142 - Please Harvard! Don't get it wrong this time!! What's wrong with a cap on A's - a discussion with Dr. Stephanie Valentine
About this episode
The episode discusses Harvard's proposed grading policy and its implications on student wellbeing and academic integrity with Dr. Stephanie Valentine.
In this follow-up to their earlier conversation about Harvard and “too many A’s,” Sharona and Boz welcome back Dr. Stephanie Valentine to unpack Harvard’s proposed new grading policy, which would cap the number of A grades in each class and layer course-based ranking on top of an already troubled system. Drawing on Stephanie’s powerful “Points Are Insidious” manifesto and her experience teaching high-achieving, perfectionistic students, the episode explores how policies built to force distinction can intensify anxiety, undermine risk-taking, discourage collaboration, and ultimately work against the very innovation and intellectual curiosity elite institutions claim to value. Together, the three of them critique the mathematical and ethical flaws of ranking students against one another, examine the gap between top-down policy and classroom reality, and wrestle with what it would mean for faculty to live with integrity under a policy like this—while also reaffirming that the real alternative is not inflated or meaningless grades, but grading systems genuinely grounded in learning, growth, and student wellbeing. Links Please note - any books linked here are likely Amazon Associates…
More episodes of The Grading Podcast
- 145 - The Wrap-Up Dilemma: Turning Evidence into a Final Grade with Dr. Tim Monk
- 144 - Second-Order Change: Why Grading Reform Requires Leadership, Not Just Teachers
- 143 - Barrier or Breakthrough? Course Coordination and the Future of Grading with Deb Carney
- 141 - The Ungrading Spectrum: From Compliance to Student Ownership
- 140 - Beyond Labels: Specifications, Standards and Designing Better Grading - with Adriana Streifer
- 139 - Using Your Values to Design Your Grading with Dr. Lindsay Masland
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