<p>Why would you ever want to go to Harvard after reading this?</p>
<p>Dunno. I can't come to any real conclusion after reading only two paragraphs.</p>
<p>And I am not an Atlantic subscriber, so I can't read the rest of this article. Why don't you post the entire thing for us?</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>There are laws against that.</p>
<p>Mea culpa. I didn't know there were only 2 paragraphs in the article. I pretty much just glanced at the top of the page and posted a link. </p>
<p>I read the article though because we subscribe to the Atlantic. The guy's basic point is that Harvard's massive grade inflation makes students less motivated to work hard at their classes.</p>
<p>Which is bad.... why?</p>
<p>=)</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>The guy's basic point is that Harvard's massive grade inflation makes students less motivated to work hard at their classes.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Harvard may well have grade inflation, but in my observation it hasn't slowed the students down any. The Harvard kids I know work very hard. The courses move very quickly and cover a lot of material. If nothing else working hard in the students' nature. They didn't get in to H in first place by being slackers.</p>
<p>yea I definitely agree with coureur.</p>
<p>There does seem to be an abnormal amount of A's and A-'s given at Harvard (something like 50% of the grades right?), but consider the quality of the students! I don't know any Harvard students who don't work their butts off to get their grades. Maybe it depends on what you're concentrating in as to how much effort you put in, and what type of grade you receive. Concentrations like math, econ, and the sciences surely would demand more effort than the writer implies.</p>
<p>I think that it's probably true that Harvard students spend less time in class than do students at many other universities. However, Harvard students spend a lot of time reading material for class and doing research papers, far more time than do most students at other universities.</p>
<p>For instance, when I was an undergrad, in a class on Tolstoy, I had to read 1,000 pages a week of his literature. Yes, I did that and also took other courses.</p>
<p>I also remember that my idea of an easy course was one that just required a paper of a minimum of 20 pages plus a final. Typically, students select topics that they are interested in. Students don't pick topics by, "What's the easiest thing to do?" Students who operate in the latter way aren't the type of students who usually get into Harvard. As a result, I think that most papers that are turned in a well done and get deservedly high grades. </p>
<p>When I taught graduate school at a state university, I had middle aged grad students who had never had to write even a 10 page paper.</p>
<p>I don't think the writer's basic point was grade inflation; that sort of tired argument was just what he used to get the article rolling. His main premise, IMO, is that Harvard lacks a solid, well-thought-out Core program and does not have many rigorous courses in the humanities. This allows students to meet Core requirements by "indulging" in extremely narrow slices of history or literature or art without being required to understand the big picture at all. He mentions course names, which I forget (don't have the article with me right now), but they are relatively specific to a time, place and political bent. He argues that future doctors, scientists, bankers, teachers, etc... need to be educated more broadly and - yes - rigorously than this. And he posits that Harvard's humanities professors don't know what to do with students who aren't planning lives of academia (which is most of the students) so they tend to dislike the teaching Core classes and give easy grades, which lowers expectations, which leads to major slacking and an emphasis on extracurriculars, etc... He blames this partly on the indulgences of post-modernism, which for the last 25 years basically taught humanities students to sneer at efforts to find "truth" in literature and art. So now, it's like there is no core in the Core, I guess.</p>
<p>Most kids would love to go to Harvard because of this. If you are sweating it in a school that has a steep grading curve, you would wish you were at Harvard. </p>
<p>I think it is a disgrace that a top college like Harvard would act this way. I have no problems with the end result that most of the kids there get A's. With the preselection process as it is, I would not be surprised. But if the school and some of the professors are actually giving the grades away, accepting truly slipshod work, and accepting unexcused late papers, etc, things that could sink kids at other college, this is really a shame. I do not think Princeton's reaction to grade inflation is the right way to go, because grades should not be given out as quotas. If a whole class truly does "A" work, then so be it. But if an exam that truly covers the material that should have been learned in a class results in a failing grade, so be it too, though a careful examination of the teachers and aids should be made to make sure that the materi</p>
<p>I have not read the article; I'm only responding to the comments above.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that Core classes would have so many As. I would have thought that they would attract a broad range of students who need to fulfill a requirement. The grades would reflect their preparation, degree of interest in the subject matter as well as competing priorities (such as senior thesis, job search, etc...)
