Harvard faculty vote to limit A grades to no more than 20% of the class

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-students-furious-over-plan-061700240.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD1z6z1tIcGmU6fPqnH5QWV3uhzTpM1vKxuoDMfgIee8pKP5-5Jb2PVaqz2ABIctsxhvgX_k7FT1BF1tMxd7scdKqylNQ9MyzBHFXhXce8vi81WmCLoE2DHUFETMwEofazciWuf8_94YZ2pbZPSP7FJSzRoXpo3Jc13EklHRFRj-

The proposal under consideration would limit A grades in undergraduate courses to no more than 20% of the class plus four additional students. Roughly 60% of grades were an A in the academic year ending in mid-2025 at Harvard, more than double the rate in 2006. That fell to 53% in the fall semester after Harvard urged faculty to be more disciplined.

the Harvard vote has the potential to be a catalyst for wider changes. If one of the country’s best known and most prestigious universities declares grade inflation a problem, it could inspire other schools to do the same

A strict cap on A grades is especially harmful to STEM and engineering classes because these courses are often designed around objective problem-solving rather than subjective evaluation. In many STEM courses, it is entirely possible for a large portion of the class to genuinely earn an A by correctly solving problems and mastering the material. Artificially limiting A grades means students could be penalized even when they meet the standard for excellence.

This is different from many discussion, or writing-based classes, where grading can be more comparative and subjective. In STEM, there is often a clear right answer. If 40% of a calculus or engineering class demonstrates mastery, forcing half of them below an A makes grades less accurate, not more meaningful.
The policy would punish success in rigorous technical courses instead of reflecting actual understanding.

STEM is the area least likely to be constrained by a cap on As.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. How entitled you people could be!

Academically Harvard students are not better than Hopkins’ students. Most likely Hopkins’ students are smarter as a whole. Why Harvard can’t have a curved grading while this is the norm at Hopkins. This is wild.

Hopkins doesn't have curved grading anymore. There has been rampant grade inflation there too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I truly do not understand the point of this. It’s artificial. If students earn As, they should get As. If you think too many students are getting As because the material is too easy, then you should adjust the coursework to be harder.

But if you’re teaching what you’re supposed to teach, and the students are mastering it and getting As, why is this a problem?

Exactly this. I am a college professor and I think this kind of artificial cap is the stupidest thing ever. Not to mention that that instead of creating a collaborative environment among students it will just create a cut-throat setting with everyone vying for those As. I just finished grading my students' final projects (in humanities) and honestly the vast majority of them were excellent, smart and creative . I cannot imagine artificially capping the number of As.

Imagine having an admission process that selects the best students in the country and then being surprised they are overwhelmingly excellent students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-students-furious-over-plan-061700240.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD1z6z1tIcGmU6fPqnH5QWV3uhzTpM1vKxuoDMfgIee8pKP5-5Jb2PVaqz2ABIctsxhvgX_k7FT1BF1tMxd7scdKqylNQ9MyzBHFXhXce8vi81WmCLoE2DHUFETMwEofazciWuf8_94YZ2pbZPSP7FJSzRoXpo3Jc13EklHRFRj-

The proposal under consideration would limit A grades in undergraduate courses to no more than 20% of the class plus four additional students. Roughly 60% of grades were an A in the academic year ending in mid-2025 at Harvard, more than double the rate in 2006. That fell to 53% in the fall semester after Harvard urged faculty to be more disciplined.

the Harvard vote has the potential to be a catalyst for wider changes. If one of the country’s best known and most prestigious universities declares grade inflation a problem, it could inspire other schools to do the same

A strict cap on A grades is especially harmful to STEM and engineering classes because these courses are often designed around objective problem-solving rather than subjective evaluation. In many STEM courses, it is entirely possible for a large portion of the class to genuinely earn an A by correctly solving problems and mastering the material. Artificially limiting A grades means students could be penalized even when they meet the standard for excellence.

This is different from many discussion, or writing-based classes, where grading can be more comparative and subjective. In STEM, there is often a clear right answer. If 40% of a calculus or engineering class demonstrates mastery, forcing half of them below an A makes grades less accurate, not more meaningful.
The policy would punish success in rigorous technical courses instead of reflecting actual understanding.

STEM is the area least likely to be constrained by a cap on As.

At least at Northwestern, STEM are hard it’s not unusual to get Cs. Humanities and Econ have high GPAs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Students at Harvard are no smarter than they were in the 90's, and back then the average GPA was below 3.5.

Standards have gotten softer. There should be corrective measures to fix this issue. However, I do fear that lowering GPAs will hurt Harvard students seeking medical and law school admissions.

To be fair, they are absolutely smarter than they were in the 1990s. The kids are just smarter these days. More accomplished at a young age. I doubt half the class of 1992 would be able to get in these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The engineer whining on this thread is pretty hilarious. Engineering has long been famous for killer curves. Beyond that, even if they were right about engineering, not all STEM fields are "criterion based." Math and physics in particular reward brilliance and wizardry in seeing beyond the textbook. Maybe we could all learn something from pure math.

But math is just rote memorization, amirite?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students at Harvard are no smarter than they were in the 90's, and back then the average GPA was below 3.5.

