A University of Chicago professor e-mails that grade inflation is “still as held in check here as it ever was. But I have the impression that our students treat it as a source of pride and superiority over their soft Ivy peers, not (much) as a source

of envy…”

Another e-mailer: “My younger brother would empathize with you. It was at the U of C that he received his first, ever, ‘F’ on a test.”

I confess I also got an F on a test there — a biology test. First year. It was a big lecture hall, but the professor asked to see me specifically. “What the hell happened?” he asked me. I said I just thought I wasn’t good at biology. To which this lovely bear of a man, Bertram Strauss, responded: “Bunk, boy! Bunk!”