Tightening

Blog readers will know that Harvard and other universities have become concerned about grade inflation and have begun to tighten standards. That trend seems to be coming to UCLA, at least in some departments. From the Daily Bruin:

The math department’s new grading policy is meant to make grading more equitable across different lectures of the same courses. But some students say it closely resembles a quota system – which the department bans.

The department will now determine grade cutoffs for each course – or percentage values corresponding to each letter grade – at the end of each quarter. These cutoffs will apply to every lecture for a given course – a change from previous quarters, in which professors decided grade cutoffs for their individual classes. This change aims to address grading inequities across lectures for the same course, said Marcus Roper, the undergraduate vice chair of the mathematics department...

The department will give professors an expected range of each letter grade to give out, Roper said. However, professors can choose to assign more or less of a grade within that range based on their evaluation of a class’s engagement and overall performance, he added...

Full story at https://dailybruin.com/2026/02/24/math-department-standardizes-grade-cutoffs-across-lectures-to-address-inequities.