Harvard could cap A’s without fixing grading.
As its Office of Undergraduate Education has said, grades are meant to motivate students to engage deeply with their courses, inform them of their progress and mastery, and distinguish the strongest work.
If students remain bunched within fractions of a point at the top, the new policy could leave instructors deciding that a 97.5 is an A and a 97.4 is an A-, the type of clustering near the top that currently happens. The distribution would comply with the new cap, but the distinction could still feel arbitrary. Students could focus on securing a final percentage point rather than engaging deeply, while learning little about what separates their work.
Avoiding that outcome requires faculty to do more than move grade cutoffs. They’ll also need assignments and exams that distinguish between subject mastery, which the Faculty of Arts & Sciences (FAS) handbook defines as an A-, and the “extraordinary distinction” it defines as an A.
For some faculty, that may mean returning to practices they used roughly a decade ago. For others — including those who began teaching at Harvard in 2020 or later — guidance may be helpful with the transition.
Harvard College’s new cap on A grades — 20% of enrollment plus four students — won’t become mandatory until Fall 2027. But Dean of the College David Deming and Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh are encouraging instructors to begin implementing the cap this fall, giving them a year to adjust their courses.
Claybaugh has also shared new guidance to help them do so from the Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, which helps instructors across FAS design courses and improve teaching.
Its guidance gets the central premise right: “the aim is not to grade harder. It is to grade so that the grade carries real information.”
The recommendations include:
Introducing more “genuine difficulty” into required assignments
Relying more heavily on work that provides “reliable evidence” of individual learning
Using rubrics “to differentiate, not to bind”
Implementing “transfer learning” in assessments (asking students to apply learned concepts to new situations)
These recommendations treat grade differentiation as a course-design problem, not simply a distribution or cutoff problem.
Applying them will be harder. The right approach may depend on class size, discipline, format, and learning objectives. “Extraordinary distinction” will look different in an introductory class than in an advanced one, while a writing seminar will establish “reliable evidence” of individual learning differently than a large course with an in-person final exam. Faculty will ultimately decide what works in their own classrooms. But instructors in comparable courses may face similar questions, and the Bok Center can help them learn from one another rather than start from scratch.
The transition year gives Harvard a chance to build that shared knowledge. Claybaugh said that several large and widely taken courses — including Computer Science 50, Life Sciences 1a, Psychology 1, Economics 10, Humanities 10, and every section of Expository Writing 10 (the mandatory first-year writing course) — plan to operate under the new policy this fall.
The current guidance webpage gives instructors a useful starting point. But these and other early-adopting courses can help the Bok Center produce something more concrete for faculty: tested, course-specific examples other instructors can adapt.
By the time the cap takes effect in Fall 2027, those examples could help give instructors a clearer basis for designing courses that distinguish between levels of student work — and give students a clearer understanding of why their work earned the grade it did.
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Q: What’s happening with the federal government’s new international student visa rule, and how does it impact Harvard?
Last week, the Department of Homeland Security finalized a rule replacing the longstanding “duration of status” student visa system with fixed visa terms for F and J visa holders. Beginning September 15, international students and visiting scholars will generally be admitted for the length of their academic program — up to four years — after which they must apply to the federal government (not their university) for an extension of stay.
Harvard says the rule will have a “significant impact” on its international community, particularly doctoral programs that typically exceed four years, but emphasized that there’s no immediate effect on current students’ visa status and that many implementation details remain unclear. President Alan Garber (AB ’76, PhD ‘82) called the four-year limit “odd,” noting that a typical PhD takes at least six years, while immigration experts expect additional guidance in the coming weeks.
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Virtual — July 28 from 11:00-12:00 pm ET: Harvard Business Impact is hosting Harvard College Dean David Deming (PhD ‘10) for a conversation on the growing value of human skills in an AI-driven economy, and how higher ed can better prepare students for the future of work. Register here.
FYIs
DOJ Launches Investigation Into China-Funded Financial Aid Programs at Harvard
On Monday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) opened a Title VI compliance review into whether Harvard discriminates on the basis of national origin through financial aid funded by China-based sources.
The DOJ said Harvard “appears to be accepting” foreign funds restricted to financial aid programs “with preference given to students from particular countries,” potentially disadvantaging students of other national origins, including U.S. citizens. It emphasized that it has “not reached any conclusions” about whether Harvard violated federal law.
