Harvard Votes On Limiting 'A' Grades (axios.com) 129
Harvard faculty are voting on a proposal (PDF) to curb grade inflation by limiting solid A grades to 20% of students in a class, plus four additional A's per course. Axios reports: Grade inflation is at a tipping point at Harvard. A move to make A grades harder to come by at one of the world's leading universities could influence grading debates at peer institutions. Solid A's account for nearly two-thirds of all undergraduate letter grades. That's up from roughly a quarter 20 years ago. More than 50 members of last year's class graduated with perfect GPAs.
[...] Faculty are voting on three separate provisions. Each requires a simple majority to pass. A cap to limit solid-A grades to 20% of enrolled students in a class, plus four additional A's per course. Changes to how internal honors are calculated, moving from traditional grade point average scoring to an average percentile rank. Allowing courses to use new "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" marks with a "satisfactory-plus" distinction.
A pre-vote faculty poll showed around 60% of the 205 respondents favored the 20-plus-four formula over an alternative. Supporters of the cap argue it's intentionally modest as it places no restrictions on A-minuses. The four-grade buffer is designed to protect small seminars where a higher proportion of students may succeed. [...] If passed, changes would take effect in fall 2027, followed by a mandatory three-year review.
[...] Faculty are voting on three separate provisions. Each requires a simple majority to pass. A cap to limit solid-A grades to 20% of enrolled students in a class, plus four additional A's per course. Changes to how internal honors are calculated, moving from traditional grade point average scoring to an average percentile rank. Allowing courses to use new "satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" marks with a "satisfactory-plus" distinction.
A pre-vote faculty poll showed around 60% of the 205 respondents favored the 20-plus-four formula over an alternative. Supporters of the cap argue it's intentionally modest as it places no restrictions on A-minuses. The four-grade buffer is designed to protect small seminars where a higher proportion of students may succeed. [...] If passed, changes would take effect in fall 2027, followed by a mandatory three-year review.
It's all about definitions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like this all boils down down definitions. What does a grade mean?
If a grade means understanding the material, there's no reason every student couldn't get an A. Sure, many won't, but when we're talking about Harvard students, especially at lower-level courses, the barriers to get into the school are so high that it makes sense most students would be able to master the material.
If grades are relative to other students, even if every student understands the material perfectly there's still going to be the curve, some A's, B's, C's, and some must fail.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's right in the name: grade. As in "gradation". The intention of grades is to stack rank. Any system that results in all A's is not a grading system; it's a certification system.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:5, Informative)
Grades are usually ranked certification systems. Grading gemstones, surface plates, instruments, whatever, aren't just a ranking system. They're a certification of belonging to a particular quality class. The ones from accredited educational institutions awarding certifications are certainly not meant to be just a blocky ordering of students in a class.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's right in the name: grade. As in "gradation". The intention of grades is to stack rank. Any system that results in all A's is not a grading system; it's a certification system.
Function over form. Defined that way it makes it just about whether you're lucky enough to be in a year full of dumb people and is rather unhelpful in finding the best candidate for any employer because it doesn't preserve year on year boundaries. The only exception might be if you're only recruiting new grads from the milkround. The smartest person in one year with an A might be the dumbest when compared to their fellow students in the next year. I swear the only people advocating for this system are the ones who have a desperate need to feel the best in their peer group, rather than actually caring about how useful the system is.
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In an elite school it doesn't seem there would be a whole lot of "year full of dumb people" happening.
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Legacy admissions...
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In an elite school it doesn't seem there would be a whole lot of "year full of dumb people" happening.
In a given class, though, there will be variation. If your grade depends not just on how well you did, but on how well the other people in your class did, it's a fundamentally useless metric, because you can have one person who just happens to get into a couple of classes where half the people were valedictorian, and ends up with a B, while another person in the same year who takes classes in a different semester or ends up in a different section of the same class with different cohorts, turns in exactly t
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hence the problem of grade inflation, too many DEI students are getting A's, will no one think of the white people?
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guarantee that you cannot find a Harvard graduate who was a "DEI" admission who is not objectively significantly above the average college graduate. Even those you proclaim to be lesser because of their race or sex or "injustice over the years" are far above average.
The only Harvard graduates who are not necessarily excellent are Legacy admissions -the children of prior generations of Harvard graduates whose parentage ensures them a place among the elite leaders of industry and nation regardless of objective qualifications.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, I guess I'm still of the mind that grades are earned based on the number of things you answer correctly.
