It varies dramatically depending on type of class. For example, the first of the 4 Harvard classes that permits simultaneously enrollment without stipulation is CS 50 – Introduction to CS. This class has an enrollment of 1,600 in-class students and ~40,000 virtual students. According to HarvardX: CS50's Introduction to Computer Science | edX , 7 million students have enrolled in CS 50X on edX.
Intro to CS apparently works okay as a large lecture without a lot of direct back and forth from professor during the lecture. The more personal interaction occurs during sections, which I expect are led by grad students. I’m more familiar with Stanford’s intro CS class, which sounds like it uses a similar approach. CS 106A is one of Stanford’s ~2 largest courses, with similar enrollment to the 1,600 in-class students in Harvard’s class per year. However, sections are limited to a maximum enrollment of ~6 students per section as I recall, giving students an opportunity for more personal attentions and questions in what is often their first CS class. Sections get larger for other CS classes. It’s more important to attend section in person (CS 50 has some sections over Zoom) than it is the lecture.
Upper level humanities and social science classes tend to be much smaller and often involve discussing readings with professors, with direct interactions. These types of classes seem more critical to attend in person than the intro to CS example above.
In my opinion, much of class attendance stems from the professor. If the professor offers a class for which in-class attendance is important, then the class can be structured such that students are penalized in some way for not attending class. This doesn’t necessarily mean taking attendance, which often isn’t practical and can be a waste of everyone’s time. The professor can instead have in-class activities that are influential on the student’s grade, either directly or indirectly.
Sign-in sheets – that’s how my colleagues and I (not at Harvard! ) take attendance. Unless I have a very small seminar in which case I do it myself without calling out names. Takes 5 seconds. When students fail a class, we have to report the last date of attendance, so we need to do it, but it doesn’t take time. (Once again, we’re not Harvard.)
There are some large lecture courses, especially intro courses, that are fine even in recorded version. From my own experience, I got the most out of small group/seminar classes where class participation was expected. I also am a big fan of even large courses that were taught in the Socratic manner as I experienced in law school. What both had in common was active thinking with a requirement that you are able to understand different points being made (professor and students) and respond to them. Passively listening and even taking notes is not the same learning experience.
Back to the point of grade inflation - we have to note that this is not a one-way street. If expectations across the board are raised (eg. for graduate school and firm recruiting), then there is no difference if standards are raised across the board.
To give some examples: Law’ Schools’ GPA and LSAT medians have trended up over time, while companies have also raised their standards: anecdotally, firms like McKinsey or Goldman Sachs want to see a 3.9+ GPA, where 15 years ago a 3.7 GPA could be considered a great GPA.
This is also not unique to Harvard, or even to private schools. Cum Laude in the College of Arts and Sciences at UT-Austin was a 3.9!! And the page was removed, but earlier the McCombs school of business posted a GPA table showing that the median GPA in UT’s BBA cohort was a 3.73
Point being, if everyone’s standards are raised, including grad schools and companies, then there is no issue IMO. An A- these days is equivalent to a B 15 years ago, and getting a B is like getting a C from way back when.
The problem is that there is now grade compression at the top. If only 20% of students got A’s 15 years ago and now 60% get A’s, you have 40% more who are now equally competitive that would not have been 15 years ago. I am oversimplifying for one class, but you would have similar compression for cumulative GPA. One of the students interviewed even talked about how important college EC’s are now since everyone has similar high GPA’s. I don’t know if the importance of certain selective clubs (IB, VC, Consulting) is exaggerated, but it certainly favors kids with connections to upper classmen who are already “in”.
The importance of those clubs is definitely overblown, at least from the employers perspective.
Candidate A was in XYZ club, was “social chair” of the business fraternity (competitive entry), and now advises freshman who want to get into one of the business clubs.
Candidate B is part of the Investment club which has a 100K portfolio, and is part of the team which has realized a 12% gain in the last 9 months.
Candidate C has no clubs at all. She volunteers at a big non-profit hospital in the college city and helped the CFO speed up the monthly close from 7 days to 4 days. She has also been asked to work with the trustee who leads the Endowment committee, and is about to introduce a new and improved system for generating the 990 which will save weeks of time for the paid analysts on the payroll (plus give more accurate and speedy results to the Endowment committee members.)
How important are these clubs when a kid who is seriously interested in business can find relevant and high impact roles virtually anywhere with a little bit of shoe leather and initiative? I’ve interviewed kids who have taken Best Practices in supply chain management and introduced them to the local food pantry; kids who have launched a wildly successful marketing campaign to get parents of 3 and 4 year old’s to enroll their kids in high quality (and free) early childcare; kids who have worked with the sanitation department of their local city/town to increase participation in recycling programs; kids who have helped drive down solid food waste in their own college cafeterias by adopting “just in time” food delivery systems.
Kids endlessly obsess about “competitive” clubs where they can work on business simulation projects- when the world around them is filled with actual business problems!