✕
Sections
The Harvard Crimson Logo

Opinion |About Us|Contact Us

I Didn’t Deserve To Be Admitted To Harvard

By Matthew R. Tobin
•

Can Harvard’s admissions office actually determine who deserves an acceptance letter? Probably not.

Interested in submitting an op-ed? Learn more.
Editorials

The Faculty Senate Should Have a Say

Through the storms the next few years will surely bring, we hope Harvard lets our educators get close enough to the wheel to correct course when it is needed.

Columns

Who’s Going To Do Claybaugh’s Dirty Work?

By L.A. Karnes
•

Instituting grade deflation requires a whole lot of manpower that we don’t have.

Op Eds

What the History of “Gradeflation” Means for its Solution

By Walid Yassin
•

If we go back to assessing students for what they can actually do instead of how well they score on exams, we can finally break the cycle that turned the means into an end. And in doing so, we could remind ourselves of a truth lost in the arithmetic of academia: That education is, at its best, an intellectual transformation, not a number.

Opinion's Choice

  1. The Editorial Board's Guide to The 2024 Board of Overseers Election
  2. Allston Is Gentrifying, but Harvard Isn’t To Blame
  3. Harvard Must Learn Its Lesson. Institutional Neutrality Is Step One.
  4. We’re Really Sorry About That Antisemitic Cartoon, Guys
  5. Harvard Admissions Should Be More Meritocratic

Editorials

By The Crimson Editorial Board

See All

We Hate to Admit It, But Dean Claybaugh is Right

•

Harvard students should be here to learn — not get a 4.0. Based on the College’s recent efforts, it appears that dream may someday be achieved. For the time being, we’ll have to content with giving the administration an A. For effort, of course.

What Harvard Won’t Let Interviewers Say

•

But given the headwinds of higher education, the disappointing change isn’t unexpected. Harvard and other universities are moving to inaugurate colorblindness as the standard for discussing race, scrubbing identity with the hope that “intellectual vitality” or “viewpoint diversity” can take its place.

Dissent: The Editorial Board Cannot Whitewash Hate

•

House resident deans shouldn’t advocate hate towards anyone — full stop. To do so prior to their appointment should be disqualifying; to do so while they are supposedly supporting their students’ wellbeing should result in resignation.

Op-Eds

See All

The Grade Inflation Report is Long Overdue

Wisdom says that democracy works only by adapting certain inequalities of excellence to qualify its main principle of equality. To expose them, professors have to grade sensibly.

We Lead the Intellectual Vitality Initiative. Harvard Needs To Set Its Standards Higher.

So yes, we’re fans of the report — not for its prescriptions, but for its provocation. It has forced Harvard, for the first time in a long while, to think out loud about what it’s doing. And that, finally, is something worth grading highly.

Grade Inflation is Bad. Grade Deflation Would Be Worse.

Changing the generosity of our grading system will not end the game of grade grubbing — it will just make the game far more toxic.

Columns

See All

Changing Grades Won’t Fix the Humanities — Here’s What Will

The humanities are serious disciplines — it’s time for academic programming at Harvard to treat them as such.

The Cost of Classroom Kindness

Professors should also be encouraged to critique boldly, constructively, and honestly. Harvard attracts students not because we fear difficulty, but because we seek it. If this University believes in our potential, it must trust us enough to demand more than comfort. Let discomfort return to the classroom.

What Grades Can’t Measure

A Harvard education isn’t defined by the hours spent in Lamont. It’s defined by how we learn to balance ambition with curiosity. Administrators can change the grading curve, but the real learning happens when students decide what matters to them.