4 ms·

I studied engineering in Sweden. One of our courses had an 80% failure rate. A world of difference from Harvard where the average grade is A.

consp 4mo ago
I'm glad one of my old profs in the Netherlands refused to bend and was fine with arguing his 40 percent first pass numbers (the target was 60 for some reason, hint: money). If everyone is exceptional, nobody is.
- kazen44 4mo ago
  also, in my experience high grades are rare in the netherlands at all education levels. I did both mbo and hbo levels, and on both levels getting a "A" (10/10 or 9/10) was a very uncommon thing.
- drnick1 4mo ago
  The point is that Harvard kids are all more or less exceptional. Harvard and other Ivy Leagues attract the best students in the world, not only mostly local talent like European schools. European universities are most similar to state school systems in many regards.
  - sitzkrieg 4mo ago
    you misspelled wealthy
rendall 4mo ago
Apparently Harvard is introducing a 20% cap (plus change) on As. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/03/plan-to-rein-in-inflated-grading-explained/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/03/plan-to-rein-... No cap on A minuses though.
- Gibbon1 4mo ago
  Looked at my collage that I went to 40 years ago. Back then they graded on a curve. Looking student grades for 2025. A's 30% B's 45% 2 out of 254 got an A+ I look at grade inflation still being a problem at elite schools and shake my head.
vasco 4mo ago
Similar experience on differential calculus courses in an engineering university in portugal. Some people would try a couple of times and then some even switch university to an easier one so they could actually get a degree, or outright give up. I remember 210 guys and 10 girls started my course. Only about 25 guys and 5 girls finished the 5 year degree "on time" - most people don't give up but they will get delayed by a semester up to a year or two due to failing some classes on the first try.
PeterStuer 4mo ago
First math exam at uni just 6 out of 129 students passed.
delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago
I study CS at Helsinki. In most courses maybe 40% who enrolled pass. You can re-do the exam twice, but they are genuinely hard. Pretty much all courses have now moved to paper and pen -exams. I absolutely love it. We do not have beer and wine at the canteen though :cry: But maybe that’s good because we would just drink ourselves to death.
zfnmxt 4mo ago
This is not a good comparison. All the students at Harvard are all selected from the tail end of the distribution and are very capable. The students at Scandinavian universities are selected to a degree, but represent a far broader range of the distribution and correspondingly there's a broader range of exam results. Of course, other things are at play here (there is grade inflation at Harvard, the schools obviously operate differently, student disposition is (very) different (e.g., Scandinavian students are far less likely to care a lot about their grades), etc) but students from Harvard would do well at your university in Sweden. Also, the level of the material at Harvard is likely higher. This is my experience from attending an Ivy undergrad and then doing graduate school in Scandinavia. I actually left my MSc program in Scandinavia because I thought the level of the courses was too low. (I ultimately returned for the PhD---I found the profs and researchers in Scandinavia to be first class/excellent. Much better than I ever will be.)
- fastasucan 4mo ago
  >The students at Scandinavian universities are selected to a degree, but represent a far broader range of the distribution and correspondingly there's a broader range of exam results. I disagree with that, it is common knowledge that these students will get A's if they do a semester in the US.
  - zfnmxt 4mo ago
    From my experience in both systems, I think some of the students of course would (the best students in Scandinavia are just as good as the best students anywhere else), but certainly not all of them. And the degree of grade inflation as well as the level of courses and course difficulty is not only highly variable by school but also by individual instances of courses, so it's pretty hard to make broad claims regardless. I should also note I've taken courses in Europe where the failure rate was like 60%, but I've also taken courses where just about every student got (the equivalent of) an A. Easy grading occurs in Euroland as well. Or other phenomenona, like niche courses that tend to only attract talented, interested students. P.S. The "common" in "common knowledge" is not some claim of accuracy/correctness and does not lend credence to your point---a lot of things that are common knowledge are false! (I bet most things that fall under that description are false to a degree, or at least in terms of each individuals' average understanding.) P.P.S. Failure in the US system and the European systems are very different things. In most US schools, failing is permanently recorded on your transcript and cannot be erased. You also cannot retake an exam you've failed. You just get the one shot. So the cost of failure in the US is much higher than in Europe, where it's absolutely routine. The US system also samples students more often, with course grades consisting of many homeworks, multiple exams, etc---this gives an early signal to students doing poorly they need to get their shit together and also prevents students from falling behind. In Europe it's often just a single final exam, which may be a whole of 10-15 minutes if it's an oral exam, and you may be permitted to take the exam even if you haven't really been doing the work (often you need some perfunctory thing like 50% of the points from the homework to qualify). All these factors are also responsible for high European failure rates---it's definitely not just the Americans going easy.
deleted 4mo ago
[deleted]

consp 4mo ago

I'm glad one of my old profs in the Netherlands refused to bend and was fine with arguing his 40 percent first pass numbers (the target was 60 for some reason, hint: money). If everyone is exceptional, nobody is.

