This is a good example of the promise of distributed learning where "admissions" is based on progressively better performance. In a world where anyone can take an intro Harvard class online and their performance(s) earn them more access (e.g. actually physical enrollment/credits --things that use real resources), grade inflation would make such a system fail.

But until then, I think there's a general feeling that the admissions process accepts those who basically only do "A" work, and subsequent grading within the school follows as such. Brown does P/F and Yale Law School omits grading too.

One of the things that bothers me about online newspapers as a medium is that you don't get the same cues that this is in the "Opinion" section of the paper that you'd get from a dead-tree newspaper.

It would have been more apparent that this was satirical for someone scanning if it had been surrounded by other Opinion articles on a page, and/or had a large political cartoon nearby. But these don't translate well to a deep link on a newspaper's website.

After reading this and the linked Boston Globe article, I had to come back to this page and look for "Opinion" (and found it in the URL before I found it on the web page itself).