Upper-level courses, however, attract a more self-selected group of students who are more likely to be majors in the field, and to have gone through the introductory courses either in college or elsewhere. This is what happened in two of my Ss' classes in math/science. At least half the students in either course got A+, A or A-. I know from observing my S spend every saturday and part of sunday on the homework for these two courses that getting good grades and slacking were mutually exclusive.
As for what the Core should be, this is subject to debate. Students who are attracted to a real core curriculum are better off going to Columbia or Chicago. Students who do not wish for one would prefer Brown. The Core curriculum is under review, but it does not seem that there is unanimity of opinion about how to change it.</p>
<p>Marite, the intent of the article is to flame, It features a professor that announces that he is going to give two grades to the students, the one deserved, and the "Harvard" grade which is the grade that goes on the transcript. The article then goes on with other examples of how H students can be slackers and still get great grades. </p>
<p>Though I can see some of the holes in the article, I stick with the sentiments of my post. If Harvard, or any school, for that matter, are deliberately inflating grades, it is wrong. I am not talking about the differences in schools that make them so individual, but there are certain standards for courses, and they should be upheld whether they are taken at H or at State U or NESTate College. The engineering programs, to me, are the way things should be done. Not that much difference between an engineer from MIT and one from Lesser Known U. And the market reflects this in the salaries.</p>
<p>Jamimom:</p>
<p>I don't think that "Harvard" is deliberately inflating grades. Profs are the ones who do the grading. They listen to pleas from deans, and then do what they want. </p>
<p>I think I know who the prof is, as he has been widely quoted on the subject of grade inflation and has attributed it--wrongly in most people's opinion--, to affirmative action. There has been grade inflation everywhere, not just Harvard. It began, I believe, with the Vietnam War draft. This was still the era of the "gentleman' s C" at Ivies. Affirmative Action was barely making a dent in their student body, but the possibility that some students might flunk out and get drafted was real. Hence grade inflation (and increased grad school enrolments).
I took a class in the late 1960s by a visiting prof of literature who announced that anyone who bothered to come to class would automatically get a B; anyone who wrote a paper would automatically get an A. He just did not believe in grades, and wanted to avoid making them a focus of the class. But he stressed it was going to be rigorous--and it was. Interestingly, the class size shrank dramatically.
Some years ago, I read an article by a prof at another Ivy who explained why he was giving up fighting against grade inflation. If he gave his students Bs when others gave As, he was disadvantaging them in grad school admissions and scholarship competitions. This sentiment was reflected in the Boston Globe article about Belmont Hill I cited last week--except that Belmont Hill is sticking to its grading system.
I think the prof who is quoted is trying to do it both ways: give out grades <em>he</em> thinks he should be assigning to his students and at the same time trying to retain their competitive edge.<br>
I haven't heard of humanities or social sciences classes that have cheat sheets. I know that for the AP-Chem exam, there was a sheet of physics formulae.</p>
<p>This reduction in standards is a concern. Harvard's average GPA 30 years ago was a lot lower than it is now (I'm sure the quality of students has not changed dramatically). If Harvard has the best and brightest students in the world (which it does), then they should be subjected to higher standards not lower.</p>
<p>I don't believe that they necessarily should have higher standards, but certainly not lower. </p>
<p>Marite, as I noted, the intent of the article was to inflame. But there has been an enormous amount of press about some schools, which includes Harvard, inflating the grades. I can buy the fact that the students ARE stronger academically these days, as they are. The test scores alone are one indication of that, along with the erosion of legacy admissions. And there is nothing wrong with a prof giving out his internal opinion of a grade vs the "standard" of the grade. But to give Harvard students an inflated grade vs the standard of the grade is really disgraceful. As are very lax standards of turning in papers late, etc.</p>
<p>Jamimom:</p>
<p>I think only one prof is giving two grades, and only to make a point. He is free to grade whichever way he chooses.
Are Harvard students better than they were in the 1960s? Going by admission criteria alone, I would think so-- and that holds true of many other schools, though profs tend to lament the decline of civilization as we (read "they") know it. They can select from a far larger and diverse pool of applicants than they did in the 1960s when grades began to inflate; a lot more have taken very rigorous classes in high school, including college classes.
