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Harvard University voted (reported 2026-05-22) to limit A grades in undergraduate…

2026-05-22 · 17:19 UTC ·@AndrewYNg ·2 min read

Brief

Andrew Ng criticizes Harvard University's May 22, 2026 decision to cap A grades at roughly 20% of undergraduates, calling it counter to his educational philosophy of maximizing student success. He acknowledges grade inflation as a real problem but contends the remedy should be intensive support and practice-based learning rather than enforced grade scarcity. Drawing on his work at DeepLearningAI and his early Stanford Coursera courses, Ng emphasizes unlimited retries on graded work and the use of practice problems and labs designed to teach, not just assess. He also argues GPA is an unreliable hiring signal—interviews and practical screening are superior—while conceding that high-quality standardized tests (SAT, ACT, GRE, TOEFL) serve legitimate assessment roles for admissions even if they are not his primary focus.

Why it matters

Harvard University voted (reported 2026-05-22) to limit A grades in undergraduate classes to about 20% of the class; the administration acted despite objections from a large fraction of the student body.

Key details

  • Andrew Ng opposes the cap, arguing education should aim to help 100% of learners succeed rather than artificially limit top grades; he favors high standards plus strong student support.
  • Ng describes his pedagogical practice at DeepLearningAI and in his early Stanford Coursera courses: unlimited retries on graded assignments and designing “Practice Problems” and “Practice Labs” to teach rather than merely assess.
  • Ng contends GPA is not a crucial hiring signal—screening and interviews provide better measures of skill—and while he accepts value in high-quality standardized tests (SAT, ACT, GRE, TOEFL), rigorous assessment is a lesser priority for his educational products.
Source evidence

Harvard University just voted to limit the number of A grades given in undergraduate classes to about 20% of the class. I’m not in favor of this. It deeply runs counter to how I believe education should be. We should hold a high bar, but also work mightily to support the success of 100% of learners, rather than a fraction.

Harvard’s administration took this step — over the objections of a large fraction of the student body — to counter grade inflation. Grade inflation is real: Many universities have been awarding A and B grades to ever larger fractions of students, and this has caused grade point averages (GPAs) to become less useful as signals of student skill. At the same time, we want students to succeed. The heart of the question is the role of educational institutions. Should our goal be:
- To help students succeed?
- To judge students?

Both of these have value. But my focus when working in education is almost entirely helping students succeed.

To me, it is clear that many people want to learn, to be empowered, to build skills that let them do new things! This is what we focus on at DeepLearningAI. This philosophy is also why my online courses (going back to my early online Stanford courses on Coursera) permitted an unlimited number of retries for graded assignments.

I believe in letting — and even encouraging — someone to redo something until they succeed. This is as opposed to standing in judgement of the fact they didn’t get it right the first time. Further, I want homework assignments to be designed primarily to help people practice and learn, rather than to judge their skill level. This is why I prefer to create “Practice Problems” and “Practice Labs” — questions that, when you think through them, help you to gain practice and reinforce what you know. As opposed to “Assessment Problems” designed primarily to judge skill.

But won’t Harvard’s move make GPAs more meaningful and help prospective employers identify strong candidates? Having hired a large number of people from Harvard and other institutions, I can say confidently that GPA is not an important signal. We have screening and interviewing processes that give far more accurate ways to figure out if someone is truly skilled. I do not need a wider spread in applicant GPA scores to figure out who's really good!

To be clear, there is also value in assessment. Even though standardized testing is much hated, high-quality tests like the SAT, ACT, GRE, TOEFL, etc. provide objective measures of ability in a domain. I find that most people want to learn and succeed. There are also people who want rigorous assessment (for example, to apply for school admissions), but this is a lesser need, and is not my focus when building educational products.

Harvard is often described as an “elite” educational institution. There are two ways to be elite: One option involves limiting enrollments, and then even among admitted students, cap the number of people that do well at 20%. I would rather pursue a different path: Set a high bar and teach elite, cutting-edge skills, but strive relentlessly to help everyone succeed. This way, eliteness is defined not by excluding people but by helping as many people as possible to be excellent.

[Original text: The Batch newsletter]