Harvard Faculty Approves Cap

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So basically just a technicality since most of the class can then just get A-s. Ridiculous.

I really think that's more or less how it is now. I don't think this is some kind of significant change. An A really hard to get, even now, and an a minus is not as hard. In other words, an A minus is what we would have called a B. I think it's been this way for a while and everyone knows it.

60 percent were getting flat As two years ago. 25 percent getting flat As in early 1990s.

Okay but I know kids that went to Harvard 35 years ago that would never get in there right now. The quality of students at Harvard is higher now that it was in the '90s.

Opposite for me. Today’s students are grinders; yesterday’s were truly gifted.

Both have merit of course, but grinders more common than the innate geniuses IMO (I’m neither FWIW).

Baloney. There are plenty of true geniuses at top schools, likely more than prior years because in the past it was not common for true geniuses attending high school in the south or in flyover country (or international geniuses) to try for the ivies or MIT or Stanford. Now these schools are more accessible and more affordable for the vast majority of the US population, and everyone knows about them. People did not go across the country to college nearly as much in the 80s and 90s.
There are more "grinders" for sure but that is because right below the true genius group the top college is filled with mostly unhooked 98-99%ile kids who got in by working hard in addition to being quite smart. Below that are piles of diamond in the rough types who might be 98-99%ile or might not be but are from rural or FGLI families and also worked hard to get there. The middle of the pack at these schools used to be a bunch of northeast private school white males who were bright, could be 95-99%ile, but did not have to grind because their high school was a ticket and there was a higher % of their high schools who were admitted to ivies. They merely had to be top half of their high school. Now, even the most prestigious boarding schools do not send unhooked barely top half students to ivies.

PP. Maybe? But if we assume (a) that the proportion of geniuses is relatively constant, while the population of grinders has increased due to college prep strategizing (likely), (b) that it’s become increasingly difficult for admissions to differentiate between the two due to SAT prep (now common, then uncommon), etc., then you are likely to end up with a higher proportion of grinders to geniuses than in the past.

The denominator has changed -- Harvard now gets far more applications from lower income kids, international kids, and kids who live outside the east coast. So if your assumption is genius is equally distributed, then far more geniuses are applying now.

To put it in your framework, I’m arguing that the numerator (grinders) has changed (grown) far more than the denominator (geniuses), and that it’s increasingly difficult for admissions to distinguish between the two.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

That's not what they are saying. They are saying that there is such a disparity of needs in the class (due to TO and woke stuff) that they cannot effectively teach. That's fair.

“I can’t teach effectively because there are black kids in my class.” That’s what you’re saying. It’s racist and boring.

These schools classes are test required and they still have issues. What’s the next boogeyman?

They can’t effectively teach because they’ve diluted their own standards and refuse to improve their teaching. They mostly have no solutions to the AI problem, and they have not self reflected that THEY give out grades. If an A means nothing at Harvard, I’m blaming faculty, not students. Students don’t make grades, they earn them. Faculty at Harvard should be embarrassed by themselves, and their obsession with calling the younger generation incompetent all while they are full professors with 1/10 of the work needed today to become a full professor is hilarious.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Would you like to tell me princetons grade policy then? You seem quite knowledgeable so I’d love to hear about how they’ve agreed to deflate grades!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

Agreed. Isn’t Yale’s a 3.0 mean? That actually makes much more sense than the Harvard proposals. It just says they will set the average Yale student to be a defined 3.0, instead of where it’s currently like 3.8 and the average student is apparently grad school level. It’s not even really grade deflation just changing standards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

That's not what they are saying. They are saying that there is such a disparity of needs in the class (due to TO and woke stuff) that they cannot effectively teach. That's fair.

“I can’t teach effectively because there are black kids in my class.” That’s what you’re saying. It’s racist and boring.

These schools classes are test required and they still have issues. What’s the next boogeyman?

They can’t effectively teach because they’ve diluted their own standards and refuse to improve their teaching. They mostly have no solutions to the AI problem, and they have not self reflected that THEY give out grades. If an A means nothing at Harvard, I’m blaming faculty, not students. Students don’t make grades, they earn them. Faculty at Harvard should be embarrassed by themselves, and their obsession with calling the younger generation incompetent all while they are full professors with 1/10 of the work needed today to become a full professor is hilarious.

Professors were at a disadvantage previously because they felt "compelled" to give better grades in fear that their evaluations would be compromised. So instead of obtaining the support from the institution to decrease the importance of evaluations, they are instead putting this back on the students.

