# Everybody gets an A at Yale **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 8, 2023, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300 "2023-12-08T14:09:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2023, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/141 "2023-12-30T22:06:28Z")
Apparently you can have great grades, but unacceptable hobbies and some interviewers will reject you out of hand. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2023, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/142 "2023-12-30T22:24:15Z")
Here’s a claim about how interviewers choose between candidates for jobs: > **[7 Effective Ways to Identify a Good Candidate in an Interview](https://www.yoh.com/blog/7-effective-ways-to-identify-a-good-candidate-in-an-interview)** > > Utilize these tips throughout your interview process to assess candidates' skills and see if they're a good fit for your company. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2023, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/143 "2023-12-30T23:00:44Z")
I especially liked these lines from that article: “You can’t identify a good candidate just based on the resume. The applicant who looks good on paper may disappoint you in person.” After being an interviewer, this is most definitely true. Some of the best candidates on paper were the worst interviewees (and employees!) in practice. Usually, I had voted against them but had been overruled. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/144 "2023-12-31T00:44:04Z")
I think students are basically as smart as they’ve ever been. But with more distractions these days. Still, I doubt 80% of students are as exceptional as claimed, even at the most lauded universities. Of course, it makes no difference to me personally how many people get good marks. I accept it is not the primary role of a university to sort out people for professional programs or the job market who can use their own standardized tests. But it does make me suspect lower standards or expectations, easier tests, or the availability of question banks from previous tests or “exam prep” courses including actual test questions. But I don’t judge these things. Though I am told certain universities have reputations as “GPA killers”, and so some people avoid those. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/145 "2023-12-31T01:25:17Z")
The usefulness of letter grades for _evaluating_ students at top universities is questionable. These students have already proven themselves to be high achievers and excellent learners. But, I think grades and class ranking serve as _motivators_ for keeping top students engaged and striving for excellence. Top students have shown their ability to learn and perform at a high level throughout their academic careers. They are likely to pursue new knowledge with or without external rewards, simply because they enjoy learning. But these students are also accustomed to academic competition and excellence. They’ve been challenged and rewarded for their efforts their entire lives. They thrive on competition, and I think most appreciate it. If there is no or little competition due to the absence or vagueness of grades, some top students may lose their edge and enthusiasm. They may not put in their best effort or challenge themselves. They may think they have earned the right to relax and coast (_I busted my ass my whole life, I deserve a break_). They are, after all, human, and humans tend to do the minimum required. Grades and ranking provide them with a clear and measurable goal. For many, I think this could make the difference between learning a subject well and mastering it completely. As an employer or a consumer of a graduate’s expertise (whether it is a doctor, a lawyer, or a candlestick maker), I want someone who has mastered their profession. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/146 "2023-12-31T01:37:35Z")
This is largely true, but there’s a flip side to that: I had a student in tears a few weeks ago because she’d gotten a C- on her final paper. It was, in fact, a C- paper, but she was a hardworking, highly motivated student, and like a lot of students, a lot of her identity is wrapped up in being an A student, and they’re kind of brittle and fragile. I’d like to think there was a better way to give them feedback than traumatizing them. There’s not enough time to have them do the paper over until they get an A (either for them to redo it or me to re-grade it). This particular student took the feedback in stride (ultimately), but a lot of them just… break. European students are used to much tougher feedback from a younger age, and can take it, but many North Americans aren’t. I have no solution to this problem. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/147 "2023-12-31T02:06:10Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The thing is, the Pareto distribution contains Pareto distributions. The top 20% may capture 80% of the value, but within that top 20% there is a top 20%. So we should expect Harvard students to still fall on a curve - just one that skews to the high end of ability compared to the general population. > > But it’s still useful to find out who the top 20% are at Harvard, and within that group who are the top 20%, or the top 4% at Harvard. I mentioned this in the other thread, but I don’t buy in to the hypothetical that _any given class_ at Harvard will fall on a well-defined curve (which is a little different from your statement that _students in general at Harvard_ fall on a well-defined curve). There are a number of classes you can take to fill a given requirement at, say, Harvard. For example, there are _five_ different first-semester math classes a freshman