It used to be unusual for a Harvard student not to ace a course. But lately, grades of A are down at Harvard, if only by a little.
The trend, after years of runaway grade inflation, has drawn praise from the dean of undergraduate education.
“A number of you tightened up your grading this fall, and your efforts have made a meaningful difference,” the dean, Amanda Claybaugh, wrote in an email to the faculty Monday afternoon.
Grades of A fell to 53.4 percent of grades awarded in the fall semester, from 60.2 percent in the prior academic year, Dr. Claybaugh reported. “I know this change wasn’t easy,” she added, noting that some faculty members had said they were receiving less favorable course evaluations from students.
Harvard has been on a campaign to make it harder to get an A, and a series of proposals may be put into effect later this year. A report issued in October suggested allowing grades of A+, which are not currently used at the school, as a way to recognize the best performing students, demoting the routine, ordinary A to the second rung of the grading ladder.
Grade inflation is not just a Harvard issue. Studies have found it to be a national phenomenon that has been gathering steam for decades. Critics say it devalues grades, makes it more difficult for truly exceptional students to stand out, and undermines academic standards.
Harvard’s 7 percentage point reduction in issuance of A grades is a positive start, according to Christopher Schorr of the America First Policy Institute, a conservative research group with links to the Trump administration.
“I don’t want to throw cold water on that,” said Dr. Schorr, who has written on the issue of grade inflation. But he observed that even the newly reduced rate of A grades at Harvard “would be absurd a few decades ago.”
Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education studied the inflation issue last year, surveying students and faculty members, before releasing a report in October. The report encouraged the faculty to bring grading “back into integrity.”
In addition to adding an A+ grade, some of the potential steps raised in the October report included giving more weight to students’ subject mastery, rather than their effort, and including the median grade for each course on student transcripts for context.
Harvard professors and instructors were not ordered to lower grades, and they retain “autonomy over grading for their respective courses,” according to a spokesman for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes Harvard College, home of the undergraduate program.
Still, the school’s continuing effort to whip inflation has apparently moved the faculty to be a little stingier with A’s.
Dr. Schorr said a key to sustaining the effort would be to make it apply as broadly and consistently as possible, to help resist pressure to increase grades. “The greater the scale that these reforms can be initiated, the easier they can be achieved,” he said, adding, “Inside a school, if one professor is known as a harder grader, students will shift to the next course.”
Two decades ago, grades of A were much less common. In 2005, they accounted for 24 percent of all grades awarded at Harvard College, according to the report.
Ten years later, though, the share had risen to 40.3 percent, and the proportion continued to climb steadily, jumping to 62.8 percent in the pandemic year of 2020-21, and then settling at just over 60 percent last year.
By Harvard’s standards, a grade of A is supposed to be reserved for work of “extraordinary distinction” that shows “full mastery of the subject,” the October report said.
Princeton University attacked grade inflation in 2004 with recommended limits on the share of A’s to be awarded, which effectively deflated grades. Students complained that chasing a limited number of available A’s increased their stress, and made peers less likely to want to collaborate.
The school’s faculty members ended the policy in 2014, and the number of top grades awarded immediately began to climb. The proportion of A’s and A+’s has since shot up more than 20 percentage points, to 45.5 percent in 2025, according to a report from the school.
Practically all of the Harvard faculty members who were surveyed had serious concerns about grading. “Faculty newly arrived at Harvard are surprised at how leniently our courses are graded,” the October report concluded, “and those who have taught here for a long time are struck by the difference from the recent past.”
One factor blamed for driving grade inflation is the potential feedback loop between grades and the scores students give professors in evaluations.
Faculty members worry that tougher grading could lead to unfavorable evaluations, which might in turn hurt their performance reviews, future jobs prospects and tenure candidacies, the report said. Some of the upward pressure on grades may also be generated by professors themselves, as they compete for students: A reputation as a tough grader could deter enrollment in their classes.
In her note to the staff earlier this week, Dr. Claybaugh sought to ease those fears: “We recognize and appreciate your efforts to restore rigor.”
A Harvard faculty committee is reviewing the school’s grading policies and will propose new ones, Dr. Claybaugh said in her note, which was first reported by The Harvard Crimson. The committee is scheduled to release some proposals early in the spring semester, and the faculty is expected to vote on them by the end of the term.
Mark Arsenault covers higher education for The Times.
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