Standards have gotten softer. There should be corrective measures to fix this issue. However, I do fear that lowering GPAs will hurt Harvard students seeking medical and law school admissions.

To be fair, they are absolutely smarter than they were in the 1990s. The kids are just smarter these days. More accomplished at a young age. I doubt half the class of 1992 would be able to get in these days.

Even assuming this is true … even if all Harvard students would be A students at UMass, that doesn’t mean they should all be A students at Harvard. Otherwise an A at Harvard doesn’t mean anything more than an A at UMass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students at Harvard are no smarter than they were in the 90's, and back then the average GPA was below 3.5.

Standards have gotten softer. There should be corrective measures to fix this issue. However, I do fear that lowering GPAs will hurt Harvard students seeking medical and law school admissions.

To be fair, they are absolutely smarter than they were in the 1990s. The kids are just smarter these days. More accomplished at a young age. I doubt half the class of 1992 would be able to get in these days.

Even assuming this is true … even if all Harvard students would be A students at UMass, that doesn’t mean they should all be A students at Harvard. Otherwise an A at Harvard doesn’t mean anything more than an A at UMass.

How could it even be true? Some Harvard admits need remedial meth classes. How is it possible that they would be A students automatically?

[Anonymous]

Wait, so are you saying that TJ and Stuy students should all get more As because they are the best students and much stronger than any FCPS school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At MIT, the median GPA is a 4.2 out of 5.0 which is equivalent to a 3.3-3.4 GPA on the 4 point scale. Does anyone believe Harvard students are meaningfully more intelligent than MIT students? Of course not. MIT just has tougher standards. No reason Harvard can't adopt similar practices.

MIT's version of holistic admissions is different than Harvard's. There would be a bunch of kids with C averages

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This was common in many of my math, CSE and economics classes at Penn in the 90s. Not sure what the big deal is? The tests are really hard to differentiate amongst students. A is exemplary, B is good/great, C is satisfactory, etc. Plenty of B and C students that got their degrees and secured great first jobs. Employers manage expectations when they know the GPA is on a curve.

"Objective problem-solving" can be made more rigorous, deeper dive, more nuanced, trickier complex questions. The kids that met the bar, but weren't savants, collected their B or C and moved on with life.

The recruiters of today just filter for school AND gpa. No one gives a shit about the nuance about Harvard's grading. they want the "best."

That's not true for campus recruiters at top schools like Harvard. They visit a similar set of 20+ schools year over year, and know grading is different at Cornell vs Brown, for example.

Yes, but schools like harvard and yale want people to judge their graduates based on the reputations of harvard and yale rather than their performance at harvard and yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. How entitled you people could be!

Academically Harvard students are not better than Hopkins’ students. Most likely Hopkins’ students are smarter as a whole. Why Harvard can’t have a curved grading while this is the norm at Hopkins. This is wild.

Why can’t institutions be different? Why does everyone have to run the same model? And, especially, why does that model have to be what Johns Hopkins is doing? The last type of elite college id want to go to is 50% Asian, extremely competitive, everyone is premed, and there’s very little student culture.

+100, US higher education should not look like JHU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I truly do not understand the point of this. It’s artificial. If students earn As, they should get As. If you think too many students are getting As because the material is too easy, then you should adjust the coursework to be harder.

But if you’re teaching what you’re supposed to teach, and the students are mastering it and getting As, why is this a problem?

Exactly this. I am a college professor and I think this kind of artificial cap is the stupidest thing ever. Not to mention that that instead of creating a collaborative environment among students it will just create a cut-throat setting with everyone vying for those As. I just finished grading my students' final projects (in humanities) and honestly the vast majority of them were excellent, smart and creative . I cannot imagine artificially capping the number of As.

Imagine having an admission process that selects the best students in the country and then being surprised they are overwhelmingly excellent students.

As someone who has taught at the college level and then moved to private industry to hire, I can confirm that not all of these students are excellent. And sometimes I have really regretted hiring from the Ivy League because at my mid level company, sometimes a non selective state university grad will outperform them.

Some students are mediocre but good at jumping through hoops, others have an enormous amount of family and financial support that got them to that particular university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Students at Harvard are no smarter than they were in the 90's, and back then the average GPA was below 3.5.

Standards have gotten softer. There should be corrective measures to fix this issue. However, I do fear that lowering GPAs will hurt Harvard students seeking medical and law school admissions.

To be fair, they are absolutely smarter than they were in the 1990s. The kids are just smarter these days. More accomplished at a young age. I doubt half the class of 1992 would be able to get in these days.

Even assuming this is true … even if all Harvard students would be A students at UMass, that doesn’t mean they should all be A students at Harvard. Otherwise an A at Harvard doesn’t mean anything more than an A at UMass.

How could it even be true? Some Harvard admits need remedial meth classes.

Maybe they didn't take AP Chem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The engineer whining on this thread is pretty hilarious. Engineering has long been famous for killer curves. Beyond that, even if they were right about engineering, not all STEM fields are "criterion based." Math and physics in particular reward brilliance and wizardry in seeing beyond the textbook. Maybe we could all learn something from pure math.

But math is just rote memorization, amirite?

Yeah, it's all Scantron bubbles. Just make sure you bring a couple #2 pencils.