Students Not Concerned By Grade Inflation

Only 18 percent of students feel grade inflation is a problem at Harvard, a survey conducted by The Crimson this weekend found.

As departments prepare to submit reviews of their grading procedures to Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’82-’83 Friday—following months of intense media scrutiny of Harvard’s grades—students don’t seem to see the point.

Just under a quarter of students said they think grade inflation is a significant enough problem that administrators should actively try to fix it.

And although more than half of FAS grades are in the A-range, only 27 percent of students said they think their grades are inflated.

In past discussions, faculty and administrators have cited the inability of inflated grades to motivate students as a pressing argument for grading reform.

“Nobody wants to think that students are motivated by grades, but they are motivated by grades,” Pedersen said.

But only 47 percent of students said they feel Harvard’s current grading system motivates them to do their best work.

Students did not widely support any of the options the Faculty has previously discussed to combat rising grades.

Just over half of students said they would back an enhanced transcript—on which the median grade in a course would be printed next to the student’s grade.

In response to a similar review of grading procedures, Dartmouth College adopted this system beginning with its class of 1998.

Harvard’s Faculty Council considered, but ultimately decided against, adding median grade information to student transcripts in 1998.

Pedersen has repeatedly pointed to the “compression” of the grading scale as a problem—arguing that graders are not given enough choices for evaluating student work.

“Having a whole pile of grades that mean the same thing and four grades to do all the work—that’s our problem,” she said.

Just under one half of students surveyed said they would support changing the grading scale to add more intermediate grades, such as an A-plus or a A-minus/B-plus.

The majority of students said they would not support attempts to limit the percentage of high grades given in a course. Only 27 percent of students said they would support a College-wide set grade distribution.

Faculty and administrators have said such College-wide solutions would be unlikely due to the wide variety of classes offered in FAS.

The recent media spotlight on Harvard’s grading policies has left more than half of students concerned the attention will hurt the reputation of a Harvard degree.

And 21 percent of students said their teaching fellows or professors had specifically said they would grade more strictly this past semester due to the scrutiny on Harvard’s grades.

Pedersen will pass along the departmental reviews she receives Friday to the Educational Policy Committee (EPC), which she said hopes to bring an official proposal for reform to vote before the faculty this spring.

The Crimson’s results are based on a phone survey of 248 randomly-selected undergraduates. The numbers are accurate within a five to six percent margin of error.

-Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.