One Story to Read Todayhighlights a single newly published—or newly relevant—Atlantic story that’s worth your time.
“Without meaningful grades, the most ambitious students have no straightforward way to stand out,” Rose Horowitz writes. “And when straight A’s are the norm, the prospect of getting even a single B can become terrifying.”
During their final meeting of the spring 2024 semester, after an academic year marked by controversies, infighting, and the defenestration of the university president, Harvard’s faculty burst out laughing. As was tradition, the then-dean of Harvard College, Rakesh Khurana, had been providing updates on the graduating class. When he got to GPA, Khurana couldn’t help but chuckle at how ludicrously high it was: about 3.8 on average. The rest of the room soon joined in, according to a professor present at the meeting.
They were cracking up not simply because grades had gotten so high but because they knew just how little students were doing to earn them.
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