Why should my mastery be diminished because other people also answer correctly? Why should my grade be effected by other students in any way, when it's meant to mark personal achievement?
This is fucking stupid.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:4, Informative)
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Disclaimer: I have taught professionally at three well-known institutions that every reader here has heard of, at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
For undergraduate courses, there is just no way that the large majority of students can master the material to get an A if the course is being taught at a reasonable level. There is just too much of a spread of abilities. If the majority is getting an A, then you are driving 1/3 of your students insane from a slow pace, and boring the bejesus out of the n
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I have no complaint with the idea that most students simply won't be able to achieve an A-grade if the material is both challenging and taught to proper standards, but I have a major problem with the notion that teachers are required to deny students that have mastered well above 90% of the material an A-grade because other students managed to yet outperform them. I hate the idea of grading on a curve. One should be judged against the mastery of the material, not comparatively against other students durin
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Class rank exists and can be used to determine relative capability though.
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For undergraduate courses, there is just no way that the large majority of students can master the material to get an A if the course is being taught at a reasonable level. There is just too much of a spread of abilities.
Of course it's possible. It is exceedingly unlikely once the class size gets sufficiently large, but it is absolutely possible in small classes.
Consider an honors general psychology class where everyone is in the honors program and chooses to take that class rather than taking their A in the non-honors version of the course. If they do well enough to get an A in the non-honors course, there's no good reason to give them a B in the honors version of the course, because that just penalizes their GPA for tak
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:2)
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Why are you lumping USC in with a for-profit chain school and a court-proven scam / fraudulent business?
Seems rather unfair to an actually accredited university in many fields including medical sciences.
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Bzzt! Wrong!
Not a USC grad. Never even stepped on their campus. But good job using your advanced degree from whatever institution you figure to be superior to USC to make bad incorrect assumptions and look foolish.
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:2)
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:2)
Don't assume Harvard students are elite (Score:5, Informative)
Also, getting into harvard isn't as hard as you think. About 30% are legacy admissions, a parent (ie a potential donor) graduated there.
My field is computer science and I worked with a Berkeley grad. Not impressed, I'm sure he had great grades, but he wasn't very useful in software development. Basically, elite college or state university, you generally get out what you put into it. Plenty of ticket punchers doing the minimum at elite schools. Cram, regurgitate book/lecture on demand, forget afterwards.
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Seems like this all boils down down definitions. What does a grade mean?
this is harvard, so the concept you're looking at here has nothing to do with "grade", but "elite hypertrophy".
they're just telling you that they sense it's time to hide it, or at least make it less obvious.
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Cynicism approved.
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the barriers to get into the school are so high that it makes sense most students would be able to master the material.
If the barriers are high and everyone masters material than the material being taught is simply too basic for the so called "elite" institution. This no child left behind pandering to the dumb, just with a certain portion of the population removed.
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If the barriers are high and everyone masters material than the material being taught is simply too basic for the so called "elite" institution. This no child left behind pandering to the dumb, just with a certain portion of the population removed.
A Bachelor's degree is a Bachelor's degree is a Bachelor's degree. The material taught should not be significantly different than what is taught elsewhere for a Bachelor's degree. The exact same topics should be included. There is no additional requirements or insight at this level.
Perhaps at the Master's level, there may be some additional insight developed beyond that of students at lesser universities. Definitely at the Doctoral level the expectations should be higher.
But at the Bachelor level, the e
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It also begs the question of the utility of grades. There's the matter of college awards, but those are largely participation trophies. The more important matter is getting a job. Do higher GPAs and maybe the awards associated with those GPAs lead to better jobs? You'd think that if employers knew about the grade inflation that they would be smart enough to discount the significance of GPAs.
Even absent any grade inflation, should employers consider GPAs as something that is predictive of workplace succe
The problem is employers (Score:2)
So this becomes an arbitrary way for employers to pick an employee.
And yeah I would be pretty pissed off if I did the work exactly correctly and still got a B because there were only five slots for As and there were six people in my class doing A grade work.
Also oftentimes there isn't enough slots in the 300 level and 400 level courses and v
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It's grading on a curve that goes both ways.
Usually when people grade on a curve, if a midterm was particularly nasty, the grades would be curved upwards. This happened because the average grade on a midterm was a fail (about 40%)
And it's possible to go the other way - if lots of people score 90%, they could curve the grades downwards so instead of everyone getting an A or A+, everyone gets redistributed.
The most important thing though is grade might impact your GPA, and now your GPA is dependent on your cl
Re: It's all about definitions. (Score:2)
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Let's go on the theory that they got into Harvard because they are the best of the best. If that were the case, then at most universities they should expect a top grade against the "lesser" students and why should they be penalized with sub-A grades just for being the best?
