<p>marite, </p>
<p>Get real. Even your former president bemoaned the grade inflation. Indeed, was his falling out not due in part to his pressure to lower the average?</p>
<p>Didn’t 90% of the students graduate with honors a few years back?</p>
<p>NMD:</p>
<p>Honors and grade inflation are two different things. Without tackling grade inflation, it is (and was) possible to reduce the proportion of students receiving honors merely by raising the GPA requirement.</p>
<ol>
<li> Summer had very little to say about grade inflation. If you google articles, you will find that it was raised before he arrived at Harvard. I recall reading an article that showed that the proportion of students getting As at Harvard was high, but still lower than at Princeton-- by a hair–and about the same as several other top colleges. I believe that the data was actually posted on CC.</li>
</ol>
<p>I don’t know what you mean by “get real.” It has been reported that only two Harvard students received straight As in recent decades (I doubt one can track as far back as the 1630s). But I can assure you that I have not heard or read of 65% of Harvard students getting As and A-s. It may happen in individual classes, but not across the whole College.</p>
<p>EDIT:</p>
<p>Here is an announcement from NPR which shows clearly that the proportion of students getting As and A-s when it became a concern was 49%–not 65%.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>NMD:</p>
<p>I sent you a PM but your box is full.</p>
<p>marite, I’ll make room in the box!</p>
<p>marite, we seem to view the concept of grade inflation differently. I take a more expansive view of it, and include honors etc. under the grade inflation rubric.</p>
<p>In that case, the grade inflation problem was fixed by raising the GPA required to graduate with honors. 90% was indeed a ridiculously high proportion.</p>
<p>Usually, however, when people discuss grade inflation, they mean grades rather than honors. That was the premise under which originaloog and I compared grade inflation at Cornell and Harvard.</p>