The Boston Globe reports:
Harvard College is facing a new round of disapproval, and even ridicule, from some educators following news that the most common grade awarded is an A, more than a decade after professors pledged to combat grade inflation.
Critics say that making top grades the norm cheapens the hard work of the best students and reinforces the deluded self-regard of many members of the millennial generation.
via The Boston Globe
I'm having a hard time getting worked up about this one. Grade inflation is a problem in our high schools, and I'm certain it's a problem at some colleges. But, lets think about Harvard for a minute. There was a time when it was shot full of the pampered rich, and the “Gentleman's C” was, at least in legend, a common occurrence. But despite the preferences still given to legacies, things are a lot different at Harvard today. The average SAT scores at Harvard run from 700 to 800. It has a 6% admissions rate. Isn't it to be expected that the highest achievers in the nation will get A's? And in the case of Harvard students, while they may have a lot of self-regard (and believe me, they do), in their cases, is it fair to say they are “deluded”?
It would be profoundly unjust to grade these students on a curve. On a transcript, a Harvard C is worth the same as one from East Nowhere University. If you gave a C to the “average” Harvard student for work that would get him/her an A anywhere else, you would be essentially punishing him or her for getting into one of the best schools in the nation.
Turn it around. If the average grade handed out at Harvard were a “C”, wouldn't that engender criticism, likely from the same folks criticizing the school now.
Not that Harvard is perfect. In my own humble opinion, based on some personal knowledge, you can get a better education at any number of small liberal arts college, primarily because such places place more emphasis on education and less on the kind of networking that goes on at Harvard. But that doesn't change the fact that most Harvard students are there because they are very smart; have earned and deserved A's all their lives; and should be expected to perform well at Harvard or anywhere else they might have chosen to attend. It's just a shame so many of them go on to lead useless lives as consultants, bankers, or hedge fund managers.
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