Harvard capping high marks; should we?

[poetryandwine]

Harvard University academics have voted to cap the percentage of ‘A’ grades awarded in undergraduate course modules to 20% of enrolled students, plus or minus four students. There is no cap on other grades, including the grade A- ( ‘A minus’). This will be from Autumn 2027. The change will be assessed after three years.

About 70% voted in favour of the cap.

The grade of A at Harvard is supposed to be reserved for work of exceptional merit. The last time the percentage of A grades was as low as 20% was 2005. In 2024-25, about 60% of awarded module grades were A’s.

Students are not happy. There is a fundamental difference between what students want from assessment and what academics and employers want from assessment.

UK First Class degree awards have undergone a similar but less dramatic change over the last few decades, especially since tuition fees increased. We know employers don’t find undergraduate marks and degree classifications as useful as they used to, and why they now set such high bars.

Do MumsNetters think that capping the percentage of First Class Marks in each undergraduate course module, which can easily be achieved by rescaling marks similarly to what we already do, would be a good idea, or not?

I didn't actually say a set of all 9s - but I do take your point.
However it's worth noting that in 2019 (the last year before the made up massively inflated Covid results) 837 students in England got all 9s over 7 or more GCSEs.
In 2024 it was 1270.

The all 9s means nothing. My year 12 did 11.5 GCSE’s and got 9x9 and won’t be in that statistic but someone doing 8 subjects only and getting all 9s isn’t suddenly better.
My year 12 is pretty normal in her selective cohort. I think when people on MN talk about string of 9s they mean a high achieving student with a lot of 9s quantity wise.

@Araminta1003 - Agreed - your interpretation is exactly what I meant in my first post.
However, as a parent of a child who did get all grade 9s across 11 GCSEs in 2019 from a non selective state school, I can absolutely assure you that it really did mean something at the time, both to us and to his school.

I think universities need to choose what they want their tests to show. Do they want to show that students have achieved a certain level of skill and knowledge in which case it is right that the exams are uncapped. Or do they want to use the exams to identify the top performers in that subject in which case there is a strong argument for capping at whatever level they choose. Given the amount of additional testing required for graduate programmes I get the impression that many employers have little trust in degree and A level results which seems a ridiculous scenario to have gotten into.

A bell curve would be the fairest way of doing it and you can easily see who the outliers are then.

“However, as a parent of a child who did get all grade 9s across 11 GCSEs in 2019 from a non selective state school, I can absolutely assure you that it really did mean something at the time, both to us and to his school.”

Sure, but everyone getting lots of 9s is putting in the work somewhat. They do not just from the sky by osmosis because the person sitting next to you is doing well too. DD is my 3rd child and did get stressed about her GCSEs and thought they were a big deal. Lo and behold 3 weeks into A level she professes how easy GCSEs were, in hindsight.
GCSEs are the beginning of it not the end stop. It is best not to get hung up on them too much.

As regards universities who have very rigorous and very specific entrance processes and very specific demand like Oxford or Harvard. Please do not complain if you demand tick boxing to get in, if you end up with a whole lot of students pre-programmed to tick boxes to get ahead in life.

I think employers are having to spend lots of money on tests and assessments because they cannot trust degree classifications and certainly the quality of some degrees. DH found people with a first sadly lacking in his engineering discipline. However some grads were quick learners and could rapidly improve, but this wasn’t necessarily dc from the better unis or linked to degree classification.

I think the answer here is to make degrees more challenging to get a first. People I now know with a first are not very bright. They are grafters. Years ago they got you so far, but not a first. We all know years ago 1-2% got a first now some courses are 40% and many lower grade universities give that level of firsts. Do employers find these grads the brightest of the bright? No. They don’t. So we need to have a reset on who actually is the best of the best!

I don’t really agree as an employer because whilst being good academically at your subject is a prerequisite, we look for so much more than that including vision, creativity, innovation, thinking outside the box, resilience and proper team work skills (which include empathy and bringing out the best in your team and not trying to stamp on other people). We also look for empathy in potential leaders. So I don’t like the concept of pitting kids against each other very much nor tickboxing. I like young enthusiastic energetic graduates who are excited to work with a diverse range of people to learn from and grow and who are excited to problem solve and find creative and efficient solutions.

In the early 1980s, obtaining a First-Class degree was highly exceptional across all subjects. Only about 5% to 8% of university students achieved a "1st". At the time, the vast majority of students (roughly 60%) were awarded a 2:2, making it the most common and typical degree classification. Many universities and specific departments effectively enforced caps on top grades. It did not just depend on your individual marks, but on how many other candidates in your cohort were performing at that high level. However university attendance was much lower in the 1980s. I worked for a 1st from day one because it was my route into becoming an academic. You needed a 1st to stand any chance of winning postgraduate funding. A 2/1 did not cut it.

@Friendlygingercat When dh was at university a decade earlier, 1% on his engineering course. The majority got a 2:2. DHs friend got a 2:1 and became a lecturer at Warwick in engineering. If universities only recruited people with a first they would have very few lecturers! Of course they took 2:1 classifications.

