More than half of all grades awarded at Harvard College are now A’s — a sharp climb from years past that the university’s top undergraduate official says is eroding the school’s academic culture.
A new report from Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education, released Monday, found that roughly 60% of grades given to undergraduates were A’s, up from 40% a decade ago and less than a quarter 20 years ago.
“Current practices are not only failing to perform the key functions of grading; they are also damaging the academic culture of the college more generally,” said Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh, who authored the 25-page report.
The report’s findings were published by Bloomberg News and the Harvard Crimson.
Claybaugh called on faculty to “restore the integrity of our grading” and urged them to resist pressure to award top marks across the board.
Harvard College, the university’s undergraduate division, is part of Harvard University — the broader institution that also includes 12 graduate and professional schools such as Harvard Law, Business, and Medical School.
The findings come as Harvard faces renewed scrutiny over academic rigor and political bias.
The Trump administration has pressed the university and other elite schools to sign a federal compact pledging “grade integrity” and the use of “defensible standards” when evaluating students.
Claybaugh’s report cites several reasons for the rise in top grades, including faculty fears of appearing too harsh compared with fellow professors and concerns that stricter grading could drive students away from certain courses.
Administrators have also told professors to consider students who struggle with “imposter syndrome” or personal hardships when evaluating performance.
According to the report, even Harvard students themselves apply pressure — challenging professors and pushing for higher marks.
The median Harvard College GPA now stands at an A, up from 3.64 for the Class of 2015 to 3.83 for the Class of 2025.
The report said grade inflation accelerated in the late 2010s, spiked during the pandemic’s remote-learning period, and has remained elevated since.
In 2020, most grades handed out were already A’s.
The cutoff for earning summa cum laude honors has climbed to 3.989, though the number of first-year students with perfect 4.0 GPAs dropped about 12% last year, which Claybaugh called a sign of modest progress.
The dean emphasized that rising grades are not necessarily a reflection of declining student effort. Using internal “Q reports” — semesterly course evaluations — she found students report working between 5.5 and 6.5 hours a week outside class, roughly unchanged over two decades.
“Workload is notoriously difficult to measure, but our data suggest that students are working as hard as they ever have — if not more,” Claybaugh wrote.
Still, some instructors, particularly in the humanities, told her they’ve been forced to shorten reading lists and assign lighter material in response to student complaints.
Faculty surveyed for the report said they were deeply concerned about a “misalignment between the grades awarded and the quality of student work.”
Many also blamed Harvard’s course evaluation system, which they said ties student satisfaction to generous grading. Poor evaluations can jeopardize promotions and hiring prospects.
The Post has sought comment from Harvard.
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