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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone who studied Physics and got a PhD in computational physics, no that is not what physics rewards. It rewards understanding the content and applying it to new situations. At the undergraduate level, there's very little "brilliance" to reward, beyond working hard to understand content. There do, however, seem to be a lot of people in math and physics who are awful at the subject, but feel some need to emphasize that it's brilliance that separates those who do well from those who don't.

You sound bitter

I believe that people have the opportunity to learn, rather than rewards intrinsic, fixed conceptions of intelligence that are unproductive and drive students, especially women and people of color, out of my field. If that makes me bitter, great, because I don't want to sit around jerking off about how smart I am for getting a degree.

[Anonymous]

I'd lose it as a faculty member if my peers didn't trust that I can reliably grade my own course without their unnecessary recommendation. If the students master content, that is good. I've done my job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone who studied Physics and got a PhD in computational physics, no that is not what physics rewards. It rewards understanding the content and applying it to new situations. At the undergraduate level, there's very little "brilliance" to reward, beyond working hard to understand content. There do, however, seem to be a lot of people in math and physics who are awful at the subject, but feel some need to emphasize that it's brilliance that separates those who do well from those who don't.

You sound bitter

I don't think the physicist sounds bitter at all. As a matter of fact, I think you sound ignorant.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone who studied Physics and got a PhD in computational physics, no that is not what physics rewards. It rewards understanding the content and applying it to new situations. At the undergraduate level, there's very little "brilliance" to reward, beyond working hard to understand content. There do, however, seem to be a lot of people in math and physics who are awful at the subject, but feel some need to emphasize that it's brilliance that separates those who do well from those who don't.

You sound bitter

I don't think the physicist sounds bitter at all. As a matter of fact, I think you sound ignorant.

Ex- physicist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

As someone who studied Physics and got a PhD in computational physics, no that is not what physics rewards. It rewards understanding the content and applying it to new situations. At the undergraduate level, there's very little "brilliance" to reward, beyond working hard to understand content. There do, however, seem to be a lot of people in math and physics who are awful at the subject, but feel some need to emphasize that it's brilliance that separates those who do well from those who don't.

You sound bitter

I don't think the physicist sounds bitter at all. As a matter of fact, I think you sound ignorant.

Ex- physicist.

No where is it made clear that this person doesn't still work in the field.

[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.

Does it make more sense that the average gpa at a normal full breadth university is more than a STTME college high off its own oxygen about how rigorous it is? Yeah, it actually makes a lot of sense. You are actually exposing why this obsession with gpas is stupid.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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

Sounds about right.

[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.

It is literally those recruiters that care the most about gpa and college. Why would some boring company care that a kid have a 3.8 or 3.5? It's the mckinseys, Citadels, etc.

[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.

Harvard knows most of the kids are not A material…. In the past, any top university would have about 10-20 % of students who would get As. It is absurd to think that a majority of the class would/could get As on their own merit .. we never saw this in the past.

[Anonymous]

Getting an A at Harvard should be much harder than getting one in a normal public high school. The notion that since these kids pranced through high school with a 4.0 UW GPA, we should expect that at Harvard is silly.

[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.

Harvard knows most of the kids are not A material…. In the past, any top university would have about 10-20 % of students who would get As. It is absurd to think that a majority of the class would/could get As on their own merit .. we never saw this in the past.

What's your evidence for that statement? There's a lot of smart kids at Harvard. FWIW, The classes at my Ivy league undergrad were orders of magnitude harder than the classes I took at my state university as a high school student to accelerate and then in the summer to meet certain requirements so I could study abroad. Some of them were less difficult than my AP classes, but many of my fellow students were really struggling.

[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.

Harvard knows most of the kids are not A material…. In the past, any top university would have about 10-20 % of students who would get As. It is absurd to think that a majority of the class would/could get As on their own merit .. we never saw this in the past.

Are you Harvard to be talking like you're Harvard? People like you are randomly pulling numbers out of their a$s with no source cited, and the same few others are echoing the same thing hoping that if they say it enough times, others will start to believe it. We get that the ivies are re-assessing certain things at their schools. It doesn't mean their entire school is made up of a bunch of cheaters and horrible beings who can't write and do basic math.

[Anonymous]

Anybody who does A work needs to get an A on their transcript. Doing otherwise means the grades are meaningless.

What grades others get has nothing to do with my grade.