Grade Deflation Will Be Good For Us. Trust Me.

Figure skater Alysa Liu won the U.S. national championship at 13 years old. Like many child prodigies, she eventually became burnt out and decided to retire. At 20, she returned to the world stage at the Olympics, motivated not merely by the hopes of winning, but by her love of the game. Then she got the gold medal.

Harvard students are Alysa Liu, and academics is our figure skating.

You might have heard grades are going down. More than a year ago, I called for just that — yup, I liked grade deflation before it was cool. I will not recapitulate the merits of deflating grades, nor will I belabor my qualms with the current proposal to do so. All I will say is that since grade deflation is going to happen, we might as well embrace it and reapproach academics, not for a grade, but for its own sake.

The proposal has attracted widespread dissent from students. They point out that students are already stressed; they balance coursework with extracurriculars, employment, and everything else; they spend so much time on their academics — how could the College possibly ask for more?

Critics have also pointed out that Harvard selects students who get great grades and excel in extracurriculars. Why then, they ask, should the College be surprised when these same students all get A’s while still prioritizing their pastimes?

Admittedly, many of these points are valid. Like the young Alysa Liu, Harvard students are undeniably impressive. They are, almost by definition, perfectionists. Throughout high school, they worked hard on schoolwork, standardized tests, essays, and clubs — that’s how they earned their spot at Harvard.

Yet, these virtues are also our biggest vices. Students at the College are burnt out. They are overworked and over-optimized. It’s not sustainable. In the same way that Alysa Liu reinvigorated her relationship with figure skating, we need to come back to academics for its own sake. Grade deflation will help us do that.

As it stands, grade inflation, perhaps counterintuitively, makes the College more stressful for students.

An A is less valuable when there are so many of them — the admissions deans of law and medical schools told the College as much — and any grade below an A is even more devalued since almost everyone else is receiving an A. It’s easy to see why students are stressed. Their only options are to get a perfect grade — or fall into the minority of students who don’t.

Moreover, it isn’t enough just to stress about earning an A, since most people get one. Instead, students also have to stress about extracurriculars to distinguish themselves.

Nobody is denying that Harvard is hard. Students accomplish a lot extracurricularly while still dedicating time to their studies — about 40 hours per week, by my count. But grade inflation makes the College more demanding for students, not less. We have no other choice but to work hard, lest we receive anything beneath the modal A. I dream of a day when students can rest at ease without fearing that a sub-perfect grade will bury them beneath their peers.

When non-A grades are so devalued, perfect grades become students’ main worry. As a result, students are effectively punished for taking risks — inside of the classroom or out — since they might not get an A. Others are perversely rewarded for choosing the easier options. Grade deflation will correct this imbalance and set us free.

Goodhart’s Law says when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. So too with grading. Grade deflation will allow us to worry less about targeting an A and more about what grades are supposed to measure: learning.

I’m not saying that grades are unimportant or that we shouldn’t try to succeed academically. If anything, grade inflation makes good grades seem unimportant — and “almost useless” for graduate school admissions, according to one law school dean.

It’s fair to worry about the consequences of grade deflation for mental health. But in the past decade or so, students’ rates of mental health issues nationwide have only increased. It would appear grade inflation hasn’t done anything to mitigate this problem — and may exacerbate it by making any deviation from perfection seem like cause for crisis.

I will not lie to you and say that I have no reservations about grade deflation. Honestly, I still don’t think the proposal is perfect, and it might hurt in the short run.

But since it’s coming, we might as well stop worrying and love grade deflation. Instead of focusing solely on what grade we get, we should take this chance to renew our vows and pursue academics — or whatever else we want — for its own sake. We can take a hard class without fearing that a B-plus will ruin our lives.

Who knows. Maybe we’ll still win the gold medal. Maybe you’ll get an A — but that’s not the point. To whatever you apply yourself, do it, not for a grade, but for yourself. You deserve it.

Matthew R. Tobin ’27, a Crimson Editorial editor, is a double concentrator in Social Studies and Economics in Winthrop House.