Harvard Caps A’s as Selective Colleges Attack Grade Inflation
SKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. Faculty voted on the proposal this month, and the results were announced Wednesday.In a course with 100 students, for example, a professor would be permitted to award up to 24 A’s. There is no limit on grades of A-minus or lower, and the cap applies only to undergraduates.The vote was 458 in favor, 201 against.“This is a consequential vote,” Amanda Claybaugh, the dean of undergraduate education, said in a statement.
- ▪SKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access.
- ▪Faculty voted on the proposal this month, and the results were announced Wednesday.In a course with 100 students, for example, a professor would be permitted to award up to 24 A’s.
- ▪There is no limit on grades of A-minus or lower, and the cap applies only to undergraduates.The vote was 458 in favor, 201 against.“This is a consequential vote,” Amanda Claybaugh, the dean of undergraduate education, said in a statement.
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| Original publisher | NYT > Top Stories |
| Canonical URL | https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/us/harvard-grade-inflation.html |
| Publication time | Wed, 20 May 2026 16:10:28 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-20T14:40:02.685Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-20T16:29:08.729Z |
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| Cluster | oQsyfyx5FvBB · 2 stories |
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Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.Supported bySKIP ADVERTISEMENTHarvard Caps A’s as Selective Colleges Attack Grade InflationFaculty members overwhelmingly approved a limit on the number of top grades they can give to about a fifth of their undergraduate classes.Listen · 3:54 min Share full article380Harvard University’s campus in Cambridge, Mass.Credit...Lucy Lu for The New York TimesBy Mark ArsenaultMay 20, 2026 !function(){var e="gps_module_impressions",s="gps_suppress_module",t=new URLSearchParams(window.location.search),o="1"===t.get("gps_debug")?function(e,s){console.log("[gps]",e,void…
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