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?

@poetryandwine
I agree that some students have remarkable memories so that they could remember their AI written essay if they really are going to cheat but at least they have to remember it rather than copying it!
@Ceramiq I wasn't really thinking of the writing of the research essay as a proper exam as they know their own question beforehand anyway. I was thinking of it as supervised writing. The research question refinement, their revisions of essay plans that their tutor sees beside their work, a bibliography that matches what they write-could that be used as a check that at least some research has been carried out before handwriting the research essay? I just think this makes it harder to cheat using AI-everything would have to match their planning.

I don't think the students would think this was a fair assessment of ability, let alone the academics. Why is "supervised writing" so valuable to you?

At the risk of briefly derailing my own thread:

There is a lovely article in the NY Times today about using AI to improve workers’ productivity rather than to replace workers. The Director of the Digital Economy Lab at Stanford thinks that in the long term this is best for companies. There is an interesting discussion of how the French firm Schneider Electronics is making productivity gains by designing AI solutions to routine tasks, freeing up employees for higher order work.

This is what our children and my DH do - free up a lot of time from tasks that are terrifically dull, like modelling and sliding.

The problem here is that there is only a certain amount of “higher order” work in any job/company…so get an AI doing all the menial parts of 2 people’s job and then one of those people has time to do the higher order parts of both jobs…. Notice that leaves one person with nothing to do…..(and there’s shades of the standard chartered boss talking about only sacking “low value human capital” too)…

I disagree with this, having in a former life been the modelling and sliding "lower order" person: it was unbelievably tedious and also not good for the development of higher order skills - it had a deadening effect on the intellect. Firms can still get junior workers to model and slide, but hopefully with a less deadening effect on the mind. Better inputs (which require research and judgement skills) will then result because more time can be allocated to developing them, meaning fewer endless corrections by more senior people on the team...

@poetryandwine There are too
many MFL degrees that don’t attract high grade students! These subjects are not popular in schools and too many taking the degrees are bilingual in the first place. The degrees here are not all about language acquisition though but just a casual read of MN posts about MFL degrees and you will see students don’t want the hard literature. They want to watch a film. So universities make life easier for them because they are recruiting CCC students and they might not have an essay subject for A level either. It’s another bums on seats issue but at the best universities, there’s an expectation of literature, culture, research and language acquisition. At these unis you are working in maybe 2 MFLs and it’s pretty hard if you have avoided essays and don’t want to read the classic literature. If you do, you are probably quite bright!

This is more of a problem in countries with lesser protections for redundant workers, like the UK and the US. I would argue that people deserve reasonable protections. British firms despair that this damps profits instead of thinking about how building loyalty can be leveraged to enhance them over the longer term.

Eg Schneider is using AI to help call centre workers deal more efficiently with the public on routine questions. Productivity is increasing, so (unless Schneider captures a greater market share and needs more call centre workers) fewer may be needed.

But the firm is taking the attitude that this frees up workers to devote more tome to complex calls, increasing customer satisfaction. (They need upskilling for this, again a win for everyone) And there is some natural attrition.

I cannot vouch for the sourcing of the NY Times article, but this kind of approach makes a huge difference. As someone with mixed feelings towards the Catholic Church, to put it mildly, I was also rather impressed with Pope Leo’s thoughts on AI this past week, making the argument that it is a neutral tool which can be applied for better or worse.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/28/harvard-grade-cap-data/

I'm probably late to the party with this link, but found the time line and courses most impacted from grade inflation interesting. Nothing greatly different from that already discussed on the thread, use of AI etc.

I suppose one thing that struck me was the size of the class. Are they doing better because of closer tutorial or because of some sort of social bond between tutor and student when allocating marks. Which made me wonder about Oxbridge and Poetryand Wine's anecdote. Oxbridge (I believe) continues to have small tutorial groups - which (I imagine) is intense and supercharges focus and learning. Students are bright and selected for their super-curricular interest in the subject, so they are going to get the most out of close contact mentoring not only of their tutors, but also their fellow UG's in discussion. I'm guessing they quite enjoy the more 'sophisticated paper'. But there are always going to be students who have the capability of Oxbridge, but don't apply; or apply but don't get in, as only so many places. These minds are not as nurtured (bigger class sizes), but independently can go onto great things...arguably an even greater achievement. It is a little sad that they don't have the opportunity to flex and get recognised by the 'more sophisticated' exam, but get buried in grade inflation.

Having said that, personally I'm not on for heaping even more pressure onto to our young people, especially with the financial burden. Is University to nurture learning and broaden horizons (therefore time to develop outside of the course too) or to simply assess on behalf of future employers? Employers seem to be setting their own rigorous selection processes and the criteria they value does not always map directly onto that valued and assessed by University anyway.

Perhaps the UK could keep the normal classifications, include at least one puzzle of a question per paper as at least a bit of a sorting hat (maybe hard for Harvard if all questions 'sophisticated' anyway) and each Uni have an Award to recognise the exceptional (this probably already happens... I'm not an academic, just find this thread interesting).

@NamechangeRugby A lot of universities offer enhanced options to prep dc for work. A savvy dc gets on board with that.

I think fewer and fewer dc are going now thinking they can study their subject and not have an eye on work. Doing this can lead to a big fat nothing afterwards. Parents seem to think a degree makes dc a cut above (well our friends anyway) but a lot have struggled to get jobs. They aren’t the brightest or the best but a couple had firsts. One had a 2/2 in maths from Cambridge. Most simply aren’t that great though so of course employers test.

I think 50 years ago, having the luxury of studying and definitely getting a job that gave you enhanced earnings, was a fantastic life bonus. But 10-15% went to uni so employers knew what they were getting. Now they don’t.