Leaked! Harvard’s Grading Rubric

[lafinjack]

A longtime government professor at Harvard lashed out Tuesday at what he deemed a system of rampant grade inflation after learning that students are receiving mainly A’s.

- The Boston Globe, Dec. 4

From: The Dean of Harvard College

To: The Faculty

In light of the controversy regarding so-called grade inflation, please take a moment to review

Comments

[chaya]

[lolahead]

Just another example that you get what you pay for... and rich people have the money to buy a Harvard "education"...

Perhaps it's time for a revolution?

[imnotasquirrel]

I like how some Harvard students get overdefensive about the inflation and insist that the grades are really deserved because Harvard students are just that smart!!!

[lafinjack]

Well yeah, how else would they get into Harvard?

[roseofjuly]

That is the faculty's legit defense about grade inflation at Harvard and other Ivy Leagues.

[koalafrog]

To be fair, the students who aren't doing so well might just be dropping classes/dropping out before getting a dreaded C or lower. I've had students in my class do that when they wanted As so damn badly - it was confusing, but it would make more sense coming from kids who got in to Harvard, of all places.

This reminds me of grad school grading, honestly. If you get below a B, you shouldn't be there.

[roseofjuly]

Not in all cases. I co-taught a class at an Ivy League institution and one student legitimately earned a C, and the instructor of record (a full professor) asked me if there was anything I could do to bump her to a B because the class was an intensive class, they had to be there 4 hours a week and put in a lot of work, and she didn't want anyone to get a B. The implication was that it was more than a request.

These kids aren't dropping before they get Cs; the grade inflation is legitimately that bad. My department's grading-curve policy is that 80% of students get a grade of B or higher.

[ebay313]

... I did not go to an Ivy league school, just regular public, state Universities, and having to be there 4 hours a week and put in a lot of work sounds pretty much par for the course for college classes....

[astridmyrna]

This grade is known as the A+ with garlands. Garlands are generally awarded for no reason.

LMAO.

Thinking back to my college days, we didn't have pluses or minuses because they don't show up on the transcript, so everything was done on a point system.