kazen44 4mo ago
also, in my experience high grades are rare in the netherlands at all education levels. I did both mbo and hbo levels, and on both levels getting a "A" (10/10 or 9/10) was a very uncommon thing.
drnick1 4mo ago
The point is that Harvard kids are all more or less exceptional. Harvard and other Ivy Leagues attract the best students in the world, not only mostly local talent like European schools. European universities are most similar to state school systems in many regards.
- sitzkrieg 4mo ago
  you misspelled wealthy

rendall 4mo ago

Apparently Harvard is introducing a 20% cap (plus change) on As. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/03/plan-to-rein-in-inflated-grading-explained/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2026/03/plan-to-rein-... No cap on A minuses though.

Gibbon1 4mo ago
Looked at my collage that I went to 40 years ago. Back then they graded on a curve. Looking student grades for 2025. A's 30% B's 45% 2 out of 254 got an A+ I look at grade inflation still being a problem at elite schools and shake my head.

vasco 4mo ago

Similar experience on differential calculus courses in an engineering university in portugal. Some people would try a couple of times and then some even switch university to an easier one so they could actually get a degree, or outright give up. I remember 210 guys and 10 girls started my course. Only about 25 guys and 5 girls finished the 5 year degree "on time" - most people don't give up but they will get delayed by a semester up to a year or two due to failing some classes on the first try.

PeterStuer 4mo ago

First math exam at uni just 6 out of 129 students passed.

delis-thumbs-7e 4mo ago

I study CS at Helsinki. In most courses maybe 40% who enrolled pass. You can re-do the exam twice, but they are genuinely hard. Pretty much all courses have now moved to paper and pen -exams. I absolutely love it. We do not have beer and wine at the canteen though :cry: But maybe that’s good because we would just drink ourselves to death.

zfnmxt 4mo ago

This is not a good comparison. All the students at Harvard are all selected from the tail end of the distribution and are very capable. The students at Scandinavian universities are selected to a degree, but represent a far broader range of the distribution and correspondingly there's a broader range of exam results. Of course, other things are at play here (there is grade inflation at Harvard, the schools obviously operate differently, student disposition is (very) different (e.g., Scandinavian students are far less likely to care a lot about their grades), etc) but students from Harvard would do well at your university in Sweden. Also, the level of the material at Harvard is likely higher. This is my experience from attending an Ivy undergrad and then doing graduate school in Scandinavia. I actually left my MSc program in Scandinavia because I thought the level of the courses was too low. (I ultimately returned for the PhD---I found the profs and researchers in Scandinavia to be first class/excellent. Much better than I ever will be.)

fastasucan 4mo ago
>The students at Scandinavian universities are selected to a degree, but represent a far broader range of the distribution and correspondingly there's a broader range of exam results. I disagree with that, it is common knowledge that these students will get A's if they do a semester in the US.
- zfnmxt 4mo ago
  From my experience in both systems, I think some of the students of course would (the best students in Scandinavia are just as good as the best students anywhere else), but certainly not all of them. And the degree of grade inflation as well as the level of courses and course difficulty is not only highly variable by school but also by individual instances of courses, so it's pretty hard to make broad claims regardless. I should also note I've taken courses in Europe where the failure rate was like 60%, but I've also taken courses where just about every student got (the equivalent of) an A. Easy grading occurs in Euroland as well. Or other phenomenona, like niche courses that tend to only attract talented, interested students. P.S. The "common" in "common knowledge" is not some claim of accuracy/correctness and does not lend credence to your point---a lot of things that are common knowledge are false! (I bet most things that fall under that description are false to a degree, or at least in terms of each individuals' average understanding.) P.P.S. Failure in the US system and the European systems are very different things. In most US schools, failing is permanently recorded on your transcript and cannot be erased. You also cannot retake an exam you've failed. You just get the one shot. So the cost of failure in the US is much higher than in Europe, where it's absolutely routine. The US system also samples students more often, with course grades consisting of many homeworks, multiple exams, etc---this gives an early signal to students doing poorly they need to get their shit together and also prevents students from falling behind. In Europe it's often just a single final exam, which may be a whole of 10-15 minutes if it's an oral exam, and you may be permitted to take the exam even if you haven't really been doing the work (often you need some perfunctory thing like 50% of the points from the homework to qualify). All these factors are also responsible for high European failure rates---it's definitely not just the Americans going easy.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]