Harvard gives A's to almost everyone now, not metaphorically, literally.

Nearly 80% of all grades awarded to Harvard undergraduates are now A's or A-minuses.

20 years ago, it was just 30%.

The effect has been counterintuitive. Students are working harder, stressing more, and learning less inside institutions where grades are becoming meaningless.

In Harvard's student handbook, an A represents, quote, extraordinary distinction, a nonsensical designation if almost every student makes the grade.

As one law school dean observed, it would be flippant to say Harvard grades are useless,

but they're almost useless. Harvard is proposing a major grading overhaul to fight grade inflation.

The plan would cap A grades at 20% of a class. But the

crisis begs a deeper question. What's in a grade? If the grading system is so broken and so

entrenched, is it finally time to abolish grades altogether.

Most of us grew up on grades. Get Good Grades was the mantra and the ticket to success

in adulthood. The A through F scale feels definitive and inevitable. But there's a catch. Grades

feel ancient and permanent,

but they're not. While Harvard adopted a marking system at its founding in the mid-1600s,

A's, B, C's, Ds, and Fs didn't really gain widespread use until the 1940s. Even in the 1970s, only 67% of primary and secondary schools in the United

States were using letter grades. The first university to award ranked markings was Yale in 1785.

University President Ezra Stiles evaluated 58 graduating seniors using four labels,

Optomy, Second Optimi, Inferiores, and Perjores, roughly translated, best, the second best,

the inferior, and the worst. 20 students were the best, 10 were officially the worst.

Student self-esteem was apparently not Yale's top priority. American Ivy Leagues eventually found

styles system undemocratic, and in the 19th century, Yale adopted the nation's first four-point numerical scale.

In general, universities loved grading by numbers. In 1832, a Harvard faculty report

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