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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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? [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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

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. [/quote]

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