” And who would graduate from Harvard today if they were judged by these rules”
None : )
Yes, and education in America, inlc. the “higher” kind,is not what it was. http://www.astorehouseofknowledge.info/Education_in_the_United_States
As re Harvard,
In 2001, Harvard was focused upon as part of a controversy in which high, but allegedly unwarranted, GPA’s (Grade Point Averages) were awarded. While in 1940 C-minus was the most common GPA at Harvard, and in 1955 only 15 percent of undergraduates had a GPA of B-plus or higher, in the year 2000, 50% in of all the grades given were As or A-minuses, with just six percent being C-pluses or lower. More than 90 percent of the class of 2001 had earned grade-point averages of B-minus or higher.
Observers point out that entering freshmen typically have straight-A averages in high school, SAT scores near 800 in all fields, and have demonstrated an unusual ability to engage in serious study. The days when Harvard included many “Gentleman C” students there for social activities are long gone.
In a Harvard Crimson article, noted conservative Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield contended that “Grade inflation got started … when professors raised the grades of students protesting the war in Vietnam...” “At that time, too, white professors, imbibing the spirit of the new policies of affirmative action, stopped giving low grades to black students, and to justify or conceal this, also stopped giving low grades to white students.” The problem was essentially seen as the predominance of the notion of self-esteem, “in which the purpose of education is to make students feel capable and ‘empowered,’ and professors should hesitate to pass judgment on what students have learned.” Such assertions resulted in no small controversy. http://www.conservapedia.com/Harvard_University#High_grades