Harvard Report on Impacts of Grade Inflation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern

(no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

I had two kids - Yale and Northwestern. And Northwestern kid would say it was far easier. Yale was not a cake walk.

And MIT has one of the lowest failure rates of any university. My nephew was there. Hard, sure. But pass/fail at the beginning, which helps. Maybe all colleges should do that?

You can edit this to MIT and JHU. But Chicago and Northwestern? In 2025?
I think you have to also acknowledge that most kids at most colleges can choose an easier or harder path by looking up the professors ahead of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

Chicago has legacy preference, and lots of rich private school kids.

Chicago takes full pay B students from our private high school. (my kid resembles that remark - trust me, I tried to sell him on UChicago!)

You are so tiresome. Not every thread has to be about you and your insane obsession. No one cares, and you are instantly recognizable. This thread is about academic rigor and grading during the college years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

Chicago has legacy preference, and lots of rich private school kids.

Yes every top school has lots of rich kids from private schools, and most give a legacy boost. Yet somehow only the rigorous universities as named above (and there are a few others) are derided here as being full of “strivers,” as if actually having to work hard at college is the dreaded mark of the bourgeoisie.

I've never seen those 4 schools lumped together like this as "the rigorous".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our private school that doesn't have grade inflation, ivies mostly look at the gpa as a number and don't put much weight on rigor. Kids game the system by choosing the non-rigor course to get their gpa as high as possible. The ivy admits are not nearly as smart as kids who go to MIT, Georgia Tech, CMU, JHU.

This is the case at our big3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

Chicago has legacy preference, and lots of rich private school kids.

Chicago takes full pay B students from our private high school. (my kid resembles that remark - trust me, I tried to sell him on UChicago!)

You are so tiresome. Not every thread has to be about you and your insane obsession. No one cares, and you are instantly recognizable. This thread is about academic rigor and grading during the college years.

NP and kids who are admitted not being the best and the brightest. that's not Chicago.

but anyway, I dont know what it all means. I grew up in Chicago and UChicago had about a 40% acceptance rate and it was really rigorous. Lots of drop outs. Now, their admissions policy has swung to lean on ED0 and ED1 - and less rigorous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the tangible, long term negative affects of more kids getting As? Are these kids unable to find jobs? Are they unable to perform at work if they do find jobs?

Dumbing down is not good.

But what are the alternatives?

Stricter grading leads to more dropouts and more suicides.

Stricter grading also makes it harder for students to get internships and jobs, and harder for them to get into law school and med school.

Nobody likes grade inflation but nobody likes suicide, drop outs, or unemployed/underemployed alums, either.

Number of jobs and seats at law school and med school stay the same, and they will be filled with qualified students.

Under qualified students should not be admitted in the first place and should get out if not at the right place.

That's better for the whole country in the long run.

Harvard changing its policy will have no effect on the whole country in the long run. Under-qualified students from other schools that continue to practice grade inflation will step up to take those law school and med school seats.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What are the tangible, long term negative affects of more kids getting As? Are these kids unable to find jobs? Are they unable to perform at work if they do find jobs?

Dumbing down is not good.

But what are the alternatives?

Stricter grading leads to more dropouts and more suicides.

Stricter grading also makes it harder for students to get internships and jobs, and harder for them to get into law school and med school.

Nobody likes grade inflation but nobody likes suicide, drop outs, or unemployed/underemployed alums, either.

Number of jobs and seats at law school and med school stay the same, and they will be filled with qualified students.

Under qualified students should not be admitted in the first place and should get out if not at the right place.

That's better for the whole country in the long run.

Harvard changing its policy will have no effect on the whole country in the long run. Under-qualified students from other schools that continue to practice grade inflation will step up to take those law school and med school seats.

No because they need to get a good score in LSAT or MCAT. Under qualified will be weeded out, whether from Harvard or somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

Chicago has legacy preference, and lots of rich private school kids.

