Well, someone has finally done it. And, of course, it was Harvard. On Tuesday, America’s flagship university announced a thorough overhaul of its grading system in an effort to reduce faculty guilt over grade inflation. According to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust, “for far too long, higher education has been dominated by a paradigm that does not reflect how faculty truly feel about the grades they award. It’s time for substantive change. Toward that end, I am proud to share with you the new Harvard University Grading Scale (HUGS). I hope it exerts a positive influence on the policies of our peer institutions around the country. Thank you.”
The Scale, presented below, will be implemented in the Fall 2018 semester.
A+ Satisfactory, but less than outstanding
A You know you’re capable of better
A- The minus should tell you something: stop skating through life
B+ Unambiguously disappointing
B Not only disappointing, your work is also boring
B- Have you no pride?
C+ This is beyond embarrassing
C Total disaster
C- You should be beaten
D+ You should be put in prison, and then beaten
D Don’t have children
D- Don’t even adopt children
F Your parents should not have had children
INC You’ve never committed to anything in your life; why start now?
AUDIT Whatever. But seriously, why even bother?
President Faust dismissed rumors that the timing of the HUGS announcement was an attempt by Harvard to retake the high ground among Ivy League institutions after its second consecutive loss to Yale in THE GAME on November 18th.