ABIGAIL S. GERSTEIN AND AMANN S. MAHAJAN:
A faculty committee proposed a sweeping overhaul of Harvard College grading that would sharply limit A grades and introduce a new internal ranking system — changes that could roughly halve the percentage of As currently awarded to undergraduates.
In a 19-page proposal released Friday, the committee recommended capping A grades at 20 percent for every class, with flexibility for up to four additional As per class. The plan would also introduce an internal “average percentile rank” metric to determine honors and awards — a shift aimed at countering what the committee described as a grading system that no longer meaningfully distinguishes student performance.
If approved, the reforms would take effect in the 2026-27 academic year.
The proposal — which has yet to come to a full faculty vote — follows an October report by Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh, which found that more than 60 percent of grades awarded to Harvard undergraduates were As and concluded that the system was “damaging the academic culture of the College.”
That report argued that grades had become so compressed at the top that they no longer performed their basic functions of signaling mastery and guiding internal or external evaluation.
Faculty have already taken steps to curb grade inflation, slashing the number of As awarded from 60.2 percent to 53.4 percent last fall. But the committee argued that voluntary reductions were insufficient to preserve the A as a mark of “extraordinary distinction.”