Under Scrutiny, Grades Dipped

After a year in which revelations of persistent grade inflation dogged members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, students’ transcripts appear to have taken the hardest hit.

Preliminary analysis indicates that, on average, undergraduate grades dropped last year to around the level they were at three years earlier, said Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education Jeffrey Wolcowitz yesterday.

Grade inflation became a hot issue on campus last year after the release of a report indicating that undergraduate grades were higher than ever before. According to data released last fall, over half of grades were A’s or A-minuses, prompting vast media attention and a nationwide debate on grade inflation at Harvard and elsewhere.

While the Faculty approved a new policy last year that will place a cap on the number of students who may graduate with honors, no specific legislation was passed compelling professors to change their grading practices.

But Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 said he thought the scrutiny of grading practices might have driven down grades even absent specific policy changes.

“As a professor, I am not surprised that with all the discussion of grading practices last year, some faculty were more conscious of and careful about the number of high grades they gave,” Lewis wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

Amidst the media firestorm, many students said they felt that grading was harsher last year than in previous years.

“There were people whose life mission it was to lower my grades,” said Theresa M. House ’04, who said she thought some government and economics professors and teaching fellows went on a grade-deflation spree last year.

House and many others experienced grading quotas instituted in courses such as Government 97a—the concentration’s sophomore tutorial supervised by Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, who has long been known as an opponent of grade inflation.

Last year, a quota specifically dictated that no more than 20 percent of students in a section could receive As.

In House’s section of seven students, that meant only one A.

According to House, her instructor “explicitly said she was grading down the first half of the semester to see who the ‘A’ was going to be.”

Another course that became infamous last year for allegedly cracking down on grade inflation was the Core Curriculum course, Science B-29, “Evolution of Human Nature.”

The course, affectionately known as “Sex,” has long enjoyed a favorable reputation but according to some students became considerably tougher last year—a contention that appeared to be reflected in falling CUE Guide ratings.

The year before last the course received an unconditional recommendation from 85 percent of students, and an overall rating of 4.2 out of 5.

The rating for last year dropped to 3.7 overall, with only 65 percent offering an unconditional recommendation, and 18 percent claiming that “unfair grading policies” were a weakness of the course, something not mentioned in the previous CUE evaluation.

Students went so far as to create a Geocities website entitled “IHateB29,” in which students could post complaints about unfair grading.

But according to the B-29 teaching staff, nothing special was done last year to combat grade inflation.

“If you look at B-29 grades, they haven’t changed in 10 years,” said head teaching fellow Martin N. Muller.

Grades in the course may have been lower than those in other science Cores, but he said it has always been that way.

“We have just never been guilty of grade inflation,” he said.

Professor of Psychology Marc D. Hauser, one of the course’s two instructors, called student claims that grading had become harsher “utter rumors” and said the only changes in the course were minor structural adjustments.

He also denied that grading changed because he was on the Faculty committee that oversaw a review of grading policies.

“At the beginning of the year speculation brewed in the freshman dorms that, because I’m on the Faculty Council, I was going to [lower grades],” Hauser said.

He said the brouhaha over grade inflation influenced student perceptions of the course and its grading policy.

“People really got into this mentality of griping,” he said. “I’m not out to get them. It’s a really fun course.”

Hauser and Wolcowitz said that the initial signs that grades fell last year need to be examined more closely before any conclusions can be drawn.

“I have seen only a first pass summary statistic on grades from last year,” Wolcowitz wrote in an e-mail. “We are in the process of gathering a more complete analysis of grades for last year so that we can look at the pattern over time and across fields.”

Hauser said the dip in undergraduate grades is a blip, and that the Faculty needs to “see if it’s a meaningful blip or in fact irrelevant.”

—Staff writer Margaretta E. Homsey can be reached at homsey@fas.harvard.edu.