Don't Follow Harvard on Grade Caps (opinion)

Harvard capped flat A grades in undergraduate courses by limiting A grades to 20 percent of enrollment plus four students. The policy is intended to preserve meaning by preventing universal A’s, but it replaces standards-based assessment with a predetermined quota for the highest grade. The cap is expected to reduce anxiety and promote exploration, yet research on norm-referenced grading shows lower mastery orientation, weaker self-efficacy, and reduced help-seeking and help-giving. Studies tied to median grade publication show students enrolling more in leniently graded courses, consistent with strategic grade-protective selection. Equity research is presented as the clearest warning against such systems.

"Harvard’s case for the cap might feel intuitive: If everyone gets an A, an A means nothing. But that intuition confuses meaning with scarcity. If we’re going to use grades at all, a grade should report what a student has demonstrated against a defined standard—not where they finished in a class ranking. If Harvard wants grades to mean more, the answer is pedagogical: clearer standards, not rarer A’s. Rarity is not rigor."

"The cap moves the opposite way: away from standards and toward peer ranking. It installs a fixed top-end quota on the highest letter grade in undergraduate courses, with the maximum number of seats at the top decided in advance. Harvard’s grading subcommittee predicts the cap will reduce anxiety and encourage intellectual exploration. Research on similar systems suggests otherwise."

"A preregistered experiment found that norm-referenced grading—where students are ranked against their classmates instead of measured against a fixed standard—produced lower mastery orientation, weaker self-efficacy and less help-seeking and help-giving among students. When Cornell University began publishing median course grades online, follow-up research found increased enrollment in more leniently graded courses—a pattern consistent with strategic, grade-protective course selection. Neither study supports the prediction that students would become less strategic or more exploratory."

"The clearest warning, though, comes from equity research."

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