How Enhanced Transcripts Can Help Evaluate Graduate School Applications

The Texas Legislature has recently considered bills that would require public institutions to issue “enhanced transcripts” that include the median grade awarded in the class as well as the student’s earned grade. This requirement is similar to enhanced transcripts implemented at other academic institutions and represents a growing trend in academia. The proponents of enhance transcripts often claim that the grade distributions vary greatly based on the instructor for the same class. Students use grade distribution information to decide which instructors to take, as well as avoid, since many students consider earning less than an “A” grade to be unacceptable. Proponents of enhance transcripts hope to discourage grade inflation. This paper reviews the status of enhanced transcripts and recommends a scheme to evaluate a student’s overall academic performance using enhanced transcript information. The recommendation is directed at evaluating a student’s transcript for admission to graduate school.