Harvard faculty to vote on proposal to limit number of A grades in each course | Harvard University
Harvard faculty next week will vote on a faculty committee proposal that would limit the number of A grades per course in an effort to reduce grade inflation.
The proposal, first reported earlier this year, Harvard CrimsonHarvard’s student newspaper will limit A grades to 20% of students in a course and award four additional A allowances. A new internal “average percentile ranking” system will also be introduced, relying on raw scores rather than grade point average (GPA) to determine honors and awards.
If approved, the policy would go into effect in the fall of 2027. Wall Street Magazine.
The proposed limit has faced criticism from students, including those on the Crimson’s editorial board, who claim it “failed” to address grading concerns.
A. document The draft, prepared by a subcommittee on grading of the university’s undergraduate education policy committee, states that in November 2024, Amanda Claybaugh, dean of undergraduate education, appointed a committee to investigate grading policies and alternatives.
“Fundamental problems with grading have resulted in high levels of grade inflation,” the proposal states, noting that over the past few years “what was merely a quantitative increase in the average course grade has become a qualitative failure of the grading process as a whole.”
“The increase in the average grade has created such a compression of grades that two-thirds of letter grades awarded are straight A and almost 85% are A-range grades,It is stated in the offer document.
“By encouraging faculty to use a broader range of grades, we challenge our colleagues to design assessment systems that align with learning goals and to provide more frequent and better opportunities for detailed feedback on a student’s skills or knowledge,” the committee adds in its proposal.
An internal report by Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education last fall found Wall Street MagazineIt found that about 60% of grades in the 2024-25 academic year were As, up from about 25% in 2005-06.
The Journal also reported that a survey conducted by the undergraduate government found that about 94% of students said they opposed the A cap, with some students worried it would increase stress and intensify competition.
Harvard Crimson’s editorial board wrote In a February editorial, he argued that although the school had a problem with “grade inflation,” “Harvard has missed the mark in its search for a cure.”
“When it comes to fixing our failing grading system, this proposed cap fails: The goal of combating grade inflation is not to reshape the curve, but to restore rigor to the classroom,” the editorial board wrote.
The editorial board argued that the proposed limitation would “hamper Harvard’s attempts to redeploy faculty by placing disproportionate emphasis on how students perform relative to their peers.”
The editorial board notes that Princeton University implemented a similar policy limiting the number of A’s in 2004, but this stopped Application in 2014.
“Princeton’s experience shows that even the perception of an upper limit is detrimental to the collective pursuit of learning—and it is not enough to design ‘collaboration-friendly assignments’ to solve the problem, as the Harvard committee suggests,” he wrote. “Instead of comparative markers that foster competition on campus, grades should create an incentive structure that will push as many students as possible to achieve the highest bar of mastery.”
The faculty’s view appears to be more mixed. Red in February reported The faculty said it gave “cautious support” to the proposal, and more than a dozen faculty members interviewed welcomed the attempt to put a systematic check on grade inflation. But some faculty members worried that the cap could deter students from enrolling in challenging courses and warned that the proposal could pose a danger to faculty autonomy.
The Guardian has reached out to Harvard University for comment on the proposal.
