Harvard University recently graduated 84 percent of its seniors with honors. Harvard's average grade is now an A- to B+. At a panel discussing inflated grades, a Harvard senior commented, "In some departments, 'A' stands for 'average.' " 36 percent of Cornell's grades are now A's, a rate that has doubled from 1965 to 1993. The rate at which Cornell offers C grades dropped over the same period from 40 percent to 12 percent. Princeton offers A grades to over 41 percent of its students. At Brown University, anything below a C grade is not entered on student transcripts. "When you send in your résumé, do you put down all the jobs you applied for and didn't get?" asks Dean Sheila Blumstein in defending the policy. "A Brown transcript is a record of a student's academic accomplishments."

[Ed.: In giving in to pressure to inflate grades, Harvard political scientist Harvey Mansfield supplied students with two grades: one of which went on their transcript, and the other of which he thought they really deserved.]

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