\n<\/p>\n
Harvard University\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will vote next month on whether to cap the number of A grades that instructors can assign in each course, effectively cutting in half the percentage of students who earn A\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Under the proposal, developed over the past year and a half, instructors would be allowed to dole out A\u2019s to as many as 20\u00a0percent of the students in their class, plus an additional four students. That means in a class with 10 students, for example, up to six could receive A\u2019s. In a class with 100 students, up to 24 could receive A\u2019s. A\u2019s would become an indicator of extraordinary work, and A-minus grades would not be limited. <\/p>\n
The proposal was developed in direct response to rampant grade inflation at the university, where 66\u00a0percent of Harvard undergraduates earned A\u2019s and 84\u00a0percent earned an A or A-minus in 2024\u201325. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of nutty,\u201d said Steven Levitsky, a Latin American studies professor at Harvard. \u201cWe\u2019ve completely erased the distinction between an A and A-minus.\u201d He called the proposal to cap the top grade the \u201cleast bad solution.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cChurchill once described democracy as the worst system of government except for all of the other alternatives that have been tried, and that\u2019s how I view this reform,\u201d Levitsky said. \u201cIt\u2019s clumsy, arbitrary and represents some degree of invasion into faculty autonomy. It is not ideal. But the alternative is the status quo, and the status quo is awful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grade inflation at Harvard, and many other selective universities, has been a topic of discussion for decades. Princeton University overhauled its grading system in 2004, capping the number of A-pluses, A\u2019s and A-minuses in each department, but repealed the policy a decade later. Since then, the number of A and A-minus grades has exploded: During the 2024\u201325 academic year, A-pluses and A\u2019s made up 45\u00a0percent of all Princeton grades, up from 15 to 20\u00a0percent between 1985 and 2014. <\/p>\n
Despite ongoing conversations at Harvard, and Yale University\u2019s plans to begin similar discussions, Princeton is not considering a change to its grading policies. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that there is interest in Cambridge and New Haven to change their grading policies in light of their own data is a matter for those institutions to consider,\u201d Dean Michael Gordin told Inside Higher Ed<\/em> in a statement. \u201cWe have no plans to do so here.\u201d<\/p>\n A-range grades weren\u2019t always so abundant at Harvard. During the 2014\u201315 academic year, 43\u00a0percent of all grades issued to Harvard undergraduates were A\u2019s and 26\u00a0percent were A-minuses. Two years before that, 35\u00a0percent of undergraduates earned A\u2019s and 27\u00a0percent earned A-minuses. The proposed 20\u00a0percent cap would bring the number of A\u2019s down to 35\u00a0percent\u2014in line with 2012\u201313 numbers.<\/p>\n The number of A grades rose due to \u201ca collective action problem,\u201d said Stuart Shieber, a computer science professor and chair of the Office of Undergraduate Education\u2019s subcommittee on grading. Students are motivated to seek A\u2019s by any means possible, and faculty are motivated to give them, he explained. <\/p>\n \u201cAny individual faculty member who decides, \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll adjust my grades to more accurately reflect the actual grading rubric that Harvard College stipulates\u2019 will end up giving much lower grades. And the net effect will be students will vote with their feet and take other classes,\u201d Shieber said. \u201cThe general view based on actual grading practice, by faculty and students, is that the default grade is the A.\u201d <\/p>\n One of the goals of the grade cap is to refocus students on academics, said Alisha Holland, a political scientist and member of the grading subcommittee. The Office of Undergraduate Education documented a rise in the number of students dedicating more time to extracurriculars than to their studies, the grading proposal states.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents invest so much time and energy in their extracurriculars and in competing for offices in their extracurriculars, and I think part of that is a result of the fact that there aren\u2019t ways that they can really stand out in the classroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Holland is familiar with grade caps. She was a student at Princeton when the university implemented its limit on A-range grades, and a faculty member there by the time it was repealed. But living with the cap as an undergrad ultimately helped lead her to her current discipline, she said. <\/p>\n \u201cI started at Princeton thinking I wanted to be a chemistry major. Turns out I hated chemistry,\u201d she said. \u201cI then went to switch to political science, and I remember calling my dad, and he said, \u2018Sure, you think you like political science, but you just got an A because they grade easier.\u2019 I remember it was powerful to be able to say back to him, \u2018No, we have a cap on A\u2019s. That means that the same standards are being used in chemistry and political science,\u2019 and that was providing me meaningful feedback about where my strengths were.