Ill-Advised ‘Solutions’

Over the last hundred years, as Harvard’s grades have almost continuously risen, many different solutions to grade inflation have been proposed. Unfortunately, most of them address the symptoms of the problem, not its origins.

We believe that the primary purpose of grades is to reward students for the quality of their work, not to directly compare them to one another (although that is an inevitable side-effect). Many disagree, and argue that grade inflation is a problem only because grades are so compressed—because the current range of grades makes it difficult for professors to adequately differentiate between students. They have proposed adding new grades to Harvard’s system to combat grade compression. Though we disagree with this premise, it is worthwhile to explain why many of the “solutions” to grade inflation drawn from it would be wholly inadequate.

Because teachers are unable to distinguish effectively between students’ quality of work when almost 50 percent of the grades are A or A-minus, some have said Harvard should add a grade of A-plus. An A-plus, presumably, would allow professors to reward truly exceptional work while leaving the rest of the grading system intact.

But adding one grade to the top of the spectrum will hardly stem the tide of grade inflation that has swept Harvard for the last century. Adding an A-plus would address a symptom of grade inflation but would do nothing to address the problem’s root causes. Grades have steadily increased for years—what would prevent them from continuing to creep upwards, until 50 percent of grades given out are either As or A-pluses?

Along the same lines, some have proposed to add an intermediate grade between an A-minus and a B-plus, corresponding to a 13 on Harvard’s grading scale. This, supposedly, would fight the current compression of the grade spectrum and give professors another option to reward excellent work. But this also addresses the symptom, and not the cause, of grade inflation. Harvard has enough grades—12 in all, from A to E with all the pluses and minuses in between—that it would have no trouble distinguishing between students if the system were applied correctly. Adding another high grade would merely be a temporary stopgap to the grade inflation problem.

In an attempt to find a more permanent answer some have advocated a curve on all grades given in each course in the College. Instituting a mandatory curve, of course, would eliminate grade inflation in an instant—but the cost would be tremendous, even if an exception were made for small seminars. Competition in courses would become even more intense as students rushed to beat their classmates on the curve rather than to help each other learn. But beyond institutionalizing a dog-eat-dog atmosphere, a curve is antithetical to the very essence of grades and would eliminate any possibility of using grading as a pedagogical tool. Imagine a class in which, for whatever reason, the students uniformly turn in mediocre work. On the last day of class, the professor says, “I am disappointed in all of you. None of you have mastered this material, analyzed it thoroughly or employed effective critical thinking skills. But, unfortunately, I have to curve your grades. So, Sharon, you’ll be receiving an A, but only because your classmates learned even less than you.” Such results send a false message both to students and to outsiders using those grades as an indicator of competence.

Others have proposed adding the median grade in each course to Harvard’s transcript, to be displayed next to each student’s actual grade in that class, as Dartmouth College does. But this step would be unnecessary if grades accurately reflected students’ mastery of course material and intellectual ability in the first place. If a C meant that you turned in acceptable but unexceptional work in a class, and an A meant that you excelled and drew your own innovative, original conclusions or demonstrated uncommon mastery of the application of the themes presented in the course, then it would be superfluous to release the median grade in the course. It might help outsiders distinguish between students, and it might even help students distinguish among themselves, but it would be fundamentally opposed to the most essential purpose of grades—giving students an indication of their mastery of the material on a quality-based measure. It could even misrepresent to outsiders the value of the grades students actually receive. For instance, in a small, advanced class in which almost everyone completes excellent work, an employer might be unimpressed by a grade of A if the median grade were an A-minus.

As grade inflation has been an ongoing problem, only a comprehensive solution can stem the tide of confusing standards. We hope that our solution, as we will present tomorrow, can begin to address some of the diverse dimensions of this problem and provide some direction toward an effective reform plan.