An A no longer tells you what you need to improve
For two decades, Harvard's grading culture drifted quietly toward a kind of collective generosity — until the median grade became an A and the letter lost its meaning. Now the faculty has voted, with substantial conviction, to restore scarcity to excellence: beginning in 2027, no more than one in five students in any course may receive an A. It is a rare institutional act of self-correction, one that asks whether a grade is a gift to the student or a signal to the world — and bets, against recent history, that the answer still matters.
- A grades at Harvard climbed from 24% in 2005 to 60% by 2025, turning what was once a mark of distinction into the default outcome for most undergraduates.
- The pandemic accelerated the drift, and even as remote learning ended, grades never came back down — leaving faculty alarmed by the widening gap between marks assigned and work actually produced.
- By a 70% majority, Harvard's faculty voted to cap A grades at 20% per course, a hard structural limit designed to force grades back into alignment with genuine academic achievement.
- A companion measure replacing GPA with percentile rankings for honors and prizes passed even more decisively, acknowledging that when nearly everyone earns an A, the number itself becomes meaningless.
- Princeton tried a softer version of this experiment in 2004 and reversed course a decade later, citing student anxiety and competitive disadvantage — a cautionary precedent Harvard's leaders know well and have not yet answered.
Harvard's faculty has voted to cap A grades at 20 percent of students per course, effective fall 2027. The measure passed with roughly 70 percent support — a decisive but not unanimous verdict on a problem two decades in the making.
The arc of grade inflation at Harvard is stark: A grades represented 24 percent of all marks in 2005, reached 40 percent by 2015, and hit 60 percent by 2025. The median grade across the university has been an A since 2017. Average GPAs rose from 3.64 for the class of 2015 to 3.83 for the class of 2025. The inflation accelerated during the pandemic years and never fully receded.
The policy was driven by Harvard's dean of undergraduate education, Amanda Claybaugh, whose office argued that the proliferation of A grades had corroded academic culture. Faculty members — both new arrivals and longtime professors — expressed alarm at the disconnect between marks and actual work quality. Students, meanwhile, had come to treat grades as a measure of effort rather than achievement, inverting the fundamental purpose of evaluation.
Alongside the cap, faculty approved replacing GPA with percentile-based rankings for internal honors, recognizing that a grade point average loses its power to distinguish when nearly everyone earns the same mark. A proposal allowing departments to opt out in exchange for a three-tier evaluation system was rejected — the faculty was not prepared to abandon letter grades entirely.
The cautionary precedent looms large. Princeton imposed similar restrictions in 2004, only to reverse them a decade later after students reported rising anxiety and competitive disadvantage against peers from other institutions. Harvard's leaders are aware of that history. Whether this policy endures, or bends under the same pressures, will be the real test of whether the institution can restore meaning to a mark it once made exceptional.
Harvard's faculty has voted to impose a hard ceiling on A grades, capping them at 20 percent of students in each course starting in the fall of 2027. The measure passed with 458 votes in favor and 201 against—roughly 70 percent support—according to the Harvard Crimson, the university's student newspaper. It is a dramatic intervention into a problem that has been quietly reshaping the institution's academic culture for two decades.
The numbers tell the story. In 2005, A grades made up 24 percent of all marks awarded to Harvard undergraduates. By 2015, that figure had climbed to 40 percent. By 2025, it had reached 60 percent. The median grade across the entire university has been an A since 2017. Student GPAs have risen accordingly: the average for the class of 2015 was 3.64 out of 4.0; for the class of 2025, it was 3.83. What was once an exceptional mark has become routine.
The policy emerged from Harvard's Office of Undergraduate Education, led by Amanda Claybaugh, the university's dean of undergraduate education. Last year, her office published a report arguing that the proliferation of A grades—awarded when work meets the faculty's standard of "exceptional quality"—had begun to corrode the college's academic culture. The report noted that grade inflation accelerated in the late 2010s and spiked during the pandemic years of remote and hybrid instruction, before stabilizing in recent years. But stabilization at 60 percent A grades is not the same as correction.
Claybough told the Boston Globe that Harvard's grading system no longer serves its basic function: telling students what they need to improve. Faculty members, she said, have expressed deep concern about the disconnect between the marks they assign and the actual quality of student work. New professors arriving at Harvard are struck by how lenient the grading has become; longtime faculty members are astonished by how much it has changed even in the recent past. Students, meanwhile, have come to view grades as a reflection of effort rather than achievement—a fundamental shift in what a grade is supposed to mean.
The faculty also approved a companion measure, passing 498 to 157, that would replace GPA with percentile-based rankings when awarding internal prizes and honors. This change acknowledges that when nearly everyone earns an A, the traditional grade point average becomes useless as a tool for distinguishing achievement. A third proposal, which would have allowed departments to opt out of the A-grade cap if they adopted a three-tier evaluation system (unsatisfactory, satisfactory, satisfactory with distinction), was rejected 364 to 292. The faculty was not ready to abandon letter grades altogether.
Harvard is not the first elite university to grapple with this problem. Princeton imposed restrictions on A grades in 2004, urging faculty to keep A grades below 35 percent without establishing a formal cap. But in 2014, after a decade of the policy, a faculty committee recommended abandoning the restrictions. The reason: student surveys showed rising anxiety and increased competitiveness, and Princeton undergraduates were finding it harder to win fellowships and other honors for graduate school when their grades were lower than those of students from peer institutions. The committee concluded that the cure had become worse than the disease.
Harvard's leaders are aware of this history. Whether the new policy will survive its first decade, or whether it will face similar pressure to relax, remains to be seen. The cap takes effect in less than eighteen months. By then, the conversation about what a grade means—and who it serves—will likely have only grown louder.
Notable Quotes
Professors perceive a misalignment between the grades they assign and the quality of student work. New faculty are surprised by how lenient Harvard's grading is; longtime faculty are struck by how much it has changed.— Amanda Claybaugh, dean of undergraduate education
Harvard's grading system no longer informs students what they need to improve, and students believe grades should reflect the effort they put in rather than the quality of their work.— Amanda Claybaugh, in an interview with the Boston Globe
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why did Harvard wait until 2005 was already in the rearview mirror to act on something that's been happening for twenty years?
The inflation was gradual enough that it didn't feel like a crisis until it became undeniable. By 2025, when 60 percent of grades were A's, the faculty could no longer pretend the system was working. That's when the Office of Undergraduate Education decided to measure it, publish it, and force a vote.
The pandemic seems to have accelerated things. Why would remote learning make professors more generous with grades?
There's a theory that when teaching moved online, faculty felt less certain about what they were seeing. It's harder to gauge a student's actual understanding through a screen. Some professors may have defaulted to being lenient rather than risk being unfair. The pandemic created a moment of disruption where old standards got loosened, and they never fully tightened again.
Princeton tried this and backed down. What makes Harvard think it will stick?
That's the real question. Princeton's committee found that lower grades created anxiety and hurt students' prospects for graduate fellowships. Harvard is betting that a transparent, faculty-wide policy will be harder to reverse than Princeton's informal guidelines were. But if students start reporting higher stress or if Harvard grads start losing out on opportunities, the pressure to relent will be enormous.
Does a 20 percent cap actually solve the problem, or does it just move the problem around?
It solves the signal problem—an A will mean something again. But it doesn't solve the underlying question of what grades are for. If students still believe grades should reflect effort, and professors still feel pressure to reward engagement, the cap just forces a different kind of negotiation. The real issue is that Harvard and its students have different ideas about what a grade means.