gibby
September 29, 2017, 8:11pm
27
@Enneract : Thank you for the correction. Here is a Crimson article with data pertaining only to Harvard: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/9/stats-grade-inflation/
First, let’s clarify what it means for the most common grade to be an A. It does not mean that most Harvard students mostly receive A’s, that the average grade is an A, or even that the majority of grades are A’s. It means that the most frequent grade, compared to all others, is A. A thought experiment: A class has 100 students, where ten students get A’s, nine get A-minuses, nine get B-pluses, nine get B’s, and so on through D-minuses. Although 90 of the 100 students do not get A’s, the most frequently awarded grade is still an A. The pervasiveness of this mark, which represents 10 percent of the given grades, is much different from the idea that more than 50 percent of grades are A’s.
Eight years ago, 48.3 percent of grades were in the A range.
Eight years ago if 48.3 percent of the grades at Harvard were in the A range, 51.7 percent were in the B, C, D and F range. More current figures do not seem to be available.