Yes every top school has lots of rich kids from private schools, and most give a legacy boost. Yet somehow only the rigorous universities as named above (and there are a few others) are derided here as being full of “strivers,” as if actually having to work hard at college is the dreaded mark of the bourgeoisie.

Because they want their kids in at ivies through the side door, lacrosse or rowing, typically in combination with legacy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

5% get an A in any given class or 5% get an A average? Because the former is insane grade deflation. Unless another 10-20% are getting A-s, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child goes to one of MIT/Uchicago/Hopkins/Northwestern (no point in saying which) and works so hard for As. The school uses various methods to cap the number of “top achievers,” and she was specifically told in a class this year that typically only 5% of the students leave with an A. Some people here will call them grinder/striver schools, which is just another way of saying that the non-rich, non-legacy riffraff should stay submissive and happy with their lot. But these schools and a few others seem to be so far above Harvard’s academic standards at the moment. Between the lax undergrad standards and the appalling number of Harvard and Yale Law grads who seem to have never read the Constitution, I think a drop in many Ivy League schools’ rankings and popular perception is just a matter of time.

5% get an A in any given class or 5% get an A average? Because the former is insane grade deflation. Unless another 10-20% are getting A-s, I guess.

JHU is notorious for grading on a curve.

[Anonymous]

Harvard has a 3 percent admissions rate and just 1650 freshman . My kid is there now - National merit scholarship winner, 11 APs (including the hard ones like Calc BC, Physics. chem, lit. apush , foreign language) - with 5s on all if them. Many national awards in academic areas.
Currently working their butt off at Harvard . Not unprepared and not getting east As. If there are a lot of kids getting As, it’s because they are super hardworking

[Anonymous]

I teach STEM at one of the notoriously hard universities mentioned in this thread, and I can confidently say that Harvard's struggles with underprepared students are not only Harvard's struggles. Rather, this has affected all universities and all of my colleagues universally feel the struggle. As a result, we have had to redesign our courses, and we have become more lenient, whether that is a philosophy we want to adopt or not. Mostly, we feel it is our responsibility to help students succeed as best we can, and if that means changing previously difficult content to make it more manageable to the majority of the class, that is what we have to do.

And before the people of DCUM jump to the conclusion that this watering down is all due to DEI, or URM, or FGLI, I have faced similar struggles with students who are advantaged in every way and who come in with glowing grades, awards, and national merit recognitions, etc. I honestly believe that some factor has hurt attention spans almost universally among our young people. As the parent of a high schooler, what I observe among my college students has influenced the way I parent, and I am really invested in reducing distractions, and encouraging my teen to take on challenges that involve deep work and which do not guarantee success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Many of us shifted from high-stakes exams to more frequent lower-stakes assignments, believing that this would help students retain the material. A number have found, however, that lower-stakes assignments are more effective at rewarding effort than at evaluating performance, giving students the false sense that they'd mastered material that still eludes them. Similarly, faculty shifted from exams and papers to alternate modes of assessment, such as creative assignments and group projects, in the hopes of increasing student engagement with their courses. A number struggled, however, to assess these assignments in a sufficiently differentiated way. Finally, some faculty have eschewed conventional grading, turning instead to ‘ungrading’ or ‘contract-based learning’ or other systems in which students earn As for completing all assigned work. There is a pedagogical case to be made for these alternate approaches, but they're fundamentally at odds with our current grading system, which relies on grades to differentiate.”

Crimson article: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/27/grading-workload-report/

That's cute. Public high school 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What are the tangible, long term negative affects of more kids getting As? Are these kids unable to find jobs? Are they unable to perform at work if they do find jobs?

Yes, my kid at BB IB says they are highly skeptical or do not hire students graduating/graduated from 2022 to 2026 due to noticeable decline in qualifications/skill set of applicants from those years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard driving itself off a cliff. Needs to get it together.

Result of DEI and wokeness.

Pretty sure that isn't the case for all of those white and Asian kids who got in with inflated grades.