<p>Well, that's good, Hanna. But I think Harvard can go one step further and dynamically calculate honors based on the classes that you actually took. For example, you shouldn't be rewarded for cherry-picking the easiest possible selection of classes in your concentration. If you pick easy classes, then the honors GPA threshold you have to obtain ought to increase. Conversely, those who pick difficult classes should not be punished.</p>
<p>spoken like a true engineer :P</p>
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<p>the honors GPA threshold you have to obtain ought to increase.</p>
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<p>Unless things have changed a lot in the last couple of years, in most concentrations, departmental honors are not decided by your GPA. It's decided by your thesis and the quality of your thesis...or in a few concentrations, by the graduate courses you took and your work in those.</p>
<p>Departmental honors are not completely decided by your GPA, but it is still a large factor in the determination of whether you will be recommended for honors. </p>
<p>"Concentration GPA is a large component in the calculation of honors
recommedations for both Thesis Track and Advanced Course Track
students. Grades for all Economics courses through the first semester of
senior year, including Ec 10, are used to calculate concentration GPA."</p>
<p>"In the Biology concentration, the level of English Honors has been determined by a formula that combines GPA within concentration and grade on the senior thesis. "</p>
<p><a href="http://biology.harvard.edu/honors.html%5B/url%5D">http://biology.harvard.edu/honors.html</a></p>
<p>"Recommendations for honors are based on the grade point average of History courses that count as concentration credit (60%) and thesis evaluations (40%)"</p>
<p>My point is, if you're going to use GPA as part of the calculation to determine whether somebody will be recommended for departmental honors, then you should do something to ensure that people who take difficult, low-grading, courses will not be punished. Otherwise, you simply incentivize people to cherry-pick easy classes and avoid difficult classes. In other words, you shouldn't reward people for gaming the system.</p>
<p>Perhaps more relevant to this thread is not the segue into the minutiae of honors calculation, but rather the sentiment presented in this Crimson article.</p>
<p>Here's a snippet:</p>
<p>*This years contentious discussion of University President Lawrence H. Summers leadership and the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review have preoccupied the Faculty, pushing a once hot-button issue to the back burner. </p>
<p>As the first graduating class to face the cuts in Latin honors, the Class of 2005 has seen the percentage of A and A- grades steadily return to former inflated levels. </p>
<p>A mere 15 years before the controversy, A-range marks constituted only one-third of the total. Last years A-range grades represented 48.3 percent of the grades distributed, an insignificant drop from the 48.7 percent in 2000-2001 that brought the College under fire. </p>
<p>Though the College did not institute a formal quota system, grade deflation supporters had claimed victory when the number of A-range marks dropped nearly 2 percent in 2001-2002. </p>
<p>It is not legislation that moves the Faculty...it is the atmosphere raised by the issue, Roderick L. MacFarquhar, then-chair of the government department, said to The Crimson. </p>
<p>But with that atmosphere and awareness now dissipated, the tightening of grading practices among professors in the Class of 2005s freshman year seems to have disappeared. </p>
<p>The College administration claims that the issue is still on the table. </p>
<p>The mean grade in the College has been fairly flat for about seven years now, Assistant Dean of the College John T. OKeefe writes in an e-mail. Faculty members continue to be concerned about grade compression, and so I think the efforts to support discussion of these issues will continue into the future, even if other issuessuch as various aspects of the curricular reviewhave been more in the news during the past year. </p>
<p>But without the intense media attention of previous years, the administration seems to lack the impetus for creating a policy directed at curbing grade inflation. *</p>
<p>I think this quote said it best:</p>
<p>"In 2003, Baird Professor of History Mark A. Kishlansky told The Crimson that professors arent used to a framework where grades are much lower. I dont see how they could much go down, he said. We are not in the business of giving Cs. "</p>
<p>
[quote]
I saw a copy of a pre-med summer Biology exam which was all multiple choice questions. That would NEVER happen during the term. For example, our final exam in Chemistry 7 asked us to determine how long it would take Greenland to melt based on the density of water, how thick Greenland was, and how much energy the Earth received from the sun in a given year. (Of course, the presented question was harder, but that was the basic gist of the problem). In essence, they will say "Okay. So you learned X. How would that apply in this situation?"
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Considering that Greenland is actually solid land, it would be pretty hard for it to melt. ;)</p>
<p>Harvard also has newspaper "editor inflation"</p>
<p>there are dozens and dozens of editors to the Harvard newspaper. As one "editor" for the crimson put it, "we dont really edit anything - it's more of a resume booster."</p>
<p>As a comparison, Cornell's newspaper only has a handful of editors. I'm sure this is the same at the majority of other colleges.</p>
<p>"this past summer" </p>
<p>summer school classes are not really harvard classes. and did you take a summer class for HS student? </p>
<p>There are many level of physics and the highest levels are usually not offered in the summer b/c so few ppl would be interested in taking it.</p>
<p>and FYI, Harvard's math is as good, if not better, than MIT' math department.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and FYI, Harvard's math is as good, if not better, than MIT' math department.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>FYI, if not better, my ass.</p>