@ Jonas:
I drew grading forward because someone mentioned college education, and my brain has been brewing a discussion on education for a while now
I'm glad people don't seem to mind.
@ DDL and @ Jonas:
My intuition is actually right there with you; and between the 3 of us we do have a decent enough understanding of game theory that our best guess is probably fairly decent. I can't fault your analysis, and my anecdotal experience is that people who perform well in all their tests are indeed excellent. The PhD students I know almost all fall in this category; they're driven and hard working and there is nothing wrong with them.
However, my anecdotal evidence is also that there are people who get good grades which are, well, not that bright. They're not particularly driven, they're not really that competent, and they're just looking for a steady paycheck to raise a family with. Nothing wrong with that, but the difference in character is not reflected anywhere at all. You litterally couldn't tell the difference between a guy who can do 5 or 10 times the workload from another one; even worse, the diplomas are not particularly comparable. My university is fairly esteemed, but is the new IT master going to ride the coattails of the Comp Sci master? and with the modularity of education, will my own, which can best be described as dabbling, compare favorably to a more unifrom program like the new IT master?
If the whole point of my diploma is to be able to prove that I'm good at something, then these flaws stick out.
And what about people on the flip side? People who are incredibly competent but don't find economic to spend 5 years doing as master when they could be getting real industry experience, going to cutting edge conferences, and learning their field of expertise directly, 100%, because they're able to pick up the various additional requirements along the way? I've seen far too many people who have been lost in the cracks in the system, competent people, people who would do well in accord with their real merit but not well because the system is imprecise.
It's not like nothing is being done for these people; my dad got a masters with by presenting industry merit worth around 3½ years of university studies, cutting the time down to 1½ years of full time, which he took in about 3 years, through a special program that I don't think remains in existence.
But really: My problem isn't so much that the current system has holes, or that it sucks, or that it could be better. I have seen a lot of anecdotal evidence for and against it with my own eyes. My problem is that it seemingly isn't backed by research, by global standards, or by science as such. At the very least, I would want to have a scientific measure of the precision of the evaluation... I find the reliance on the current laissez faire approach both baffling and lazy, as soon as I think much about it.
@ Jaedar
Of course the goal with the grading is to force people to gain merit
it's a kindof weird approach to education to start with the grading, I'll grant you, but I think it's a problem which is way easier to think about.