I don't know how to interpret the word "inflate." It suggests that the grade has not been earned, that if the same work were submitted elsewhere, it would get a lower grade. I have nothing but anecdotes, but the people who have been most disimissive of concerns over grade inflation are people who have taught at other universities before joining the Harvard faculty.
Where Harvard has been lax, in my opinion, is about awarding honors, especially cum and magna. Far too many students graduated with honors because the grade average needed for cum laude was set low. I don't know what impact the new rules have had on the proportion of honors. I doubt, however, that it is as low as my older S's LAC.</p>
<p>As late papers, I would personally be lenient. I'd rather read a good paper than one that is turned on time but is mediocre. But that's my own preference.</p>
<p>I have excerpted portions of the article on both the parents board and in the college search and selection area. The article is about more than just grade inflation - it also talks about the author's feelings of having been cheated by not receiving what he sees as a well rounded education at Havard. It is well worth reading, even if you don't agree with the author's views.</p>
<p>Here's the excerpts I posted elsewhere --- again, no flames - these are not MY opinions, just a single recent Harvard graduate's:</p>
<p>"...The students ambitions [at Harvard] are those of well-trained meritocratic elite. In the semi-aristocracy that Harvard once once, students could accept Cs because they knew that their prospects in life had more to do with family fortunes and connections than with GPAs. In today's meritocracy this situation no longer obtains. Even if you could live off your parents' wealth, the ethos of the meritocracy holds that you shouldn't, because your worth as a person is determined not by clan or class but by what you do...What you do, in turn, hinges in no small part on what is on your resume, including your GPA...Thus the professor...as a dispenser of grades...is a gatekeeper to worldly success. And in that capacity [Harvard] professors face upward pressures from students...horizontal pressure from their colleagues, and downward pressure from the administration (If you want tof ail someone you have to be prepared for a very long painful battle with the higher echelons," one professor told the Crimson)...</p>
<p>It doesn't help that Harvard students are creatively lazy, gifted at working smarter rather than harder. Most of my classmates were studious primarily in our avoidance of academic work, and brilliant largely in our maneuverings to achieve a maximal GPA in return for minimal effort. It was easy to see the classroom as just another resume padding opportunity, a place to collect the grade necessary to get to the next station in life. If that grade could be obtained while reading a tenth of the books on the syllabus, so much the better...</p>
<p>In this environment, who can blame professors if, when it comes time to grade their students, they take the path of least resistance - the path of the gentleman's B-plus?</p>
<p>One might expect Haravd's Core Curriculum to step into the breech...It has long been an object of derision among students and a curriculm review committee recently joined the chorus, observing dryly that the Core "may serve to constrain intellectual development...My experience of th ecore was typical. I set out with the intention of picking a comprehensive roster of classes that would lead me in directions at once interesting and essential...What I found were unengaged professors and over burdened teaching assistants who seemed to be marking time until they could return to the parochial safety of their departmental classes...The few Core classes that are well taught are swamped each year, no matter how obscure the subject matter....</p>
<p>A Harvard graduate may have read no Shakespeare or Proust; he may be unable to distinguish Justinian the great from Juilan the Apostate, or to tell you the first ten elements in the periodic table...As in a great library ravaged by a hurricane, the essential elements of a liberal arts education lie scattered every where at Harvard, waiting to be picked up. But little guidance is given on how to proceed with that task...Mostly I logged the necessary hours in the library and exam rooms, earned my solid (if inflated) GPA and my diploma, and used the rest of the time to keep up with my classmates in our ongoing race to the top of America (and the world). It was only afterward, when the perpetual motion of undergraduate life was behind me, that I looked back and felt cheated..."</p>
<hr>
<p>Thanks for the post, Carolyn.</p>
<p>Sounds like the writer now realizes that he/she blew a chance for an exceptional education and instead took the road more travelled. I guess Harvard students, in that regard, are much like the students at Any College, USA.</p>
<p>While Harvard is complicit, the burden squarely falls on the shoulders of the student to choose a major, select courses and pursue them with passion. Those that don't, like the Atlantic article writer, are subject to regret.</p>
<p>Sounds like he/she wasn't prepared for the freedom college bestows on all, whether they're ready or not. Or for the corrupting intoxication of a B+ given so casually and indiscriminantly.</p>