abroad. Not infrequently, these packages include fabricated experiences and essays to impress admissions offices. And many students with authentic application packages have been told to partake in activities in high school that they have little interest in, for the sole purpose of telling a unique, or appealing personal narrative. Of course, they also had to have straight As.

Conclusion

The deeply entrenched need to attach a grade to each stage of my life gave rise to regrets about not having attended a “better” university or law school. But more profoundly, I regret letting my fixation on grades override my curiosity and passion to learn on multiple occasions. An education system that demystifies external criteria and exposes them for being inherently valueless would enable more students to discover their interests earlier on rather than regret bygone opportunities after the fact.

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