A 2023 Harvard faculty report revealed that 79% of the grades given out at Harvard in the 2020-21 school year were in the A range, an almost 20% increase from a decade earlier. Yale’s rate was even higher that year, at 82%. It seems that at some of the most elite institutions in America, A now stands for “average.”
Grade inflation, the artificial increase of grades over time, is not exclusive to premier universities. A study by testing company ACT found that America’s average high school GPA rose from 3.17 in 2010 to 3.36 in 2021, while standardized test scores indicated a decline in actual learning. Essentially, lower standards have led to higher grades.
“Grades are to … see where you are in your learning journey,” mathematics teacher Beth Wehr said. “It’s not a club to get into. It’s a number [for] how you have shown your proficiency.”
Grades that do not accurately reflect a student’s performance cannot serve this basic purpose of assessing mastery. Many families will be perfectly content with an A on their child’s report card, regardless of how — or if — it was earned. A sympathetic grade bump could cover up a significant lapse in understanding that will now go unaddressed.
“If you got a 70, that’s not bad,” social science teacher Sebastiaan Blickman said. “Your 70 is indicative of how much you understand … I’m not going to give you something that you haven’t earned through the acquisition of whatever the material might be.”
The educational purpose of grades is too often forgotten with our one-track college mindset. Students constantly hear about the importance of good grades in the college application process and so believe boosting their GPA in any way will help their chances.
However, it is no longer clear what a “good” grade is. Grades cannot be used to distinguish between students when everyone is at the top. Thus, universities have increasingly relied on other, less objective metrics, such as letters of recommendation, extracurriculars or personality. A high GPA is still necessary, but it is no longer sufficient, adding an extra layer of stress for everyone.
“You have to reach these levels that are almost impossible to achieve in order to even be considered,” senior Zara Kalmanson said. “The more you dumb it down and try to make more people pass, it just makes it harder in the long run because now everybody’s on a level playing field.”
Unfortunately, Trinity has not escaped this national trend. Since the school’s switch from a pure numerical system to letter grades a few decades ago, our scale has slowly shifted to allow students more leeway. An A-plus went from a 97 in a regular class to a 94 in honors to a 92 in AP. The addition of a weighted GPA offered a 0.33 bump for honors courses and 0.5 extra for AP on top of the already softer grading scale.
Our scale combines with ample curves and extra credit to produce impressively high averages. For example, the Class of 2023 boasted an average unweighted GPA of 3.72, firmly in the A range. To Director of Learning and Instruction Stephanie Dryden, this is proof of our school’s caliber.
“You already have to apply to get into our school, and our kids are really smart and capable students, so it’s kind of appropriate that they should be getting good grades,” Dryden said.
If our students are truly the brightest, lowering the grading bar is a disservice. It is Trinity’s job as “one of the most highly-ranked private schools in the United States” to push them to their full potential. Instead, we hand out test scores over 100, allowing grades to drift ever further from a realistic measure of proficiency: Mastering more than 100% of a concept is not possible.
“A 102 has become the new 99,” sophomore Sarah Zobel said. “It creates [stress] to achieve a grade that shouldn’t even exist … A lot of kids will look at [a B] and go, ‘That’s not OK,’ but a B used to be good.”
At Trinity, like most schools, a B hovers around 80%. Grasping 80% of any material is nothing to scoff at. But in a culture where inflating away students’ knowledge gaps is preferred to tackling them, an 80 does not mean what it should.
We are here to learn. Grades are an important part of assessing that learning, but they are not the true goal. You should be proud of a high grade because it means you have mastered your coursework, not because you can put it up on your fridge.
If we refocus on the meaning behind the number, families would be able to reflect on low grades without anger. Parents might sit down with their kids to figure out where they need help instead of rattling off an email about an “unfair” quiz.
“It can be hard at times when you know that doors may open and shut depending on [grades],” Wehr said. “But the doors aren’t necessarily shut for good … [If] you didn’t do as well as you’d like, let’s figure out how we can better it so that you’re feeling more competent.”
By lumping students into a few broad boxes separated by arbitrary decimals, our current grading system inhibits this reflection. Abolishing letter grades and the 4.0 scale in favor of raw numerical scores would convey students’ actual performance without the compulsion to reach a certain threshold. Students could then view a 70 not as a loathsome C but as a good milestone on their path to mastery.
We must return to that path. A system where A is average builds students who thrive not in the pursuit of excellence, but mediocrity.
