Harvard faculty recently voted to cap A grades at 20% of undergraduates per course to combat grade inflation. The Dartmouth’s Opinion writers weighed in about grade inflation at Dartmouth.
Grade inflation is a collective action problem. Universities might know they need to address it, but they’re incentivized against doing so unless all their peers do so as well. Perhaps it’s worth it for peer schools such as the Ivies to come together and discuss some sort of anti-grade inflation pact in which they all implement common grading expectations.
Even if not all the schools can get behind implementing significant measures, agreeing on some lighter measures would still help. In any case, using a strict curve as Harvard has would be disastrous not only for its effects on collaboration, but also because it could force professors to arbitrarily choose which among their equally qualified students deserve A’s. At worst, this could leave room for social biases to influence grading. Any commonly agreed-upon rule for grade deflation should instead focus on setting soft target medians by making course material harder rather than strictly assorting students into certain grade buckets.
- Ryan Alahyari ’28, Columnist
Coming from a high school that did not give out any formal numerical or letter grades, it was quite jarring to arrive in the fall and take a courseload in which all three of my classes have a B-plus enforced median. At the same time, I do believe that once we are at a point where almost everyone gets an A, it is the same as almost no one getting one: “Earning” an A ceases to exist.
A’s much as I would like to believe in the logic of a system in which grades are simply bestowed due to what a given professor believes has been earned, recent years have proven that such a system shakes out unfair to both students and professors; students feel that their education has become subjective and professors feel that they are forced to dole out undeserved marks. In the interim as we explore more ways to adjust grade inflation, I believe that every department at Dartmouth should have its own enforced median, with a disclaimer explaining the policy explicitly, written on every student’s transcript.
- Becca Davis ’29, Columnist
I find the grading at Dartmouth to be very fair. Many STEM courses have enforced medians, which provide transparency for these higher stakes courses. Conversely, many humanities courses are graded more leniently, allowing individual professors license to make the grading an optimal level as to promote collaboration and discussion rather than cut throat competition. I do not believe Dartmouth needs an institution-wide cap on A’s, as Harvard has just mandated.
- Brendan Hofmann-Carr ’29, Columnist
Dartmouth should not follow Harvard. Nostalgia for tough grading romanticizes an era when elite colleges were finishing schools for the already-privileged, a time when the “gentleman’s C” was painless because the diploma alone signaled status. Today’s students had to hurdle a far higher bar to get here, and they compete in an economy that rewards credentials, not pedigree. Grade caps confuse scarcity with rigor. Forcing excellent work downward does not create excellence, it manufactures hierarchy. That’s not integrity, but bookkeeping.
- Caroline Menna ’29, Columnist
I think that grades at Dartmouth are dumb. They, combined with the hyper-competitive modern economy, create poor incentive structures that prevent actual learning and exploration. For example, many students who are attempting to get jobs in finance major in Economics. However, some will delay taking any economics courses until they have finished recruiting for junior summer internships, taking only layups to pad their GPA so it is competitive for recruiting.
It doesn’t make sense for some departments to have medians while others do not, and it also doesn’t make sense for some departments to have different medians than other ones. I think that the College must either abolish medians altogether or make it a College-wide policy. This would enforce a standard of judgment that is consistent across the College and prevent people from taking certain classes in certain departments just because they think they might get a better grade in it.
- Eli Moyse ’27, Columnist
Opinion articles represent the views of their author(s), which are not necessarily those of The Dartmouth.
