Harvard University is removing the “difficulty scores” from its course evaluation guide.

Given that the most common grade is an “A” at the institution, perhaps the administrators thought the information was now irrelevant.

The Q Guide, the College’s course and instructor evaluation system, will no longer publicly display course difficulty scores, Dean of Undergraduate Education Jay M. Harris wrote in an email to students Tuesday afternoon.

…The decision was officially made during a Faculty Council meeting on September 25, according to Secretary of the Faculty Susan L. Lively. She wrote in an email to The Crimson last week that the Faculty Council decided on the change last fall. At the time of her email, the College was in the process of implementing those changes, she wrote.

…Harris’ email said “these changes reflect the decisions of the Faculty Council that were intended to make the Q a more accurate, sophisticated, and helpful mechanism for learning about and choosing courses.”

Some members of the Faculty Council posited that the difficulty score was never a necessary component of the Q Guide and may have encouraged students to choose courses based on their rated difficulty instead of on other factors.

“[The difficulty score] could encourage students simply to use that criterion for choosing their courses,” said Classics professor Richard F. Thomas said in an interview prior to Harris’s announcement. “It could create an impulse in the instructor to make the course easier in order to attract students.”

Chinese History professor Mark C. Elliott added that he thinks most students and faculty members would agree that the difficult level of a course “is not really the most important thing about a class.”