Comment by medicalthrow

It's a bit complicated. Each school has their own grading system (some pass fail, others four tiered, others full letter grades). Additionally, there are reported distributions for each grade. Lastly, there's sometimes a summary statement at the end that usually says "X student was 'superlative'" and then a table at the end that says 'superlative' means top X% of class. On top of that, students may not get their full dean's letter that says all of this stuff. Basically, self reporting is very difficult to do given the amount of variability in grade reporting.