Grade inflation has been an enduring controversy at elite American institutions, with Wellesley College and Princeton University attempting to curtail the practice. And yet it seems to be going strong: A survey of the graduating senior class published in the Harvard Crimson revealed that the average self-reported GPA was 3.64, and more than half of the students reported a GPA above 3.67, the cutoff for an A minus average.
Asked if they thought grade inflation was a problem at Harvard, 72% said it wasn’t a problem at all, or was not much of a problem.
Here’s the GPA distribution among the students—representing about half of the graduating class—that responded to the survey, sorted by gender, race, and student type:
The survey had some other interesting data as well. The proportion of graduates heading into consulting and finance continues to recover, albeit slowly, from post-financial crisis lows:
Most see those professions as a stepping stone rather than a career. A mere 0.55% of graduates who will be working as consultants next year expect to be doing so in a decade. For finance, the number is a slightly higher 4.7%.
That recovery might not last forever, as 47% of computer science majors reported starting salaries north of of $110,000. That might explain, in part, why introductory computer science has become the most popular class at the school.