A’s and B’s: The True Story Behind The Letter Grades

Formal education has been part of human life for thousands of years. All ancient civilizations like Ancient Indian, Greek and Chinese Civilisations had some level of education passed down through the generations. However, there is no direct evidence of the use of grades for evaluation.

Though many schools started implementing formal evaluation systems for students, before 1897, it was this year that Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts emerged with the first true example of the letter-grade system. However, in contrast to the current letter grading system, the Mount Holyoke grading system used an A–E system. And there was no letter F grade in their system. Mount Holyoke’s letter grade scale had many other differences.

In the Mount Holyoke system,

• An A was awarded on a 5-point scale and represented grades of 95 to 100,
• While B and C grades were awarded on a 10-point scale.
• A letter grade of D was awarded to students who scored only a 75—nothing higher and nothing lower
• Anything lower than 75 was awarded an E, which was a failing grade.

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Evolution of Academic Letter Grading Scale

In 1898, this letter grading system was restructured. Now, the A–E letter grading system scale was extended to F by the Mount Holyoke administration and F stood for failure. This was implemented just one year after the Mount Holyoke scale was introduced. So, following this, even other letters were introduced with revisions in point grading to bring more symmetry to the grading scale. In the updated version of the letter grading system, each letter grade now denoted a five-point scale.

• The letter grade A stood for 95 to 100,
• The letter grade B stood for 90 to 94,
• The letter grade C stood for 85 to 89,
• The letter grade D stood for 80 to 84,
• and the letter grade E represented scores from 75 to 79.
• Anything lower than 75 was awarded a letter grade of F, which was for failure.

In the early years of the 20th century, formal letter grading systems were adopted far and wide in the educational system of the United States. But, the standardized versions needed to be not in use across the board. However, most public schools adopted this formal grading system for their students’ evaluation. It became essential as there was a massive transformation taking place in the system itself. Laws were being implemented at this time, and children were required to attend schools. This meant an increasing number of students were enrolling for formal education now. Also, a huge migration was happening this time around, so the number increased from what was anticipated. This forced schools to adopt a formal way to keep track of student records and also their educational progress evaluations. This was one reason that schools started implementing standardized grading systems more aggressively, both letters and number grades. This was easy to evaluate and grade students on a fixed set of standard benchmarks.

By the year 1930, the letter E started disappearing from the grading system. Schools and colleges were slowly stopping the use of E as a grading system, though the exact date when it started is not known. As per many sources, colleges decided to remove E from the grading scale because there was a concern over students seeing the letter grade E thought it stood for excellent. However, E was removed even though the F continued to be a part of the grading scale and stood for failing or failure, and it continued to be there in the time since.

Today, Letter Grading Followed Across Academic Levels

Starting from the 1940s till now, letter grades have become a part and parcel of academic grading systems across the country. It was adopted almost everywhere across the nation. Now, letter E was completely abandoned by colleges and universities and it was no more a part of the grading scale. It became the most widely used form of academic grading system by the 1940s. It was used along with the 4.0 scale and the number grading system which is the grades from 0 to 100. Almost all levels of academic institutes from elementary, middle, and high school to colleges and universities implemented this system. The system is in use even today and would expect more revisions over time to create a more integrated number grading scale. Though the grading system has many forms and variations today, the basic format remains the same to date, which introduces curved grades and cohort grading, as per the system followed by the school.