More than half of the grades handed out at Harvard College are A’s, an increase from decades past even as school officials have sounded the alarm for years about rampant grade inflation.
About 60% of the grades handed out in classes for the university’s undergraduate program are A’s, up from 40% a decade ago and less than a quarter 20 years ago, according to a report released Monday by Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education. Other elite universities, including competing Ivy League schools, have also been struggling to rein in grade inflation.
The report’s author, Harvard undergraduate dean Amanda Claybaugh, urged faculty to curtail the practice of awarding top scores to the majority of students, saying it undermines academic culture.
“Current practices are not only failing to perform the key functions of grading; they are also damaging the academic culture of the college more generally,” she said in the report.
Harvard’s academic programs are under additional scrutiny because of the Trump administration’s investigations into the university and broader efforts to remake higher education in the US. Federal officials have asked universities to sign a compact that includes commitments to “grade integrity” and the use of “defensible standards” when evaluating students.
One reason why grade inflation has increased at Harvard is concern among faculty about being tougher than their peers and thereby discouraging enrollment in their courses, Claybaugh said in the study, which was reported earlier by the Harvard Crimson.
Administrators have contributed to the issue by telling professors they should be mindful that some students struggle with “imposter syndrome” or have difficult family situations, she said. In addition, Harvard students, while not the “snowflake” stereotypes they’re sometimes made out to be, pressure their professors for better grades, according to the report.
The cutoff for earning summa cum laude honors at Harvard is now 3.989, higher than previous years. However, the number of first-year students with a 4.0 grade point average decreased by about 12% in the most recently completed academic year compared with the prior period. That’s a sign of progress and a reminder that the university isn’t “at the mercy of inexorable trends, that the grades we give don’t always have to rise,” Claybaugh said.
The Harvard report recommended that faculty share the median grades for courses and review the distribution of grades over time. A separate university committee is considering allowing faculty to give out a limited number of A+ grades, a break from Harvard’s current top grade of A. Such a move “would increase the information our grades provide by distinguishing the very best students,” Claybaugh said.
Administrators can also help mitigate grade inflation by better valuing rigorous teaching processes in faculty reviews, she said.