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Harvard College believes the school’s academic culture and integrity is being eroded by teachers giving students too many A’s. A 25-page report released this week by the Harvard Office of Undergraduate Education says the current evaluation system is “failing to perform the key functions of grading.”
According to the report, more than 60 percent of grades that are awarded to Harvard undergraduates are A’s. Two decades ago, that number was only around 25 percent, while one decade ago it was around 40 percent.
This grade inflation, the Harvard Crimson reports, has resulted in the median grade point average going from 3.64 at graduation for the Class of 2015 to 3.83 for the Class of 2025. Since the 2016-2017 academic year, the median Harvard College GPA has been an A.
Harvard Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh, who authored the report, says its findings reinforce the need to “restore the integrity of our grading and return the academic culture of the College to what it was in the recent past.”
How can a university limit the number of A’s its instructors award?
In order to accomplish the goal of teachers giving out too many A’s, a faculty committee is exploring whether instructors should be able to award a limited number of A+ grades to undergraduates. Claybaugh wrote that “permitting faculty to award a limited number of A+s in each course would increase the information our grades provide by distinguishing the very best students.”
The report also suggests that the school’s course evaluation system may be partly to blame as instructors worry that giving out lower grades will result in less positive reviews. Negative reviews of an instructor’s course, the report states, could diminish an instructor’s future job prospects.
In addition to that, the report suggest instructors “clearly communicate the quality of work required for a particular grade and consider instituting in person sit-down exams.” It was also recommended that “standardize grading between different sections of the same course” be implemented to limit “inconsistency in grading.”
“Our grading is too compressed and too inflated, as nearly all faculty recognize; it is also too inconsistent, as students have observed,” Claybaugh wrote. “More importantly, our grading no longer performs its primary functions and is undermining our academic mission.”