can take if that student has already mastered BC Calculus (and two other classes they can take if they haven’t mastered it, even if they took BC Calculus in high school). If I saw that someone had completed Math 55, the most challenging of these classes, that would say something to me. I wouldn’t think it was “cheapening” Math 55 if most of the kids, or really almost all of them, who completed the class got an A, because most kids who are not mastering the material would probably either not take the class at all or drop down to a lower/slower class – which makes the distribution of ability reasonably narrow. And, partially because of this (also because of things like undergraduate theses), it’s pretty easy to figure out who the exceptional students are, regardless of grades. Heck, the _undergrads_ know perfectly well who the top of the top are, and they don’t know what everyone’s grades are. > [@](#): > > If everyone gets an A, how does an employer or a grad school distinguish between them based on transcript? Top grad schools, at least, don’t, and they shouldn’t. Grades are actually not the best way of distinguishing who will do well in grad school (and I speak as someone who did get very good grades at a good school). Grad schools depend much more heavily on what kind of classes the kid has taken, the research the kid has done in college, and what their recommendations say. (Or, really, what @Wendell_Wagner said.) And… actually, now that I think about it, my employer doesn’t depend on fine gradations in grades either (and it shouldn’t). It only uses grades as a very rough filter (e.g., if you had a 2.0 GPA you probably wouldn’t make it to the interview process). There’s a talk-on-project-the-candidate-has-done and interview process that is the important part once you’ve made it through the filter. At this point I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say, “Well, they were a stellar interviewer and their research is incredibly relevant to our projects, but their GPA is too low.” I mean… this is not a fault-free process either, but it tends to produce better results than relying on transcripts. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/148 "2023-12-31T02:33:08Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > It was, in fact, a C- paper, but she was a hardworking, highly motivated student, and like a lot of students, a lot of her identity is wrapped up in being an A student… > … > I’d like to think there was a better way to give them feedback than traumatizing them. Which is one of the pitfalls in how we present the evaluation process and what it means – in some institutional and familial environments you allow them to build up that investment of your whole identity in your performance metric, and I dare say it’s partly cultural, the notion of your “success” by some sort of evaluation metric (grades, income, “wins”) being a kind of moral validation of your Self. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/149 "2023-12-31T03:11:58Z")
In addition to getting good marks for doing the work, you should also study the most relevant subjects. > **[Taylor Swift at Harvard](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/12/taylor-swift-lyrics-class-harvard/676933/)** > > Why the pop superstar’s work is worthy of study ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/150 "2023-12-31T12:22:10Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But it’s still useful to find out who the top 20% are at Harvard, and within that group who are the top 20%, or the top 4% at Harvard. You’ve failed to show why. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/151 "2023-12-31T15:23:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But it’s still useful to find out who the top 20% are at Harvard, and within that group who are the top 20%, or the top 4% at Harvard. I don’t think it’s even a little useful to find out which 20% of Harvard students are best at optimizing their GPA. Even at Harvard, some classes are harder or easier than others. And the student majoring in math and the one majoring in history are going to take courses that are so different you can’t really compare the grades meaningfully. They require different skills and abilities to excel. When i was interviewing every level employees, we always looked at their transcript. We wanted to see evidence that they’d mastered some topics close enough to “actuarial science” that they were reasonably likely to succeed at actuarial science. And we wanted to see that they succeeded at meeting obligations, at least by their last couple of years. But we didn’t rank them by GPA or anything like that. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/152 "2023-12-31T15:33:24Z")
Also, if you want the top smallish percent, you can look to see who graduated summa cum laude. That requires an excellent thesis and the recommendation of professors. And Harvard limits the number of students allowed to get honors > Harvard College limits the number of students graduating _summa cum laude_ to 5% of the class, _magna cum laude_ to 15% of the class, and _cum laude_ to 30% of the class. > **[Honors Determination | The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies](https://socialstudies.fas.harvard.edu/faq/faq-types/honors-determination)** > > Honors Determination (The cite is from the social studies department, but i believe they are referencing a college-wide standard.) My guess is that if you care enough, you can find similar indicators at other schools that mostly give "A"s. ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2023, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/153 "2023-12-31T20:51:31Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > But these students are also accustomed to academic competition and excellence. They’ve been challenged and rewarded for their efforts their entire lives. They thrive on competition, and I think most appreciate it. If there is no or little competition due to the absence or vagueness of grades, some top students may lose their edge and enthusiasm. They may not put in their best effort or challenge themselves. They may think they have earned the right to relax and coast (_I busted my ass my whole life, I deserve a break_). They are, after all, human, and humans tend to do the minimum required. Grades and ranking provide them with a clear and measurable go I have quite a few former students at highly selectives, and I will tell you that they find plenty of things to keep them driven. The most notable thing about students at these schools, in my experience, is how busy and future-oriented they are. The big brass ring at these schools is next step: getting into the best Med or Law school, or getting the highest offer letter from your first job (and, to some degree, other types of grad programs, but I think that’s seen as a bit of a quirky route). From Freshman orientation, they are working on their future: they are doing research and internships, they are working on start-ups and running consulting businesses (not even kidding). They are also running YouTube channels, making independent films, getting ready to leave for a semester abroad, learning a foreign language, doing a deep dive into a personal interest, and working on social good projects. At one of these schools, your coursework is a smaller portion of your education. Several people have suggested it should be significantly more advanced that that of less selective Universities, but the system isn’t really set up that way. They aren’t like “Wow, we have all these highly capable students, let’s get them through a 4 year degree in 2 years, and then keep going, so that our average undergrad has covered the same content as a student with an advanced degree at another school”. For one thing, it’s not clear how that would ever even work in the system. Instead, they cover more or less the same content as you’d expect any undergrad to do, and then the students take on a shit ton of other stuff. Some, because they are full of intellectual curiosity, but most because they want to be making a $250k/year before they are 30. And they don’t want it in the way we’d all vaguely like it, they really, really want it, sometimes out of pure materialism, but many because that represents being a Good Person who Deserves Praise. Truly, there’s no real risk that liberal grading policies are causing these kids to just coast through college. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Also, if you want the top smallish percent, you can look to see who graduated summa cum laude. That requires an excellent thesis and the recommendation of professors. And Harvard limits the number of students allowed to get honors This seems like a really solid system to me. Way better than the psuedo-quantitative approach of grades. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2024, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/154 "2024-01-01T00:21:59Z")
You could also look to see who was elected to Phi Beta Kappa: > **[Eligibility & Election](https://pbk.fas.harvard.edu/eligibility-election)** > > To be elected to Alpha-Iota of Massachusetts, the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, a student must possess a record of outstanding scholarly achievement, showing both depth of study and breadth of intellectual interest. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2024, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/155 "2024-01-01T23:30:48Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > Instead, they cover more or less the same content as you’d expect any undergrad to do, and then the students take on a shit ton of other stuff. Some, because they are full of intellectual curiosity, but most because they want to be making a $250k/year before they are 30. And they don’t want it in the way we’d all vaguely like it, they really, really want it, sometimes out of pure materialism, but many because that represents being a Good Person who Deserves Praise. I think there’s a lifestyle, prestige, and class component to it as well. Good job with a “prestige” company (typically banking, management consulting, big tech, etc) The nice apartment in a trendy neighborhood, fancy dinners, drinks at upscale bars, beach house (first maybe a share house with a group of friends but later a second vacation home for the family), house in the right community with the best schools (or private schools). ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2024, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/156 "2024-01-01T23:41:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > I think there’s a lifestyle, prestige, and class component to it as well. I think we are talking about similar things. Basically, there is a very specific vision of what “success” looks like. My higher income kids, who meet that standard, or who are at least close enough to see it in their families and communities, are aiming at that. What’s really noticeable to me, though, is my low income/first gen kids who go to highly selectives don’t really start out that way. They see moving into the dorms, where they share a bedroom with only one other person and a bathroom with only 5 other people as a pretty serious step up in the world. But within a year or two, the majority acclimate. They still have no real idea what an affluent life is like, not really, but they get the message that this is the next rung on the “success” ladder and they want to climb it. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be where they are. If “success” were defined differently, they’d chase that. These are very bright, motivated kids, but they aren’t super great at reflecting on abstract qualities of what success really is. For one thing, they are still very young, and in any case, the ones that wasted time thinking about things like that instead of cramming SATs never get that far. I do wish the highly selectives had some sort of counter-narrative to this, but for all their recruitment pitches to the contrary, they seem to be as bought into this vision as anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2024, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/157 "2024-01-02T02:06:48Z")
