A's Should Be Tough to Get

The article “A Fresh Look at Grading” (On the Campus, Nov. 13) discusses lowering  the percentage of A’s to 35 percent. How can an A mean anything if it’s so easy to get? When I was an undergraduate at MIT (’64 to ’68), an A meant “outstanding by comparison to one’s peers” because only 10 to 15 percent of the grades were A’s.  Grades in the math/stats program at Case Western in the ’80s were scaled similarly. Prospective employers knew that and took the competition at our undergraduate institution into account. Graduate schools knew that and also looked at our GRE scores. If A’s are so easy to get, prospective employers and graduate schools with any sense will also take that into account.