Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students

Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by sema4hacker on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @06:37PM (#45740192)

For any college, as long as you meet your diploma requirements and graduate, will anyone subsequently really care what your grades were?

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Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by techblueberry on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @06:55PM (#45740381)

Yeah, on the one hand, independence of all institutions and especially ivy-leagues is of the utmost important. But like, I've always done better in the workplace than in the school environment.

Does anyone think that a degree from Harvard says more about what you know than who you know? I suppose for certain careers, particularly perhaps research or writing/ideas/think tanks, a 4.0 GPA plus increasing distinctions / PHD work etc. is important.

But for just like working in business?

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Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by robotresearcher on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @07:12PM (#45740523)

It's a very tough job market right now. I'd rather put a 3.8 than a 2.8 GPA on my CV for job #1 out of college. For job #2, no one cares.

Scholarships for grad school can also be sensitive to undergrad GPA.

(For the non-Americans: 4.0 is a 'perfect' A+ 100% Grade Point Average. Strangely, >4.0 GPAs are possible too, with extra credit work.)

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Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by philipwhiuk on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @07:43PM (#45740816)

The British system has a lot less transparency here. You get:

* First * Upper Second (aka 2:1) * Lower Second (aka 2:2) * Third * Pass * Fail

Some students put module scores down but they are basically meaningless.

And then like the US a degree from a top University is worth more than a degree from another University (by a class or more)

Part of the reason they are worth less is the lack of standardisation of course content. Part of it is grade inflation. Part of it is legacy.

One interesting case is that I know Cambridge grades to a curve. There will never be more than x% of the students getting a first in a single year.

Comparitively my University just had a overall % threshold of weighted module scores.

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Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by dekhn on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @07:44PM (#45740822)

if you apply to grad school, yes. Typically they want a GPA (which was a problem for me since I went to a school that didn't give you grades, just "narrative evals").

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Re:Harvard says it's been giving too many A grades to students by PoorRustDev on Tuesday October 28, 2025 @09:35PM (#45741595)

Yeah, I'm graduating soon and all the jobs I'm looking at "require" a 3.8 or above. And these aren't huge rockstar companies or anything, just local/regional CRUD shops or basic web dev companies. I guess I should have played the game of taking all the easiest classes with the easiest professors rather than attempting anything with more challenge. Sorry for the rant.

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