Grades Should Measure Mastery, Not Distinction

A grade cap poses a significant threat to the health of Harvard’s academic culture. It debases the purpose of grading, which ought to be based on mastery, and instead promotes competition at the expense of educational value.

On Friday, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh shared through email a set of policy recommendations from the faculty subcommittee on grading, headlined by a cap on A grades. Under this new rule, the top mark would be reserved for up to the top 20 percent (plus four) enrollees in a course. Thus, if implemented, students will be in direct competition with each other for the highest grades.

Grades provide useful feedback to students and serve as a means of accountability and commendation. If they are to be a means to delivering an excellent education, then they must serve as an accurate measure of students’ mastery of content and skills. This is precisely why the subcommittee’s proposal is misguided.

A 20 percent cap makes an A a relative measure. In the eyes of the subcommittee, the purpose of an A is to indicate work that shows “full mastery of the subject” and is worthy of “extraordinary distinction.” Distinction, as the report conceives of it, is “a relative measure.”

That may very well be true; however, it is unclear what legitimate academic purpose “distinction” serves as opposed to mastery, or how one can non-arbitrarily set a cutoff for “distinction.”

But mastery of content and skill are not relative; students’ mastery of course material is independent of their peers’ performance. Of course, not all students will be “extraordinary” relative to one another; however, if Harvard’s aim is to provide a truly top-tier education, there is no reason why it cannot expect more than 20 percent of students to produce work worthy of such commendation.

Princeton repealed their own similar grade deflation measure in 2014: Bef0re, departments were mandated to not award more than 35 percent in the A to A-minus range. Under this policy, some students reported that their professors admitted coursework that merited an A-minus was deflated to reduce the number of A-range grades.

Such practices, now on the horizon at Harvard, do a tremendous disservice to students — not only through lowering GPAs, but by providing inaccurate feedback on the work they produce.

As another writer has pointed out, unearned praise is the issue with grade inflation, not a high number of students succeeding. Differentiation strictly for the sake of comparison, though, does not reflect student achievement, nor does it serve a pedagogical purpose.

The new proposal fits in with a continuous effort by the College to “re-center academics” in light of concerns that students do not sufficiently prioritize their coursework. Recently, the College has provided guidance designed to increase the rigor of courses and tighten attendance requirements — promising means of revitalizing a culture of academic excellence. However, the rationale provided in the subcommittee’s proposal flies in the face of this broader effort.

An October 2025 report from Amanda Claybaugh, cited in the proposal, states, “We owe our students a functioning grading system,” specifically grades “that communicate their areas of distinction to employers and admissions committees.” Instead of focusing on recentering academics, the subcommittee sidelines pedagogical concerns in favor of preprofessional aims.

Even in the proposal’s assessment of the “internal role” of grades, much of the focus is still on comparing students to one another for the purpose of awards rather than quality of work.

If our feedback model is based on constant comparison rather than accurate assessment and growth, students lose invaluable indicators of true academic success.

This is not to say that grades should not be able to differentiate between students. Under any grading system that truly measures student mastery in reference to a demanding set of standards, students will naturally earn a broader range of grades than we see under the status quo.

Moreover, the granularity that emerges as the result of a well-designed system reflects genuine student performance rather than competition to meet an arbitrary cutoff.

To that end, the College should undertake serious efforts to ensure that instructors are giving the grades students deserve. There is recent precedent for how this end can be sought in a way that allows for greater achievement without exclusion.

For example, professors teaching Ethics and Civics General Education courses this semester agreed to, and in at least one case shared with students, a set of common policies; among them, expectations for complete attendance, rigorous assessment on all assigned course material, thorough feedback, and a commitment to substantial intellectual support. This approach offers a blueprint for how the standard for mastery can be raised without preemptively excluding most students from attaining it.

By increasing both the difficulty of and available support for coursework, students are held to a higher standard of mastery and also are able to collaborate substantially with both faculty and their peers.

Getting an A should be hard because of a high standard of academic excellence — not because the competition is stiff.

Adam N. Chiocco ’27, an Associate Editorial editor, is a Philosophy concentrator in Pforzheimer House. Allison P. Farrell ’26, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a Philosophy concentrator in Leverett House.