I think it's probably safe to say that there is pressure to inflate grades, and that such pressure comes from people who think that way.
And I know you know all this, but for the rest of the folks reading, realistically, most of them got into Harvard for one of three reasons:
Note that all three of those include the word "apply"
Need more 'F' grades (Score:2, Insightful)
Stop with the participation trophies already!
So, after you use up all the 'A's, what do you do with the rest of the people that got above a 95 on their test?
Re: Need more 'F' grades (Score:3)
Make the tests harder and grade in a curve.
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A small step in the right direction (Score:5, Insightful)
It shouldn't be easy to get an A. Or an A-.
If an A grade is meaningful at all, it has to be somewhat difficult to get. Not difficult in the quantity of work completed, but the quality of the work.
Today, A means only that the student did most of the work assigned, and says nothing about how well they did it.
This is much bigger than Harvard, it's a problem across the educational spectrum. Schools are incentivized to produce students with high grades, so guess what, they give out lots of A grades.
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Maybe.
But if your objective measurement is "You get an A if all your homework is turned in on time" that measurement is objective, but not very meaningful. It *does* mean that you complete your assignments. It does *not* mean that you did your assignments well, or that you understood the content. To get that kind of meaning, you need to also objectively measure the quality of the work, in terms of things like correctness and form, not just a binary "yes or no did you turn in the homework."
Objectivity is a n
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Subjectivity in selecting objectives is of course also problematic. In the context of your comment, the assumed measurement was course mastery by which homework, project, and assessment quality are tools. There's undoubtedly an issue with grade inflation, but simply increasing the difficulty match a curve or place a quota are bandages on a symptom. As student mastery isn't dependent on their peers, even though cohort performance is the most available tool. But it's a much easier fix than addressing the root
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Applying the normal curve doesn't require increasing the difficulty of anything. It's simply applying math to the scores, to determine the average, and what scores fall 1 or 2 standard deviations from avareage.
The normal curve is irrelevant at a single classroom level. But over a population of 25K students, it certainly should be seen. If 23K students get A's, something is wrong with the scoring model.
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"Applying math to scores" is adjusting the difficulty of receiving a score.
Something being wrong with the individual scoring models is my fundamental premise...
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"Applying math to scores" is adjusting the difficulty of receiving a score.
I agree with this statement. But it is not increasing or decreasing the difficulty of the work.
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Exactly that - how meaningful is the grade, and, ultimately, the degree, if an A is easy to get with minimal effort?
If all employers conclude that BA degrees are super-easy to get, then the value of that degree declines (in perception).
At one time, the perception of most people was that degrees (especially from some universities) had a strongly-implied value/indicator that a student took their education seriously and would work hard to achieve the degree. That perception had value to the student in landing
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It seem like most people should get C since that is Average on the scale.
Re:A small step in the right direction (Score:4, Interesting)
That was indeed the original design of the letter grade system. C was assumed to be average, with each letter grade roughly corresponding to one standard deviation above or below average. In other words, the normal curve.
But over the years, "grading on a curve" came to mean something like, the top grade is raised to 100, and everybody else's grade is raised by the same numeric amount as that top grade. This is *not* grading on a curve. It seems the concept is too complex for most to implement.
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Yes, applying the normal curve to a single class, is neither useful nor accurate. A normal curve can only be applied across a large population of students. It's quite possible for a single glass to be made up of mostly excellent students, and another class to be mostly failing students. But in a larger population, these things average out.
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There were only two students who could possibly earn an A in the class no matter how well everyone did. It had a perverse effect of pitting all of us against each other.
It's almost certain that the "perverse effect" was intentional, and some at Harvard want to pit students against each other as a reflection of real world corporate politics (and government politics).
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I dunno, you're making it sound like a competition.
If 10 students complete the same work, and earn the same marks, why is it only (say) 8 should get an A because of some arbitrary ranking system? How do you determine the two who get a lesser grade?
Shouldn't grading systems be fair?
And this doesn't consider how professors can be influenced to award 'preferred' students.
Seems screwy to me, unless you believe some people just 'deserve' more handed to them.
Re: A small step in the right direction (Score:2)
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That should be a "C" grade. Did the work, put in the basic effort. "B" should be those who not only did the work, but seem to be getting the concepts as taught. An "A" should be reserved for those who truly understand the topic and how it relates to similar topics in the field -this requires understanding beyond what is directly taught in the course.
