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More than half of the grades awarded 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 grades handed out in classes in 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 control grade inflation.
The report’s author, Harvard Dean Amanda Claybaugh, urged professors to limit the practice of awarding top scores to most students, saying it undermines academic culture.
“Current practices not only fail to fulfill the key functions of grading, but are also damaging to the academic culture of the university as a whole,” he said in the report.
Harvard’s academic programs are under additional scrutiny due to the Trump administration’s investigations into the university and broader efforts to remake higher education in the United States. Federal officials have asked universities to sign a compact that includes commitments to “grading integrity” and the use of “defensible standards” when evaluating students.
One reason grade inflation has increased at Harvard is concern among professors about being tougher than their peers and therefore discouraging enrollment in their courses, Claybaugh said in the study, which was reported previously by the Harvard Crimson.
Administrators have contributed to the problem by telling teachers they should be aware that some students struggle with “imposter syndrome” or have difficult family situations, he said. Additionally, Harvard students, while not the stereotypical “snowflakes” they are sometimes portrayed as, pressure their professors to get better grades, according to the report.
The cutoff for summa cum laude honors at Harvard is now 3,989, higher than in previous years. However, the number of freshmen with a 4.0 GPA decreased by approximately 12% in the most recently completed academic year compared to the previous period. That’s a sign of progress and a reminder that the university is not “at the mercy of inexorable trends, that the grades we give don’t always have to improve,” Claybaugh said.
The Harvard report recommended that professors share average course grades and review the distribution of grades over time. A separate university committee is considering allowing professors to award a limited number of A+ grades, a break from Harvard’s current maximum A grade. Such a move “would increase the information our grades provide in distinguishing the best students,” Claybaugh said.
Administrators can also help mitigate grade inflation by better valuing rigorous teaching processes in teacher reviews, he said.
