Harvard Magazine’s March-April cover story describes how an overabundance of A’s at Harvard has created “the most stressed-out world of all.” Lindsay Mitchell, a former Harvard resident tutor and Expos instructor, offers a firsthand account of a pervasive campus culture that pushes students to prioritize grades above all. Last month, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences issued two recommendations for curbing grade inflation at the College: impose a 20-percent cap on A’s in every class (with four additional A’s permitted to allow flexibility) and calculate University honors using average percentile rank rather than grade-point average. In advance of a Faculty of Arts and Sciences vote on the proposal this spring, we asked readers, “What should Harvard College do—if anything—about grade inflation?”
Here’s an edited sampling of the answers we received.
In my experience at the College from 2019-2022, there was just not a huge variation in quality between the work my peers in humanities and I were producing. Given how competitive it is to get into Harvard, it makes sense that that was the case. In a world in which GPA and grades really matter for students’ futures, it seems unfair to make the largely subjective process of grading essays even more meaningless by deciding that there can be a maximum of 20 percent of essays worthy of the top mark. If anything, we should stop letter-grading altogether. —MOLLY G.
I am a Harvard alum and a professor at a peer institution, also with a grade inflation problem, and I hope that Harvard will be a leader that brings sanity to the entire grading system. —MARK T.
Students worked hard to gain admittance to Harvard. Their focus once there should be on learning, thinking, expanding perspectives. Grade frameworks both support and stand in the way of this; it is unavoidable and ubiquitous. Pass/Fail systems leave students space to think, grow, take risks in their work, and ultimately gain more from a collaborative, rather than definitively competitive experience. —CHRISTY C.
Harvard has to lead the way on this issue. —JOSEPH S.
I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard back when the average grade was a B-plus. I am now a college professor in a STEM field at a selective R1 university. I have spent nearly all my life thinking about grades—earning them or giving them out—so I consider myself an expert on this matter. All universities should switch to the elementary school model: does not meet expectation, meets expectations, exceeds expectations. The majority of students meet expectations, and that’s all we should ask of them. —EMILY P.
Too many A’s are given. I too am guilty, as I teach there, and I know that there are top-notch students in each class that truly earn an A, while others got an A because they did very well, but perhaps not exceptionally well, and I know they worked hard. But effort and “doing well” are not the same as mastering a topic. —LAURA D.
I’m a faculty member at another Ivy League school. Everything in this piece rings true. —RICHARD S.
a forced curve is good, rewarding excellence and punishing poor work, but if Harvard is the only college giving B’s and C’s then that might punish Harvard alums in the job market. —HOWARD S.
Why don’t they just include the median on the transcript like Dartmouth? —FRANCES H.
I am a Harvard alum and a professor at a peer institution, also with a grade inflation problem, and I hope that Harvard will be a leader that brings sanity to the entire grading system. —MARK T.
It is absurd that 60 percent of grades at Harvard are an A. In my time at Harvard in the 1980’s, the average was more likely less than 15 percent. —KIM G.
Debasing the currency is never a good idea. —DAVID E.
I am a high school teacher and if the true definition of an A is “exemplary”—we all cannot be exemplary in everything. Realistic grading policies help us learn where we need to improve and help us grow as individuals. —BARB
Start by obtaining a copy of Harry Lewis’s book Excellence without a Soul and read chapter 5 for perspective. —FRED R.
The fact that two-thirds of the students master enough of the material for a Harvard professor to give an A speaks to the caliber of the students, not grade inflation. —LISA W.
I am a professor at an elite University with a strict curve and in my opinion, it has been a failure in many ways. Students have become cut-throat competitive, risk-averse and academically incurious—reluctant to take a course outside of their top skill set, because “they may not get an A.” Many are unwilling to risk the hard work of learning (and the learning curve of new subjects). The temptation of AI doing the hard work for you becomes ever more appealing. —JILL S.
I went to Harvard business school Class of ’66, and they used to post grades, which pretty much followed a Gaussian distribution, D, HP, P, LP, and F. —EDWARD W.
As a parent of a son who graduated summa cum laude, if he met the criteria to receive an A in a class and did not get it, I would have been a very irate mom. My suggestion is to make the class requirements of attaining an A more difficult. At the end of the day, if students are working hard to receive an A, then they deserve that grade. They have worked too hard to get to this point to have it taken away. —KELLEY S.
Students are products of an institution, and their consumers (employers, grad schools, awards, others) need to be able to differentiate between a student in the top 5 percent and the top 60 percent. —MARY M.
I would be very interested to know how this is playing out with undergraduates in the hard sciences, especially physics. —CLARK N.
I’m part of the Orwellian Class (1984). The 60 percent of A’s defeats one of the objectives of grading, which is assessing differences in performance. —VICENTE F.
It’s important to distinguish the very top students—even at Haaaarvaaaard! —WILLIAM R.
Harvard’s grade inflation is and has been indefensible. The cowardice of claiming that nothing can be done unless other universities lock arms and all jump together is appalling but not surprising. —ROSS L.
An arbitrary cap is unfair. Faculty should make the tests more challenging within reason to reduce the number of A’s, but if everyone in the class has a true mastery of the subject, then they all deserve A’s. Another issue is the major. Pre-med science majors’ classes are highly competitive and do not give out A’s as easily as the humanities. It’s unfair to have a blanket rule when the class rigor is completely different. —RAY K.
Increase not only the workload for the students, but the difficulty of the material. The large amount of A grades means the course material is not challenging enough and most likely is limited to ideas and knowledge that are widely accepted. —NIKOLAY B.
Having taught college myself, I agree that something needs to be done, but I think a one-size-fits-all policy is a bit aggressive. I believe each department should make its own policy. —CAROLYN S.
THE Long and widely known reputation for grade inflation has, with other recent factors, lowered the public’s and insiders’ view of Harvard. Change is needed to stop the dynamic. —LISA S.
Harvard must take concerted, reasoned action. It cannot do nothing, and it cannot wait for other schools to do what Harvard should do itself. —MATTHEW N.
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