The review followed an audit of Harvard’s foreign-funding disclosures. According to the DOJ, Harvard has disclosed nearly $4.5 billion from foreign sources — more than any other U.S. university — including more than $630 million from China-based sources. Based on the federal government’s publicly available Section 117 foreign-funding dashboard, those figures reflect Harvard’s reported foreign gifts and contracts from 1986 to the present.
A Crimson analysis of the underlying disclosures found that about $36.8 million in gifts from China- and Hong Kong-linked sources carried some form of geographic or nationality-based financial aid preference. Of that amount, only about $4 million explicitly identified Chinese or Hong Kong students as preferred recipients; most of the remainder did not specify which country’s students were preferred.
The DOJ requested records concerning what it calls “Chinese Restricted Funds,” including communications about their use and student-level data on aid recipients, such as names, citizenship status, countries of origin, Social Security and passport numbers, and aid amounts. Harvard was instructed to respond by July 31.
A Harvard spokesperson said the University is reviewing the DOJ’s letter and will engage with the government.
Harvard College Names Thomas Dingman Interim Freshman Dean as FAS Restructuring Begins
Harvard College named Thomas Dingman (AB ’67, EdM ’73) interim dean of freshmen as it begins implementing its restructuring — part of the broader Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) restructuring intended to address a longstanding structural (annual) deficit of more than $350 million.
Dingman served as dean of freshmen for 13 years before retiring in 2018, when Harvard eliminated the standalone Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO) and folded its responsibilities into the Dean of Students Office. The revived FDO will coordinate programming, spaces, and support for first-year students. Dingman will lead it while the College reviews its first-year resources and conducts a nationwide search for a permanent dean beginning this fall.
Also as part of the restructuring, FAS began the first of several planned waves of layoffs and other staff changes. A limited number of department and center administrative leaders were told their positions would be eliminated in mid-September, while others were offered revised roles. The restructuring could ultimately result in layoffs for up to 25% of FAS staff and will consolidate some administrative support across groups of departments and centers.
Garber Discusses Faculty Tenure, AI and the Future of U.S. Research
In a conversation with former Harvard Corporation member David Rubenstein at the Economic Club of Washington, President Alan Garber (AB ’76, PhD ‘82) fielded questions on several issues facing Harvard and higher education.
In response to Rubenstein’s question of why Harvard can’t just “get rid of tenure and just treat academics like we treat other people,” Garber emphasized that “tenure was created principally as a way to protect faculty who expressed politically unpopular opinions,” and “we should never forget that’s the reason it was created.”
Garber also said Harvard should integrate artificial intelligence into research and teaching, arguing that scholars in many scientific and quantitative fields can no longer remain at the forefront without using it. He added that some courses should assess how well students work with AI, because the technology is already part of professional practice.
On the shifting funding relationship between research universities and the federal government, Garber said universities are pursuing philanthropy, corporate partnerships, and cost reductions, but that “nobody can replace the federal government.”
Garber said the trend of scientists and researchers leaving the United States for countries such as China wasn’t a significant issue for Harvard. He said he was more concerned about the declining flow of international talent into the country, particularly as new visa restrictions may make it harder for international students and researchers to remain in the U.S.
Harvard Professors, Alumni, Teaching Hospitals, and More File Amicus Briefs Supporting University’s Position in Federal Funding Lawsuit Appeal
The filings came from groups including nearly 11,000 Harvard alumni; 36 colleges and universities (including all Ivies, Caltech, MIT, and Stanford); 20 states and the District of Columbia; Harvard professor Benjamin Eidelson; and a consortium of Boston-area teaching hospitals (including Harvard-affiliated hospitals).
Hillel International also filed an amicus brief arguing that, while antisemitism at Harvard remains a serious concern, the University’s recent reforms show it is “on the right track” and that cutting billions of dollars in research funding “do[es] not help Jewish students or improve the campus climate.”
Hours later, however, Hillel International said it would withdraw the brief, stating that it had been filed “without having gone through our internal review process.” Harvard Hillel, which is wholly independent of Hillel International, was not involved in either the submission or withdrawal of the brief.
Separate from this federal funding case, the DOJ filed a lawsuit in March 2026 alleging that the University violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to protect Jewish and Israeli students from antisemitic harassment and discrimination and by selectively enforcing campus rules.. Harvard has moved to dismiss that case.
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