If professors feel pressured to inflate grades because student evaluations affect their careers, that points to a flaw in how institutions evaluate professors, not necessarily a justification for rigid grade caps. A forced limit on A grades might reduce the incentive to inflate grades, but it can also prevent high-performing students from receiving grades that accurately reflect their work. The better solution is to address the underlying incentive structure and evaluation methods, rather than imposing uniform grading limits across different classes, disciplines, and student populations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

Agreed. Isn’t Yale’s a 3.0 mean? That actually makes much more sense than the Harvard proposals. It just says they will set the average Yale student to be a defined 3.0, instead of where it’s currently like 3.8 and the average student is apparently grad school level. It’s not even really grade deflation just changing standards.

Worse -- median.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Would you like to tell me princetons grade policy then? You seem quite knowledgeable so I’d love to hear about how they’ve agreed to deflate grades!

They are referring to what Princeton did in 2004, they limited all A grades (A+, A, A-) to 35 percent of the class. It was unpopular and discontinued in 2013. Today, 40-45 percent of grades at Princeton are an A or A+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

Unless you have a kid at Harvard, I don't see how this is a problem. There will always be plenty of schools that still assign A's to the majority of students, as grade inflation has been a trend not just at Harvard, but at all colleges. I don't think this is going to be a policy everywhere, as many students will obviously choose to go to schools where A's are easier to come by.

Whether you assign letter grades on the transcript, or write down qualitative words like "excellent," "fair," "average" (that's what the letter grades are supposed to mean, aren't they?), I still think it's a good idea to have meaningful differentiation. The most common grade in colleges before the 1960's really was a C. Many people point out that college students are way more stressed out now under grade inflation than in the old days, because they feel they have have a ton of spectacular, often unrealistic extracurricular achievements or experiences in order to be competitive for the job market or grad school or professional school, since GPAs aren't meaningful anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

Agreed. Isn’t Yale’s a 3.0 mean? That actually makes much more sense than the Harvard proposals. It just says they will set the average Yale student to be a defined 3.0, instead of where it’s currently like 3.8 and the average student is apparently grad school level. It’s not even really grade deflation just changing standards.

Worse -- median.

There shouldn’t be that much of a difference. You’re capped at 4.0 and there’s a minimum gpa to stay at the institution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

Agreed. Isn’t Yale’s a 3.0 mean? That actually makes much more sense than the Harvard proposals. It just says they will set the average Yale student to be a defined 3.0, instead of where it’s currently like 3.8 and the average student is apparently grad school level. It’s not even really grade deflation just changing standards.

Worse -- median.

I’m re-reading some of the articles, and there seems to be confusion between mean and median grades. They’re being used almost interchangeably, even though they measure different things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

That's not what they are saying. They are saying that there is such a disparity of needs in the class (due to TO and woke stuff) that they cannot effectively teach. That's fair.

“I can’t teach effectively because there are black kids in my class.” That’s what you’re saying. It’s racist and boring.

These schools classes are test required and they still have issues. What’s the next boogeyman?

They can’t effectively teach because they’ve diluted their own standards and refuse to improve their teaching. They mostly have no solutions to the AI problem, and they have not self reflected that THEY give out grades. If an A means nothing at Harvard, I’m blaming faculty, not students. Students don’t make grades, they earn them. Faculty at Harvard should be embarrassed by themselves, and their obsession with calling the younger generation incompetent all while they are full professors with 1/10 of the work needed today to become a full professor is hilarious.

Professors were at a disadvantage previously because they felt "compelled" to give better grades in fear that their evaluations would be compromised. So instead of obtaining the support from the institution to decrease the importance of evaluations, they are instead putting this back on the students.

If professors feel pressured to inflate grades because student evaluations affect their careers, that points to a flaw in how institutions evaluate professors, not necessarily a justification for rigid grade caps. A forced limit on A grades might reduce the incentive to inflate grades, but it can also prevent high-performing students from receiving grades that accurately reflect their work. The better solution is to address the underlying incentive structure and evaluation methods, rather than imposing uniform grading limits across different classes, disciplines, and student populations.

100% agreed and the reason this annoys me particularly is that Harvard faculty have the opportunity to push for shared governance, but that would outline them having a responsibility beyond spurning students. This decision is shockingly inept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The 20 percent plus 4 cap on flat As has passed. Notably there is no cap on the grade of A minus. Goes into effect fall of 2027 for a three year pilot.

This brings Harvard back to the grading metric of the early 1990s.