> [@MandaJo](#): > > They still have no real idea what an affluent life is like, not really, but they get the message that this is the next rung on the “success” ladder and they want to climb it. Yep, that was me. Bright, motivated, and clueless, and from a basically working-class family who knew college = success, but not quite how, and trusted bright but immature and inexperienced me to figure it out (Reader—I didn’t). ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/158 "2024-01-03T17:51:27Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Also, if you want the top smallish percent, you can look to see who graduated summa cum laude. That requires an excellent thesis and the recommendation of professors. And Harvard limits the number of students allowed to get honors > > > Harvard College limits the number of students graduating _summa cum laude_ to 5% of the class, _magna cum laude_ to 15% of the class, and _cum laude_ to 30% of the class. > > [Honors Determination | The Committee on Degrees in Social Studies](https://socialstudies.fas.harvard.edu/faq/faq-types/honors-determination) > > (The cite is from the social studies department, but i believe they are referencing a college-wide standard.) > > My guess is that if you care enough, you can find similar indicators at other schools that mostly give "A"s. I’m being super nitpicky here but just FYI this is not a college-wide standard – see the physics department which is mostly calculated on grades, though “Highest Honors” also takes other things into account. But as far as I know, having it depend on the thesis quality is the case for most departments, and departments like this are relatively rare. (Heh, it was interesting to see the nod to grade inflation when browsing through this link – they’ve raised the grade requirements as of this year.) > **[Honors Recommendations](https://www.physics.harvard.edu/undergrad/honors-rec)** > > Physics and Chemistry/Physics Rules for Department Honors Recommendations The Physics and Chemistry/Physics honors recommendations are determined by the following procedure: In poking around, it appears that the college-wide standard is that there’s a grade-point average cutoff, and then the department has to recommend you, but it doesn’t appear that there’s any kind of standard for what the department is looking for (which makes sense to me). > **[Honors](https://registrar.fas.harvard.edu/honors)** > > Honors for Undergraduate Degrees Types of Honors English Honors (Departmental Honors) Determined by the department, committee, School, or program that oversees your concentration and based solely on work completed for your concentration. English... Those honors GPAs in that last link are a little concerning to me. If I’m understanding this correctly, if one took 4 courses per semester (for a total of 32 over 4 years), you couldn’t even make two A-'s, or one B+, without being ineligible for summa. Ugh, that really does bring home the grade inflation. (Though I find myself more OK with it if it just means that grades have inflated and everyone who understands the material gets an A. I don’t think it’s right if a brilliant student who happens to do not-as-well-as-peers on a difficult exam, or misjudges and takes a class a little too hard for them one semester, becomes suddenly ineligible for summa.) ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/159 "2024-01-03T18:38:09Z")
Fwiw, when my husband graduated from Harvard mumble mumble years ago, he got some honor of that nature (either summa or phi beta kappa, i forget) despite not meeting the grade cutoff, because someone pointed out that he’d taken a lot of extra courses, including some that were very challenging, and that his gpa wasn’t really representative of his overall achievement. Also, i don’t remember exactly what the honor was because it’s never once mattered since. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2024, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300/160 "2024-01-03T20:25:53Z")
> [@raspberry\_hunter](#): > > If I’m understanding this correctly, if one took 4 courses per semester (for a total of 32 over 4 years), you couldn’t even make two A-'s, or one B+, without being ineligible for summa. Ugh, that really does bring home the grade inflation. I’m not sure that that’s an indication of grade inflation. I think that it’s an indication of how good the top students at Harvard are these days. A hundred years ago a lot of utterly brilliant people didn’t apply to Harvard because they knew that the chances that someone of their race, religion, ethnic background, national origin, or financial situation of their parents had essentially no chance that they would be accepted. These days they usually know that there’s some chance they’ll get accepted (and get sufficient financial aid they can easily pay for their tuition, room and board, etc.). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/everybody-gets-an-a-at-yale/994300.md?page=9)