Faculty Express Concerns Over Implications of Grade Inflation

After receiving news that 2002-2003 school year grade point averages (GPAs) had returned to at least an 18-year high, some Faculty members are concerned that Harvard’s grade inflation epidemic has returned.

Harvard’s grade inflation problem made national news in 2001, when the Boston Globe reported that over 90 percent of Harvard students graduated with honors.

In response, the faculty discussed the issue extensively and decided to cap the overall number of honors at 60 percent, while encouraging professors to be vigilant about their grading practices.

In addition, they voted to switch GPAs from a 15- to a four-point scale.

For the next two years, grades dipped.

According to a report and letter distributed by Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 on Monday, “A” grades dropped from 23.8 percent of all grades in 1999-2000 to 23.4 percent in 2000-2001, and to just 22 percent of grades in 2001-2002.

The mean GPA fell both those years as well, going from 12.67 in 1999-2000 to 12.58 in 2001-2002.

But more recently, the trend seems to have reversed.

The data released Monday reported the average GPA for 2002-2003 back at 12.68, or 3.41 according to the new four-point scale.

In addition, the report said that “A” grades made up 22.4 percent of all grades students received last year. A-minuses spiked as well, to 25.4 percent of all grades.

That preponderance of high grades has Faculty members like Baird Professor grade of ‘A’ is supposed to represent extraordinary distinction,” Feldman said. “According to the most recent results, we’re giving 24 percent of our students A’s [after correcting for pass/fail grades]. That’s a strange distinction.”

In an interview on Monday, Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 said he was glad Gross had drawn attention to grades but that more reform was needed.

“I’m very pleased that a special letter was dedicated to the subject,” said Mansfield. “I’m not very pleased that grade inflation continued, however, to go up last year.”

Feldman says he has been concerned about the issue for several years. He addressed the Faculty in the spring of 2002 when the grading scale was switched.

Feldman said that since grades were dropping, he did not pursue the matter further.

“The situation was getting better, basically just due to jawboning,” Feldman said. “But this last year, the average grade has risen to its high of three years ago, though the number of A’s is still down by one percent from its high. It still appears we haven’t solved the problem and we have some concerns that the problem will get worse.”

Feldman added that he worries that new procedures for awarding honors, which go into effect for the class of 2005, will exacerbate the problem.

While honors is currently rewarded according to a GPA cutoff, according to Feldman, the plan to switch it to a University-wide percent quota of 60 percent may encourage instructors to inflate individual grades in hopes of garnering more honors for their students.

“I’m worried it will be more inflationary and that will cause more grade compression,” he said.

Feldman said he is less worried about grade inflation than he is about its companion phenomenon, grade comprehension. He said grade compression makes it harder to recognize exceptional students.

“Typically, in one of the upper level courses I teach an ‘A’ is approximately an 85 or better. Yet I’m always going to have one or two students who get a 98,” Feldman said. “There’s a huge difference in performance between those two grades. Yet they both get the same grades in the end. I find that frustrating.”

Some grading trends have remained unchanged over the past few years. Of the three major College divisions, humanities students trumped their counterparts in the social sciences and natural sciences, posting an average GPA of 13.05 on the old 15-point grading scale, compared with averages of 12.52 and 12.33, respectively, last year.

This set of disparities is similar to that of 1990-1991, where the three divisions averaged 12.64, 12.04 and 11.66, as well as to 1995-1996, where they clocked in at 12.87, 12.30 and 12.03, respectively.

The differences in grading between the divisions are often quite marked. For instance, while combined A-range grades rose in both the humanities and social sciences during 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 school years, that total actually continued to drop in the natural sciences. This means the humanities and social sciences alone are responsible for the increase in A-range grades over that year—from 46.4 to 47.8 percent of all grades.

Both Feldman and Cabot Professor of American Literature Lawrence Buell said that the problem is not that humanities professors are more lenient; they instead cited the differences between qualitative or quantitative grading and class structures across the divisions.

“This difference should not be taken at face value, however, as proof of undue permissiveness on the part of the higher-grading units,” Buell wrote in an e-mail.

Buell said that high-level English seminars are a relatively high proportion of humanities offerings and that the top grades often awarded in them help tip humanities marks up.

“[This] helps explain why it would be reasonable and proper for a high percentage of high grades to be awarded in [the humanities],” he said.

Differences in class sizes also make a difference overall. In 2002-2003 academic year, students in small classes—defined as those with between one and 24 students—posted a GPA of 13.37. Medium classes, or those with 25 to 74 students, averaged a 12.88 and large classes, or those with 75 or more students, came in at 12.36. This data is also in keeping with historical trends.

—Staff writer Laura L. Krug can be reached at krug@fas.harvard.edu.