Where are all the dcum moms who said this would never pass at Harvard?

Next is Yale.

Yale is going to chart its own waters. It said it was keeping a close eye on Harvard and Princeton, but Princeton has already done the grade deflation thing, and they’re not going back. Hopefully, Yale faculty are smarter than Harvard and can figure out a rigorous solution.

Wait for a few more days and you will find out. A big slap on your face.

Actually, the Yale proposal is much more drastic than the Harvard proposal.

Agreed. Isn’t Yale’s a 3.0 mean? That actually makes much more sense than the Harvard proposals. It just says they will set the average Yale student to be a defined 3.0, instead of where it’s currently like 3.8 and the average student is apparently grad school level. It’s not even really grade deflation just changing standards.

Worse -- median.

I’m re-reading some of the articles, and there seems to be confusion between mean and median grades. They’re being used almost interchangeably, even though they measure different things.

In this situation, they should be rather interchangeable

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

Unless you have a kid at Harvard, I don't see how this is a problem. There will always be plenty of schools that still assign A's to the majority of students, as grade inflation has been a trend not just at Harvard, but at all colleges. I don't think this is going to be a policy everywhere, as many students will obviously choose to go to schools where A's are easier to come by.

Whether you assign letter grades on the transcript, or write down qualitative words like "excellent," "fair," "average" (that's what the letter grades are supposed to mean, aren't they?), I still think it's a good idea to have meaningful differentiation. The most common grade in colleges before the 1960's really was a C. Many people point out that college students are way more stressed out now under grade inflation than in the old days, because they feel they have have a ton of spectacular, often unrealistic extracurricular achievements or experiences in order to be competitive for the job market or grad school or professional school, since GPAs aren't meaningful anymore.

Giving everyone Cs…won’t change this. Students will still want competitive jobs or go to great grad schools. Law schools effectively require top grades. Same with med schools. For graduate admissions, this will make the situation worse because it encourages over reliance on recommendation letters (on the back end, this is just accepting your peer’s (friend) advisee). Shutting down grade inflation won’t change that students want to make money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can’t wait for this era to end. A bunch of professors jacking themselves off about how intellectual they are and how they cannot possibly handle this generation. If you’re a tenured professor (as most of these professors are in op-Ed’s and making big decisions) talk to your chair and enact the standards you want to see. The chair should be able to work with admin so you can make your classes as demonically difficult as you desire.

On the other hand, if the goal is actual education, we should look towards more feedback and less reliance on grades. We’ve spent decades trying to quantify what an A or B or C is, and it has done almost nothing for us. Nonetheless, the qualitative nature of A as “Excellent” has stuck around, so people have some conception of why these qualitative descriptions are useful. Instead of spelling out every way to get an A in your course with insanely detailed rubrics, eschew from that model of cattle-like education. Actually connect with your students and the evaluations and scores will come naturally.

That's not what they are saying. They are saying that there is such a disparity of needs in the class (due to TO and woke stuff) that they cannot effectively teach. That's fair.

“I can’t teach effectively because there are black kids in my class.” That’s what you’re saying. It’s racist and boring.

These schools classes are test required and they still have issues. What’s the next boogeyman?

They can’t effectively teach because they’ve diluted their own standards and refuse to improve their teaching. They mostly have no solutions to the AI problem, and they have not self reflected that THEY give out grades. If an A means nothing at Harvard, I’m blaming faculty, not students. Students don’t make grades, they earn them. Faculty at Harvard should be embarrassed by themselves, and their obsession with calling the younger generation incompetent all while they are full professors with 1/10 of the work needed today to become a full professor is hilarious.

Professors were at a disadvantage previously because they felt "compelled" to give better grades in fear that their evaluations would be compromised. So instead of obtaining the support from the institution to decrease the importance of evaluations, they are instead putting this back on the students.

If professors feel pressured to inflate grades because student evaluations affect their careers, that points to a flaw in how institutions evaluate professors, not necessarily a justification for rigid grade caps. A forced limit on A grades might reduce the incentive to inflate grades, but it can also prevent high-performing students from receiving grades that accurately reflect their work. The better solution is to address the underlying incentive structure and evaluation methods, rather than imposing uniform grading limits across different classes, disciplines, and student populations.

100% agreed and the reason this annoys me particularly is that Harvard faculty have the opportunity to push for shared governance, but that would outline them having a responsibility beyond spurning students. This decision is shockingly inept.

If I was a Harvard professor, it's easier to vote for this than have to deal with the extra work/headache to actually address the underlying issues.