A "C" requires effort and memorization. A "B" requires understanding and demonstrated application. An "A" requires insight.
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You are kinder than I would be. My point of view matches how grades were originally envisioned: following the normal curve. In that scheme, a C would be average, up to 1 standard deviation from average. A B would be 1 standard deviation above average, a D 1 standard deviation below. Likewise, an A or F would be two standard deviations from average. Of course, these can be difficult to implement in practice, but it's the curve that should be the standard, in my opinion.
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Yes. I expect anyone who is doing the work will get a "C", and that by the end of the semester most students should have developed enough understanding of the subject matter to qualify for a "B".
Depends on what you mean by easy (Score:2)
From there if you want to make the course work more advanced than make the course work more advanced and put that in the goddamn syllabus. Do not set an arbitrary limit to the number of people who can score the highest because if you got five As to hand out and six folks who can do A
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I don't think it should be hard to get in A in a 100 level English course.
It depends on what you want a grade to signify. If a grade is meant to signify that you made a reasonable effort, then sure. If a grade is meant to indicate whether a person is actually proficient in a subject, then yes, you must apply something like the normal curve to the results.
I'm impressed, you managed to write a post that did not include the word billionaire. Nice! But...you did get there indirectly by referencing Epstein, so I'm only giving you half credit (a C).
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"It shouldn't be easy to get an A. Or an A-."
Counterpoint: finding 4 out of 5 classmates to throw under the bus is not a measure of difficulty of the course.
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You speak as if this is malicious. Far from it. If the grade objectively measures anything, there will, given a large enough student population, be some who fail; i.e., are 2 standard deviations below average. If a business or a school wants to know how that student is able to grasp a given subject, how is this malicious? It's not, it's simply informative.
quotas are BS (Score:5, Insightful)
Quotas are crap whether positive or negative.
Grading standards should be based on something sensible, not comparison to the class, but to an objective standard. It's not sensible to penalize people for being in an exceptional class.
UCSC had it right when they refused to issue grades. Alas these days they will if you ask them to, which defeats the purpose of not doing it.
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Re:quotas are BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, and what happens when 20% + 5 hand in A quality work?
Or everyone in the class has exactly the same grade? Is that a sign of an exceptionally good teacher with a small, well motivated class? Or a sign of an exceptionally bad teacher who has trivially easy tests?
In our effort to reduce everything to a simple algorithm with no human judgement, we fail to ask what actually matters.
How does the professor choose who gets the B? Give it to the student they personally like least, or to the one they like most to avoid looking unethical? It seems like forcing an unethical choice no matter what.
I'll get modded down saying it, but sadly, at Harvard, it will be based on ethnicity and expressed political ideology.
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not comparison to the class
Grading is literally a comparative process, always has been. The only question is if the material is complex enough to distinguish between them. Intelligence is literally a naturally normal distribution. Even if you select people only above a certain quota you will naturally in the population find a normal distribution of intelligence among them with a few people being exceptional and a few people being below average. There's no such thing as an "exceptional class", only a grading system and material that i
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Grading is literally a comparative process
It's supposed to be comparative between everyone, not just who you happened to be in class with.
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20% sounds inflated too (Score:1)
What is the complete scoring scheme?
80% A?
60% B?
40% C?
20% D?
That would be quite the "gentleman's" grading scheme.
Re: 20% sounds inflated too (Score:2)
20% of the students is right in line with traditional pedagogical goals. You have to keep in mind that about 50% of the grade was essentially just doing the work. The other 50% was how well you did it.
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keep in mind that about 50% of the grade was essentially just doing the work
As in the homework? Where the "answers" were basically in the book or lecture? Or are you referring to something else? I suppose "class participation" could be considered part of this work too?
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Teaching will change anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Like it or not, AI will change teaching, either because teachers adapt their teaching or because they do not but students use AI nevertheless. This also means that the assignment and/or meaning of grades changes. If teachers do not adapt, a grade will reflect knowledge differently when people used AI before the exam. If teaching changes, it may require whole new ways to access what a student learned. And to assess what a student should learn.
Didn't Microsoft do something like this (Score:2)
to their detriment for about 10 years? The employee ranking system IIRC
Re: Didn't Microsoft do something like this (Score:2)
So they're just preparing students for the real world. I think this is the best argument for the limit I've heard so far!
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And, all students applying to get into college should have it tattooed on their arm that "earning a degree does not guarantee you a job, just debt".
GPAs are trash, yet companies still filter on them (Score:4, Interesting)
3.49? You are complete fucking trash and don't deserve to even apply.
