Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted 458–201 on May 20, 2026, to cap A grades in undergraduate courses at 20 percent of enrolled students per class, beginning fall 2027. Context: in the 2024–25 academic year, 66 percent of Harvard undergraduates received A grades and 84 percent received an A or A-minus. The cap will be reassessed after three years.

Harvard's faculty voted to put hard limits on A grades on May 20, 2026—making it the first Ivy League school to formally restrict grade distribution at this level.

The move comes after years of data showing that A's had become so common at elite universities that the grade was losing its ability to differentiate students. For Harvard specifically, the numbers were striking: more than two-thirds of undergrads earning the top mark in a system that theoretically spans A through F.1

What the Faculty Approved

The proposal had three parts. The faculty voted on all three.

Plank 1 — The grade cap: Passed 458 to 201 (69.5 percent). Beginning fall 2027, each undergraduate course may award A grades to no more than 20 percent of enrolled students. Professors may give up to four additional A's beyond that threshold—a cushion designed to keep small seminars workable.

Plank 2 — Honors and awards: Passed 498 to 157 (76 percent). Harvard will replace GPA with average course percentile rankings when determining eligibility for internal academic honors and awards. This separates a student's standing from the raw letter grade, which can vary widely across departments.

Plank 3 — Opt-out provision: Failed 292 to 364. A measure that would have let courses using alternative grading frameworks—such as satisfactory/unsatisfactory—petition out of the cap was voted down. The policy applies across the board.1

Why Grade Inflation Matters at Selective Schools

Grade inflation is not a new complaint. But at Harvard and schools like it, the numbers reached a point where admissions committees, graduate programs, and employers had effectively stopped using the transcript as a meaningful filter.

When 66 percent of students at one of the country's most selective universities earn top grades, the grade no longer signals much. A 3.9 GPA at Harvard could represent anything from near-perfect coursework to a solid middle-of-the-pack performance in an inflated department.

The companion measure—switching to course percentile rankings for internal awards—addresses this directly. If you ranked in the 85th percentile of your economics seminar, that's actionable information. If you got an A because 70 percent of the class also got A's, it's not.

Harvard isn't acting alone here. Yale has been working through its own grading reforms this year, and the push to make transcripts more meaningful has grown across selective institutions as test scores have returned to admissions requirements at Brown, Cornell, Stanford, and others.

What This Means If You're Applying to Harvard

The grade cap doesn't change Harvard's admissions criteria. What Harvard looks for in applicants is the same before and after this vote: strong academic preparation, intellectual curiosity, and evidence of serious achievement.

What it does signal: Harvard's faculty wants the academic culture to be more rigorous—and wants the transcript to show that. If you're building a profile for admission to an Ivy League school, this reinforces what selective schools have always valued: demonstrated mastery in hard courses, not just high grades in easy ones.

In a capped-grade environment, class rank and course-level percentile will carry more weight than raw GPA alone. When choosing courses, prioritize rigor over grade optimization—admissions readers have always been able to tell the difference.

What This Means If You're Already at Harvard

The policy takes effect in fall 2027 and does not retroactively change existing transcripts. If you're a current first-year or sophomore who will still be enrolled then, here's what to expect in practice:

  • Smaller seminars get a practical buffer (up to four additional A's), but competition for top grades will increase in larger lecture courses
  • Percentile rankings replace GPA for honors determinations starting with the same timeline
  • Grade curves in some departments may tighten before the formal start date as faculty adjust expectations

For context on what grades look like nationally, the average college GPA across all four-year institutions is roughly 3.15 on a 4.0 scale—a reminder of how far above average Harvard's historical distribution has run.

What to Watch For

Whether other selective schools follow Harvard's lead will depend on their own faculty governance and data. The April proposal that led to this vote moved through Harvard's faculty senate over several months. Similar efforts at other schools would likely take comparable time.

If you're still in high school preparing college applications, the most practical takeaway is this: the era of treating a 4.0 GPA as an unconditional signal of excellence may be ending at the schools where it mattered most. Rigor, transcript context, and your performance in the first semester of college will matter more than ever.

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Footnotes

  1. The Harvard Crimson. (2026, May 20). 70% of Faculty Vote to Overhaul Harvard Grading With A Cap. The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/5/20/fas-passes-a-grade-cap/ ↩ ↩2

  2. Inside Higher Ed. (2026, May 20). Harvard Will Cap A Grades. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/learning-assessment/2026/05/20/harvard-will-cap-grades ↩