Harvard and its A story: Why professors are reluctant to give anything less than perfection

There was a time when earning an ‘A’ from Harvard meant brushing shoulders with academic greatness, a mark that distinguished the extraordinary from the accomplished. Today, however, that distinction seems blurred. According to a report by Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education, nearly 60% of all grades awarded at Harvard College are A’s, up from 40% a decade ago and less than 25% twenty years ago. The question that now grips the academic conscience is unsettling: Has Harvard, the emblem of intellectual rigour, fallen prey to grade inflation? Or is it merely reflecting a shifting definition of success in an age when excellence has been universalized? The trend, while subtle at first, has crept into the system like an unacknowledged addiction. For years, administrators and facu