3.51? Come on in!
So yeah, fucking over students by hard-limiting A's is ridiculous faculty-brain bullshit. I bet they don't give a shit if a class gets a higher than average proportion of C's D's and F's because the professor is fucking clueless, right?
Could it be that Harvard is such a prestige school and the pool applying has gotten so large that the students are actually better? No, not that!
How about these jackasses start with a Student Bill of Rights first, and then they can talk about "grade inflation"? Guarantee that HW and exams are returned to students in 2 weeks fully graded. Require teachers to provide exam study materials that actually cover what's going to be in the exam. Shit like that, you know? Then they can discuss making the classes "harder" (as if that even fucking matters anyways).
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If companies really did filter on that, it would be self correcting. Harvard would go from "All the Harvard grads that apply have excellent grades" to "Harvard grads used to always have great academic records, now most of them don't any more, let's hire grads from somewhere else."
But one does not go to Harvard to learn how to do a job, one goes to Harvard to meet the right people and their parents. And companies do not hire Harvard grads because of what they learned there, they hire Harvard grads because of
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They wouldn't have the same criteria with Harvard as Podunk U, but they might for Princeton. Part of what created grade inflation is this sort of market. If Harvard becomes known as the place where GPAs are low, prospective students may avoid Harvard.
Employers and grad schools can't always track every nuance of every peer school, and the net result is that students who go to schools that deflate grades are at a disadvantage.
Got every question right? You get an A-! (Score:2)
We're fresh out of A's, sorry, maybe next semester you'll be luckier. Cheers!
Don't translate for me (Score:2)
Just post the number of points they received and the total possible points - now everyone can decide on their own what grade that is
Ridiculous (Score:3)
Get rid of plus and minus too. (Score:2)
Stop the gradeflation.
No participation trophies.
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Since when is it supposed to be a relative ranking? Whether or not you learned and understood the material has nothing to do with anyone else in the class.
Only recently has it been anything other than relative ranking.
you're kidding (Score:2)
bad idea (Score:3)
Any quota is a bad idea. What they need to do is (a) specify what a student is supposed to achieve in a course, then (b) set definition of grade based on percentage of what they achieved of that. In some courses, it might be all students; in some, it might be 5%.
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Any quota is a bad idea. What they need to do is (a) specify what a student is supposed to achieve in a course, then (b) set definition of grade based on percentage of what they achieved of that. In some courses, it might be all students; in some, it might be 5%.
I'm confused by all of these posters who've never heard of "the curve". I wonder if it's because they're all young'uns who went to school during an interval when progressive educators had decided to abandon it... with the inevitable grade inflation that was totally predicted.
When I was in college 40 years ago every class that had more than ~30 students in it was graded on the curve, and even some of the smaller ones (though in a smaller class it becomes statistically questionable). I used to love the gr
Whatever you do .... (Score:2)
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I've got a novel idea (Score:2)
Let the teachers give grades and stop messing with the system. On the other end lets stop measuring performance with GPA, it has nothing to do with real world performance and everything to do with knowing how to jump through hoops. (unless jumping through hoops is good for your particular job)
I get it, but isn't a curve... (Score:2)
Doesn't this mean the professors are bad? (Score:2)
Maybe grade AND weight class difficulty? (Score:2)
Not every class has to be difficult? Maybe include that in the process?
Hard is a 3x Weight, Easy is 1x, etc. so if you got a bunch of A’s in easy and a C in an Hard, you pay the penalty for the difficulty? Seems like that might work better so a grade is part of a composite and not just who had money to attend said college.
Fuck you. (Score:2)
So If I get every answer right, and so does 20% of the class, someone's getting a B because of some ridiculous quota policy?
What the fuck is that supposed to be? Why does my demonstration of knowledge somehow get diminished by a bunch of other people showing the same mastery?
I mean, I'm no Harvard grad, but can one explain how that makes any sense at all?
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Perhaps include percentile on transcripts. (Score:2)
When I've been a manager hiring fresh graduates I've normally required the applicant's transcript. I accept an unofficial copy but it must match the "official" copy acquired during the "background check" portion of the process.
I usually pay little attention to courses outside of STEM unless grades in those are consistently B or below. I also pay little attention to freshman grades if sophomore and higher grades are significantly better (after all, such improvement shows the ability to, well, improve and pe
The 'A' in Oprah Winfrey (Score:2)
You get an A, and you , and an A for you, an A for everyone!
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Easily implemented solution for grade inflation (Score:2)