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Already being discussed here:
i know, i wanted a Michigan discussion from the students/alums here.
Btw, as I expected most of the responses are just knee-jerk responses such as “bitter” and void of any real discussion. They just perpetuate their own arrogance and ignorance to privilege.
What would she need to be bitter about? She went to Harvard PhD, so it’s not a jealously thing. In fact most people’s grad degrees are more meaningful long-term for their careers than their undergrad anyways.
What, what? A GSI at Harvard? Banish the thought. Only professors teach undergrads at Harvard! 
Every single GSI here at U of M can tell you the exact same story. It has either happened to them or one of their close friends.
Let’s not pretend this isn’t a thing at U of M. It is and it’s rampant.
Really Romani? So then, from what you are indicating, Michigan does not just hand out A’s like they do at Harvard. Does Michigan only give out "A"s to all of its students? It seems that almost every student at Harvard gets them.
“The median grade at Harvard is an A-, so if that doesn’t tell you about the grade inflation here, I don’t know what will. (But as a current student, I’m not complaining)”
I’m sure it’s annoying to have students complain about not getting an A in a class. I agree with you that that happens everywhere. At the same time , it almost seems fraudulent when professors/GSIs rarely give out any other grade. I think that was point of this article.
It seems, from your previous commentary, that you have a general disdain for Michigsn as an undergraduate institution. Honestly, I would be concerned taking any class with you as the instructor.
I never picked up on romani’s disdain for Michigan.
He was an undergraduate at MSU. He has a history here on CC going back a few years.
romani, I am sure it happens everywhere, but it happens more often, and with more impunity, at some schools than at others. I personally never heard of a scenario where a student contested an A- unless the professor/GSI actually erred in their calculations or missed grading an entire section. I am sitting with my uncle who was a professor at Michigan from 1981-2007 (he is retired now) and he told me he cannot recall ever having an A grade contested by a student in his 25+ years as professor.
That being said, the expectation at Michigan is that the class mean is going to hover around B-/B. As such, there aren’t many who would frown upon an A grade. At Harvard, the class mean typically hovers around A-, and far more students expect that A grade.
I believe romani is a “she.”
As for the median grade at Harvard being an A-minus, you could take that as evidence of grade inflation. Or you could say it shows that not every A-minus at Harvard gets changed to an A, so to that extent, the GSI’s experience may be an outlier. (Wink, wink).
Though the GSI did say the student was “coasting” in the class and doing mediocre work that would have merited a C at “an ordinary institution,” but “Harvard undergraduate courses aren’t set up that way.”
?? She’s closely guarded some details, but you realize she’s in her mid 50s, doesn’t seem to be commenting on some recent events?
First, I’m a she. I have zero disdain for U of M. I’ve loved my time here. There’s a difference between having criticisms of a school (which I do, both of U of M and MSU) and having “disdain” for it.
@lookingforward no I didn’t realize. It read like a current phd student to me. My bad
Not aimed at you. Yes, does sound current.
Do you know when the author of that piece was at Harvard? I couldn’t find a straightforward c.v. online, but biographical information indicates she was a writer in South Africa for 10 years after earning her Ph.D., so the incident likely occurred a while ago. I wouldn’t read too much into her age, however; people can be Ph.D. candidates at any age (and in any event I couldn’t verify her age online—the only source I found for the claim that she’s in her mid 50s is a post on the Harvard pages of CC by someone apparently eager to defend Harvard’s reputation).
Even if the incident occurred 20 or 30 years ago, however, it’s pretty damning, unless there’s evidence that the academic culture at Harvard has changed since then. But everything I’ve seen suggests that both the grade inflation and the sense of entitlement and attitude of “innate superiority” among Harvard undergrads have only grown worse in that time…
@bclintonk afaik, H has revisited its grading rigor numerous times. I know it’s reputed to be just too easy to get a good grade. So be it. As compmom said on the other thread, “I really get tired of Harvard-bashing.” What I can’t figure is why Ruden brings her experience up now.
Yes, hard to pin down dates for her. I assumed this is just something I’ve seen women of a certain age do to mask age. She seems to be an itinerant prof.
I did find this: “I was a student of Classics at Michigan (B.A., 1984) and Harvard (Ph.D., 1993), and a Nonfiction student in the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars (M.A., 1999). I taught a lot of Latin as a TF and instructor at Harvard, and was a “lecturer” (junior professor) at the University of Cape Town in South Africa for three years before leaving to pursue writing, translating, and journalism full-time.”
http://unsettledchristianity.com/qa-with-sarah-ruden-author-of-paul-among-the-people/
For fun, 2013: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/opinion/sunday/leaked-harvards-grading-rubric.html
So maybe where there’s smoke there’s fire. I’m not one who hangs much on gpa over more obvious proofs of a quality education.
As for entitlement, it’s a criticism just too easy to sling, the sort of barb where you can’t defend-- you’re damed if you do, damned if you don’t.