What Is Missing from Harvard's Grade Inflation

Photo by Clay Banks

A lot of serious business is going on in the world today with war, famine, climate change issues, a felon in the White House, and so much more, but I couldn’t resist making some reflection on Harvard’s major concern that there have been too many A(s) given out at their university. They have decided to cap A grades at 20%. I have seen interviews of faculty and surprise they are angry about the results of a study that was done on grade inflation.

They feel that society should recognize the fact that Harvard only admits the very best students and, of course, they are taught by the best teachers that the world has ever seen. Spare me.

There are some important things that are missing from this blanket statement. They threw the baby out with the bath water. The above decision calls into question the A(s) of previous students. If I were an alumnus of the school, I would be up in arms and ready to fight. How would employers and grad schools react to this news? They have thrown a whole group of students under the bus of a quasi- free ride that they received. It reminds me of how black students were thought to be there because of their skin color. That belittled a whole group of students who were as good as anyone walking on that campus.

15% of Harvard students are legacies while 60 % of Harvard students weren’t bothered by legacy admissions. Of course, they surveyed people who were already there. Harvard, like every college or university in the nation, also looks for what the student admitted can contribute to the school such as in the arts, community service, or athletics. This is a touchy issue as students are now being paid to come to schools based on their athletic ability. Harvard doesn’t do that, but money talks in another way as all students who go to Harvard have their financial needs met 100% because they have that kind of endowment.

Harvard also publishes a book that comments on courses and the nature of requirements and how the students feel about the course. But more important, the students publish a book on what a course is like that they took. In essence, what teachers are liked and not liked.

Harvard doesn’t have a senior thesis requirement such as Princeton to graduate, but you do not have to write a thesis at Harvard if you want to qualify for department honors.

So, how are they going to tell if an A in one course is equal in rigor to an A in another.

 I think that the answer to the problem of grade inflation is to write a description of how you get an A,

in every course.

There is a problem in most schools at every level that there is an illogical guideline that is applied that the more work, more reading, more problem sets, etc. constitutes rigor. It doesn’t. Rigor should involve the application of knowledge to problems no matter what the quantity of work is required.

This is the reason that AP courses became such an important tool for college admissions. The same course that was taught in Philadelphia is the same course of study that is taught in Chicago.

Rigor is a difficult thing to grade because of the findings of Howard Gardner who identified multiple forms of intelligence: linguistic, logical, special, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic.

This leads to the problem of what do grades really measure. We have students who are good test takers and others who are not.

There is the curse of the Harvard H. The myth says that a person wearing a sweatshirt with a Harvard H on his or her sweatshirt will receive bad luck. It is right up there with if you walk under a ladder, you will have bad luck. It strikes me, however, that with all this talk about the easy A at Harvard could cast a shadow over the students who received such grades.

There are some things that are needed in truly attaching rigor and a grade. I received a call from a father of one of my advisees at EA who couldn’t wait to tell me about a phone call he had with his son who graduated from our school and was attending an Ivy League School. His son was taking two courses that he had to appeal to get as they were beyond the requirement for a term. He was playing two varsity sports and getting high grades. His dad asked him how EA prepared him to do all of that. He listed several aspects of our school that he thought might have caused all of this. His son responded no to all the father’s suggestions that would answer that important question. His son responded, “I will tell you what has made me a success here in college. EA taught me to work harder than I thought I could work and manage my time so that I wouldn’t be waiting until the last minute to study for a test or do a paper.

He went on to say that Rev told us that you remember those things called weekends. Kiss them goodbye. Use a small reasonable part of that weekend time to get ahead in reading, study in the course or courses where you need more effort so that you aren’t spending the week stressed with a sport and your courses. Build in some fun during the weekend. This plan will make it more fun for you to learn.

One of my former students reads my blogs may be chuckling right now because he brought his daughter in to see me before she accepted admission to our school so that she knew what it was going to be like as a student. He decided that she should come now after I filled her in. She had a great academic experience at EA and in college.