BOSTON (AP) — At Harvard University, earning straight A’s is about to get harder.Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday that it would limit the number of A grades awarded to undergraduates, adopting one of the most ambitious efforts by a major university to curb grade inflation. The decision was made by faculty vote earlier this month.The move comes after top grades became so common that some Harvard faculty argued they no longer reliably distinguished exceptional work. More than 60% of all grades awarded to undergraduates in recent years were in the A range, according to university data cited by faculty members who supported the measure.“The Harvard faculty voted to make their grades mean what they say they mean,” members of the faculty subcommittee that proposed the changes said in a statement.They said the reform would ensure that “a Harvard A grade will now tell students, as well as employers and graduate schools, something real about what a student has achieved.”
Harvard is not the first elite university to confront grade inflation. Princeton University adopted a policy in 2004 to limit A-range grades to 35% of those awarded, though it abandoned the system a decade later after criticism that it disadvantaged students in competition for jobs and graduate school admission.
