I didn’t go to Harvard. I studied maths at Cambridge in the U.K. and grade inflation was definitely a topic there. The university felt that their purpose was to

I didn’t go to Harvard. I studied maths at Cambridge in the U.K. and grade inflation was definitely a topic there. The university felt that their purpose was to produce good researchers and grades (in the U.K. you get a ‘class’ for your degree – 1, 2:1, 2:2, or 3 – rather than a GPA/transcript) at the end of undergraduate degrees reflected how good a researcher the university thought you might make. In maths they would give about 30% of people a first (it was important to control this number as it roughly corresponded to the cutoff for doing the fourth year masters degree which was, of course, called part III), about 30% a 2:2 or 3rd (mostly 2:2s), and the rest a 2:1. In humanities subjects a far higher proportion would receive a 2:1 with a smaller percentage receiving firsts and a select few receiving ‘starred firsts’. The issue was basically that the university did not want to do grade inflation and students felt that they were ignoring the fact the the grades they chose had a large influence on the lives of the majority of students who did not go on to become researchers. Students felt disadvantaged compared to their peers at other universities where they felt they would more easily get higher grades (either due to a higher proportion set by the university or some sense of superior ability). I guess one big reason for feeling disadvantaged is not really knowing how employers work (or, more importantly, how good employers work). Lots of common seeming options claimed to be ‘institution blind’ in hiring new graduates which meant that they would look at the degree class and assume that a 1st class degree meant the same at any university and that a 2:1 was the minimum standard. This also meant totally absurd recruiting pipelines (because you can’t easily filter out applicants based on their CVs you need to add bullshit tests like ‘how many times can you click your mouse in a minute’ to reduce the size of the pool before interviewing). Obviously the trick would be to find the places that knew more about the system at Cambridge and not tipex that name off your CV, or especially those who would consider it a stronger signal than it should have been. But this also has disadvantages; it seems not great to end up at a company working with many people with a similar background. The other main point of contention I remember was whether it was easier to get more alphas (or good marks) by studying pure maths or applied maths. Perhaps a good thing about the system was that grades were not really assessed per-course and homework was not assessed so it was mostly designed to be pedagogical rather than doable without much imagination.