{"id":135162,"date":"2023-10-09T12:13:49","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T16:13:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=135162"},"modified":"2023-10-09T16:26:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T20:26:50","slug":"harvard-gave-79-percent-a-grades-in-recent-academic-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/harvard-gave-79-percent-a-grades-in-recent-academic-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Harvard gave 79 percent ‘A’ grades in recent academic year"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ‘report establishes we have a problem,’ dean said<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A newly released report revealed 79 percent of grades given to Harvard students in 2020-21 were in the A range, nearly a 20 percent increase from a decade ago.<\/p>\n

Approximately 60 percent of grades given in the 2010-11 year were in the A-range, The Harvard Crimson<\/em> reported<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n

“Mean grades on a four-point scale were 3.80 in the 2020-21 academic year, up from 3.41 in 2002-03,”\u00a0 according to The Crimson.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh and Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana presented the report at the first meeting this year of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.<\/p>\n

The \u201creport establishes we have a problem \u2014 or rather, we have two: the intertwined problems of grade inflation and compression,\u201d Claybaugh said at the meeting.<\/p>\n

Claybaugh told The Crimson<\/em> that faculty may feel compelled to give good grades because they are linked to positive course evaluations required for professional advancement.<\/p>\n

Even more, “grade compression,” or grades concentrated at the higher end, offers insufficient information about students’ success in courses relative to their peers, according to the report.<\/p>\n

It also “complicates selection processes for prizes, fellowships, or induction into Phi Beta Kappa, which rely heavily on students\u2019 grade point averages,” according to The Crimson.<\/em><\/p>\n

Claybaugh told the paper that the report and the discussion would prompt faculty to reexamine their grading decisions and ideally push average grades down.<\/p>\n

During the meeting, faculty brought up several strategies to address grade inflation and compression.<\/p>\n

Romance languages and literatures Professor Annabel Kim suggested the \u201cabolition of grading” and the institution of “narrative-based” evaluations, according to The Crimson.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The professors came out of the meeting “without clear next steps”\u00a0 The Crimson<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n

Claybaugh told the paper they were in “the stage of generating thinking” about the problem.<\/p>\n

MORE: University hires scholar who refused grade inflation<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Alex Millos \/ Shutterstock.com<\/p>\n

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