From “The Perverse Consequences of the Easy A,” published last month in The Atlantic:
When everyone gets an A, an A starts to mean very little. The kind of student that gets admitted to Harvard (or any elite college) wants to compete. They’ve spent their lives clawing upward. Khurana, the former dean, observed that Harvard students want success to feel meaningful. Getting all A’s is necessary, but insufficient.
This has created what Claybaugh called a “shadow system of distinction.” Students now use extracurriculars to differentiate themselves from their peers.
I also cared more about extracurriculars than classes when I was in college, and I graduated back in 2008. Part of it was that the classes were often not all that great and the other stuff was fun, but—
The parallels to pass/fail Step 1 and pass/fail medical schools are obvious. I don’t work with enough students to know if the proposed psychological benefits entirely failed to materialize—certainly the world is complicated and students are wrestling with broader societal trends, the Covid aftermath, social media despair, etc—but the impact on CV buffing is undeniable.
Medical school hasn’t changed all that much over the past century, but it seems like the recent drift in the status quo also isn’t really working?
But even at Harvard, change won’t be easy:
Now that they know that making college easier doesn’t reduce stress, Harvard administrators are attempting to rediscover a morsel of lost wisdom from the ancient past: School should be about academics. In March, the faculty amended the student handbook to emphasize the highly novel point that students should prioritize their schoolwork.