@Araminta1003 And university degrees don’t really cut the mustard with most of that. Which is of course a problem. The plodding introverts who barely come out of their rooms and get a pass on doing group work get a first. They aren’t very employable though and look at all those getting extra time in exams! Employers find time is money. Pricing, and getting work is based on time to do the job. Factoring in extra time because grads need extra time results in loss making. Hence grads don’t get jobs. There needs to be wholesale reevaluation of who is actually a first class grad.

Thank you, everyone. I am enjoying the range of viewpoints here. I hope we continue the conversation.

I agree with @OneInEight that we are not clear any more about what a First Class degree represents. That should be a national conversation.

It’s all very well to say that the criteria should be standards based, hence uncapped. But what happens in practice is that students then want more and more finely detailed guidance about how to achieve those standards, and exams and projects that hew very closely to those from previous years, many opportunities for pre-assessment criticism , etc.

To be clear, I am not talking of all of them! Amongst undergraduates I know, my sense is that there is a qualitative difference between those earning roughly 85+ overall and those with overall marks in the range 70-80%. It is possible at many universities for a diligent, reasonably able student to get a lower First by learning past papers cold, seeking lots of pre-assessment feedback, etc. Is that what we want, or not?

I am in the midst of thinking all of this through.

I find some of the First Class statistics quoted by PP draconian, but I also wonder whether the 35%+ of students at many universities earning Firsts are really exhibiting anything like the descriptors attached to the degree.

A true bell curve is also rather draconian for our society and our YP; I have no wish to return to that. But what, inherently, is so awful about knowing where you stand relative to your peers? Harvard students don’t like it one bit and I daresay the British (or TBF Europeans) wouldn’t, either. Yet that is how tertiary education worked for decades, and I am not aware it was breaking people. I also think employers were pleased to hire from across the degree spectrum.

Have I got that wrong?

TIA

PS Excellent points are being made about hiring the whole person! That’s always been important, but is it more so now?

Is the inflation in degree classification relevant to your answer?

Surely that’s because an 85 in the U.S. isn’t considered a top mark, but a mediocre one? They’re not being difficult they just don’t understand the education culture in England.

I suppose we need to answer the question of what we are grading for. I have bright DC who struggled with school work because dyslexia (has EHCP) so it has made me question what the point of exams is.

I think it's mainly a short cut for employers to say I need to cut this pool somehow. I know everyone on this side of the line is probably alright so I'll choose from them.

It isn't fair to those who don't perform well to that particular yard stick and is only one dimension of skills/intelligence- and for that reason a lot of large employers have stopped requiring a particular grade and look more holistically at applicants.

But in principle I don't have any concerns about making that particular yard stick discriminate more finely, I'm more concerned about what you think it tells you about anyone.

to get a grade 9 in any GCCSE is still quite rare.

Everyone on Mumsnet thinks they're ten a penny - when they just aren't - around 5% of GCSEs were marked at Grade 9.

“The plodding introverts who barely come out of their rooms and get a pass on doing group work get a first. They aren’t very employable though and look at all those getting extra time in exams!”

I think it depends. I have a few plodding introverts and they are excellent workers - I just make sure I do not hire those who do not know when to ask for help or speak up or get extremely anxious over small things. Because the latter does not work in our fast paced environment. But an introverted highly intelligent observer who only speaks once in a blue moon but with huge insight and to the point and does not waffle or show off - very much in demand.

I agree capping is not the right way to go. Raise the boundary. Thing is it’s so hard to get into these elite schools that many kids are going to be A students.

Personally I think “extra time” in public exams became more of a thing when 100 per cent of your grade ended up hinging on a single event or 2 final exams. And that just makes a lot of kids anxious and is actually inherently unfair on some and simply does not suit them to show them at their best. And then those getting anxious get even more anxious and others not getting extra time, get anxious because they aren’t getting extra time (or their parents get anxious and then they get anxious…)

Yes, this is presumably how they will stratify the top 20%.

The reason this couldn't be reliably done prior to the referendum is because professors who graded "harshly" tended to get worse teaching feedback and less course enrollment (look up "the Q guide"). Having a university-wide restriction prevents students fro switching to a more generously graded courses or for professors to look like poor teachers next to professors with more generous grading and thus better course evaluations.

@Araminta1003 ’s introverts described in her last sentence do not sound plodding at all. They sound like people who speak up only when they are sure they have something to contribute. All the difference in the world.

@Muu9 makes an important point here.

It is a key theme of an Opinion piece in the NY Times today by Jason Furman and David Laibson, the professors who teach the big introductory economics course at Harvard.

I got a 1st in 1996 and im a grafter .

also for those saying that graduates are lacking when they go for engineering jobs or other technical jobs , surely it’s also about the content they have learnt not just the grade ?

1st in 2000 here and also a grafter.

I do testing of junior lawyers when I am hiring not because I don't trust their schools or universities but because I am looking for different things.