In Defense of ‘Impostor Syndrome’

By Noah Rothman

Wednesday, October 29, 2025

 

If the grade-inflation scandal isn’t enough to eradicate whatever vestiges remain of Harvard University’s reputation as an institution dedicated to academic excellence, I don’t know what will.

 

In a 25-page report released on Monday, Harvard’s Office of Undergraduate Education revealed that a staggering 60 percent of the grades handed to undergraduates were As. Ten years ago, it was just 40 percent. Twenty years ago, fewer than 25 percent of undergraduates earned As.

 

The Harvard report’s findings dovetail with those uncovered by the New York Times in October. Harvard students often don’t bother to show up for class, the Times noted. When they do, “they are focused on their devices” and are “reluctant to speak out” lest they encourage dissent from their peers and professors. They have often “not read enough of the homework to make a meaningful contribution” anyway. And yet, students “coast through” with great grades. The result is a student body “stuck in ideological bubbles, unwilling or unable to engage with challenging ideas.”

 

As ever, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.

 

Not only is this campaign of grade inflation an effort by faculty to ensure that their courses are well attended, thereby justifying their roles, it is also an outgrowth of concern for students’ mental well-being. “Administrators have also told professors to consider students who struggle with ‘imposter syndrome’ or personal hardships when evaluating performance,” the New York Post reported. If that’s true, Harvard has compounded this scandal with tragedy.

 

“Imposter syndrome” is the name that therapy culture has given to the unremarkable sensation of discomfort one experiences when one perceives oneself to be in rarified company. It’s the self-consciousness that accompanies genuine esteem for one’s associates and the institutions to which they are in proximity.

 

It can manifest in unhealthy ways, but it’s not something to be ashamed of, much less mitigated by the relaxation of the standards to which “imposter syndrome” sufferers know they must aspire. It can be a driving force, a motivating factor that compels the afflicted to redouble their efforts and match their peers’ capabilities. That effort alone contributes to students’ sense of earned success. It is the only remedy to the sense of inadequacy this “syndrome” describes. And, in the aggregate, that remedy — struggle and perseverance in pursuit of a goal — contributes to innovation, achievement, productivity, and, ultimately, economic growth.

 

To lower standards only to shield students from the modest self-doubt they associate with being surrounded by high achievers robs them of the chance to earn their position — not only in the minds of their fellow students and instructors but in their own estimation of themselves. If the “misalignment between the grades awarded and the quality of student work,” according to the Harvard report, is designed to protect students’ fragile egos, it will have the opposite effect. The “impostor syndrome” that dogged them in Harvard will now follow them through the rest of their lives as they navigate the world with an asterisk next to their undergraduate degrees.

 

Discomfort in lofty, exclusive settings makes the discomforted into strivers. Either those who encounter it will rise to the challenge, or they will conclude with all requisite evidence that they should take another path. Taking that experience away from students robs them of the inputs they would otherwise use to make informed decisions about the trajectory their lives should take. Filing down life’s sharp edges does them no favors. And calling it “imposter syndrome” doesn’t help matters, either. Maybe if we called it what it was — embarrassment — our highly therapeutic culture would recognize that it is not an affliction, and those who experience it cannot and should not be spared from it.