As Harvard addresses grade inflation, there’s still no easy fix for easy A’s

By the way, if you think other Ivies are any better (data from RippleMatch). Avg GPAs for graduating class of 2025.

Brown University – 3.71

Harvard University – 3.64

Yale University – 3.62

Columbia University – 3.59

Dartmouth College – 3.54

University of Pennsylvania – 3.52

Cornell University – 3.5

Princeton University – 3.49

As Harvard addresses grade inflation, there’s still no easy fix for easy A’s

It seems like almost every milestone has become more difficult to achieve lately, from buying a house, to getting a job, to securing a place at America’s most esteemed universities.

But while it’s become harder to get into colleges like Harvard — having reported a 3.63% admission rate for the Class of 2029, marking the fourth straight year the figure has dipped below 4% — it now appears to be easier to succeed once you’re actually there.

A’s of glory

Though the Ivy League has long wrestled with “grade inflation,” a recent report from Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education has outlined just how extreme the issue has become at the 389-year-old institution.

According to the report, more than 60% of grades that Harvard undergraduates received in the 2024-25 academic year were A’s — compared with 40% a decade ago, and almost 25% in 2005. The rise corresponds with the median grade-point average at graduation hitting 3.83 for 2025, up from 3.05 in 1975, per figures from Harvard’s student newspaper and Gradeinflation.com.

While abnormally high grades could be interpreted as a reflection of serially high-performing cohorts, the acceleration in the share of A’s given despite a minimal change in hours spent studying, per the report, underscores the idea that Harvard’s evaluation system is “failing to perform the key functions of grading.”

Naturally, students were less than thrilled, decrying the report as “soul-crushing” in an article published in The Harvard Crimson last month. Indeed, stricter testing standards are often a tricky topic at top colleges, where students are already overachievers by any regular measure.

As Harvard itself grapples with an uncertain future both politically and financially, anxious students may push back against harsher scoring as they too look ahead nervously across a landscape of higher career stakes and dimmer prospects.