One of the most highly sought-out achievements in higher education may have become nearly worthless: the enshrined A. Even at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, Harvard University, receiving an A has become so common that it no longer holds much significance. In 2026 The Harvard Crimson found that 73 percent of classes reported an A median and 95 percent an A-minus median or above. It also revealed that over sixty percent of grades given to undergraduate students at the university were As, and another eighteen percent were A-minuses. This means that less than one in six grades was or fell below a B-plus. This reality inhibits success: no student can be truly successful if the vast majority of students are meeting the same standard. However, this does not call for the immediate depression of other students’ grades, solely to better a select few.
The grades students receive in college serve a purpose far beyond academic merit, which some people fail to recognize. Graduate schools, scholarship committees, employers, and fellowship programs all rely mainly on transcripts to evaluate applicants. The Harvard Crimson acknowledged that GPA had become nearly “effectively unusable at the top end,” with honors, distinctions and other awards requiring up to five decimal places to distinguish students from one another. A system that relies on infinitesimal numerical differences to differentiate students is one that has lost its credibility. With this, it’s evident that the current grading system is in need of reform. The proposed reform, however, manages to pose other issues of a similar magnitude.
In a nineteen-page report, a faculty committee proposed capping As at twenty percent per class, with only slight flexibility depending on class size, allowing four additional As. This proposal also introduced a plan to replace GPA with average percentile rank (APR), which measures how students’ grades compare to others, but would not appear on transcripts. This would essentially mean that students’ success is measured by relativity, while their GPA—the only actual lasting metric on transcripts—will be diminished by the grade gap. Public response to these changes in the proposal has ranged from absolute outrage to enthusiastic praise. Some argue that each student should receive grades based on their own work, not how relative that grade is to other students’. Others argue that if every student earns an A, the meaning of the accomplishment loses value.
It’s no secret that LM students have a strong affinity for Ivy League universities, with over twenty students already committed to Ivy League schools, more waiting to commit that have been accepted, and even more that applied. However, LM students who are already driven to apply to Ivy League universities are now faced with a dilemma where they must decide between name recognition or an impressive transcript. In college classes consisting of the cream-of-the-crop students, if a certain margin of the class is bound to get a lower grade, questions have been raised about how worthy it is to put in extra work when some students are effectively guaranteed failure. Lila Apple ’27 has expressed that she now has less of an inclination to apply to Harvard University because of this grade cap, saying, “Grade culture in high school is already stressful enough, so I wouldn’t want to amplify that stress during my college experience.” Her concern reflects the idea that grading systems with caps only increase destructive competition and drive a negatively-cultured environment, especially at Ivy League universities. This calls for an even closer and more comprehensive attention to student mental health.
With this, grade inflation must be controlled, but not to the level of regulation that some suggest. A cap alone simply cannot solve every issue and will only create more in the process. For example, a humanities Socratic seminar, STEM lab, and 100-student lecture should not all lend themselves to the same grading standard because each setting measures vastly different skills and forms of learning. Moreover, these caps make grade inflation at other universities seem even more appealing to applicants who value strong transcripts in their time at college. Replacing an imperfect system with an equally flawed one will not solve any issue.
Beyond individual concerns, these universities must reconsider the position from which they view grade inflation; the changes to the education system in the past decade need to be evaluated from the lens of the current economy. Like economic inflation, when too much of something enters into circulation, its value declines. The more dollars printed, the less each dollar is worth; similarly, the more As awarded, the less meaningful each one becomes. If colleges want to retain their credibility and have grades that still serve as useful measurements, grade inflation must be treated like real inflation.
Colleges like Harvard University must tread very lightly in their next steps to pursue standards that are both credible and humane. If they fail to act, students’ work will continue to lose meaning; if they overcorrect, they risk harming the students they are attempting to serve.