\u201d<\/p>\n To say that students have reacted negatively to the A-cap proposal would be an understatement. In a February article in The Harvard Crimson<\/em>, one freshman said the cap would create so much pressure on students that \u201clife wouldn\u2019t be worth that much to live.\u201d Others have told the student newspaper they believe the change would diminish the value of a Harvard education, discourage collaboration and increase feelings of competition among students. Several students have written op-eds lamenting the plan. <\/p>\n When Harvard\u2019s initial report on grade inflation was released in November, one freshman called it \u201csoul-crushing.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThe whole entire day, I was crying,\u201d she told the Crimson<\/em>. \u201cI skipped classes on Monday, and I was just sobbing in bed because I felt like I try so hard in my classes, and my grades aren\u2019t even the best.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the biggest challenges in grading reform is getting everyone\u2014students, faculty, administrators, parents, employers\u2014to agree on what a grade means, said Ethan Hutt, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Education and co-author of Off the Mark: How Grades, Ratings, and Rankings Undermine Learning (but Don\u2019t Have To)<\/em>.<\/p>\n Typically, grades are interpreted one of two ways: as an indicator of a certain level of performance, which theoretically allows everyone to get an A, or as an indicator of performance relative to others, which necessarily limits the number of possible A\u2019s. Judging by the way Harvard students have discussed the grading proposal online, most of them view A\u2019s as an indicator of objective subject mastery\u2014so long as they master the material, they should earn an A. <\/p>\n Grades are, ultimately, a messaging tool, Hutt said. <\/p>\n \u201cA grade on a transcript is a message to a student about how they did in the class, and maybe whether they should persist in that field. We know that different people\u2014especially women in STEM, for instance\u2014are very sensitive to those kinds of signals. They respond to grades,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re also sending a message to a future audience. You\u2019re telling [them]: All Harvard students are great.\u201d <\/p>\n Harvard does not dole out A-pluses, Holland explained, so there is currently no way to reward students for extraordinary work beyond the level of subject mastery. If implemented, A-minus grades would be given to students\u2019 for \u201cwork whose excellent quality indicates a full mastery of the subject,\u201d according to the proposal. A\u2019s, on the other hand, would indicate \u201cextraordinary distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n Without a cultural change in the way students view grades, any kind of grade cap is unlikely to soothe their stress, Hutt said. \u201cBecause everyone\u2019s getting an A, it\u2019s now a catastrophe to get an A-minus. You can cap things, but you\u2019re just going to move the catastrophe down. When students are anxious about grading changes, what they\u2019re often articulating is an anxiety about how this will be viewed by a future audience. Will someone else understand that my school capped their grades?\u201d<\/p>\n In Harvard\u2019s case, the answer is likely yes. If the A cap is implemented, each student transcript would include a \u201cpithy\u201d explanation of the grading change, as well as an accompanying letter so that readers understand it, said Shieber, the computer science professor. <\/p>\n Also included in the grading proposal is an internal percentile rank system, through which each student would be measured against other students in the course. A student\u2019s percentile rank would not appear on their transcript or be available to fellow students, parents or other external parties, Shieber said. Instead, it would help signal to faculty which students should earn distinctions like the Sophia Freund Prize, which is currently awarded to students \u201cgraduating summa cum laude who [have] the highest grade point average.\u201d <\/p>\n Like A\u2019s, the number of Sophia Freund Prize awardees has skyrocketed in recent years. Between the 1989\u201399 and 2016\u201317 academic years, somewhere between two and eight students were awarded the prize each year. During the 2024\u201325 academic year, 55 students won the prize.<\/p>\n Levitsky said the escalation has to stop, regardless of whether students get on board with any grading change proposal. <\/p>\n \u201cThis will take an adjustment\u2014a couple of years of students will suffer,\u201d he said. \u201cBut right now we\u2019re getting to a point where an A-minus is unbearable, but it needs to become bearable again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Harvard University\u2019s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will vote next month on whether to cap the number of A grades that instructors can assign in each course, effectively cutting in half the percentage of students who earn A\u2019s. Under the proposal, developed over the past year and a half, instructors would be allowed to dole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[1339,11939,676,2973,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-46773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-cap","9":"tag-grade","10":"tag-harvard","11":"tag-inflation","12":"tag-tackle"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/46774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What\u2019s in an A?<\/h2>\n