The Ease score

Ease combines three parts, each turned into a 0–1 rank against the other Gen Eds, where 1 means lightest.

Ease = 100 × (wW × W + wC × C + wS × S)

• W is workload from Q Guide hours (step 1).
• C is what students say in comments (step 2).
• S is the load in the newest syllabus (step 3).

The syllabus weight (wS) is set first. The syllabus is the only part that looks ahead. When a course gets harder, it shows up in the syllabus a term or more before it shows up in the Q Guide, so a heavy syllabus counts more than a light one.

The rest is split 65 to 35 between workload and comments (wW and wC). If a course has fewer than 5 weighted comments, workload takes all of it. For example, Happiness has a heavy Fall 2026 syllabus, so its score is 50% syllabus, about 32% workload and 18% comments. A course with no usable syllabus is 65% workload and 35% comments. Each course's mix is shown in its details. Courses with no Q data get no Ease score.

Step 1: workload (W)

Compare each term with that term's average. Reported Gen Ed hours rose a lot between 2023 and 2026, so a course's hours in a term are divided by the average across all Gen Eds that term:

relative hours (r) = course hours per week ÷ Gen Ed average that term

Count recent terms more. Each term is weighted by its number of responses, halved for every year of age (two terms) before Spring 2026:

weight (w) = responses × 0.5 ^ (terms before Spring 2026 ÷ 2)

Pull small or old samples toward the average. The weighted average is blended with 15 imaginary responses at exactly the Gen Ed average (r = 1):

R = (Σ w × r + 15) ÷ (Σ w + 15)

A course with hundreds of recent responses barely moves. A course with 7 responses, or only 2023 data, moves most of the way to average.

Show it in hours. The "Hrs/week" on each card is R × , the average of the last two terms, so every course is on today's scale.

Rank it. W is the share of Gen Eds with Q data whose R is higher, with ties counted as half. "Lighter than 80% of Gen Eds" means W = 0.80.

Step 2: comments (C)

Each answer to "What would you like to tell future students?" is checked for phrases. A comment counts as positive if it says any of the following and doesn't also complain:

• Easy: gem, easy class or course, pretty easy, light or low workload, not much work.
• Kind staff: kind, nice, sweet, caring, cares about students, supportive, approachable, understanding, accommodating, friendly, patient.
• Lenient: lenient, generous or fair grading, easy grader, extensions, flexible, forgiving, drops the lowest grade, extra credit.
• Chill: chill, relaxed, laid-back, low-stress, low-key, stress-free, easygoing.

A comment counts as negative if it mentions a lot of work, a heavy workload, time-consuming or very hard work, harsh, strict or nitpicky grading, difficult exams, or rude, unhelpful or inflexible staff. Negated praise such as "not a gem" or "wasn't very chill" also counts as negative.

Counts use the same age discount as step 1, so 2023 comments count about a sixth as much as Spring 2026 ones.

comment signal = (positive comments − negative comments) ÷ all comments

C is the share of Gen Eds with a lower signal. It is used only when the weighted comment count is at least 5. Fall 2025 reports have no published comments, so they don't count here. "Nice" and similar words sometimes describe the course rather than the staff; either way they count as positive.

Step 3: syllabus (S)

For each course, the newest syllabus on Harvard's Syllabus Explorer was read and scored with fixed points:

S is the share of current syllabi with more points. A syllabus is tagged "Heavy syllabus", and gets the extra weight, only when it's well above typical: at least one standard deviation above the median. "Light syllabus" means S is at least 0.67.

A syllabus isn't scored when it's older than Fall 2023, was posted under a pre-2019 course number, or lists too few assignments to count. Those courses still show what the syllabus says, with a note.

Flags on each card

• Heavier lately / Lighter lately: the latest term's relative hours (r) differ by 25% or more from the weighted average of earlier terms, and the latest term had at least 15 responses.
• Enrollment cap: the limit listed on my.harvard on October 15, 2026. "No enrollment cap" means my.harvard lists no limit.

The A-grade cap

In May 2026 the FAS faculty voted to cap A grades in undergraduate courses starting in Fall 2027. A-minuses aren't limited, and 2026–27 courses aren't affected.

A's allowed = 20% of enrollment (rounded down) + 4, never more than enrollment

Each course shows this for its expected class size: the enrollment cap if there is one, otherwise last term's enrollment from the Q Guide. Because of the extra four, small classes can give a larger share of A's, for example about 40% in a class of 20 and about 21% in a class of 300. How Harvard will round in practice hasn't been announced.

Why scores differ from Harvard Gems

Harvard Gems (harvardgems.com) uses the same Q Guide evaluations: course ratings on the two sites match almost exactly. The rankings still differ a lot because they measure different things.

• Quality versus ease. Harvard Gems blends rating, comment sentiment, recommendation, low workload and data confidence, so its score mostly tracks how well liked a course is. Here, Ease is about how light a course is, and rating isn't part of it. A beloved but demanding course like GENED 1114 (Painting's Doubt, about 8 hours a week) ranks near the top there and near the bottom here.
• Hours by term. Harvard Gems averages raw hours across terms. Here, each term is compared with that term's Gen Ed average, which rose from about 4 to 5.5 hours between 2023 and 2026, and recent terms count more. Courses with older, lighter-looking terms, such as GENED 1070, show more hours here.
• Comments. Harvard Gems scores overall positivity. Here, comments count only when they talk about workload, grading, or how kind, flexible and relaxed the staff are, and comments are a smaller part of the score.
• Syllabi and caps. Only this site reads current syllabi and shows enrollment caps.

Read with care

• Q data is self-reported. Small classes swing a lot from year to year.
• A new instructor or syllabus can change a course completely. When a course is tagged "Heavier lately", trust the latest term over the score.
• Harvard doesn't publish grade distributions, so Ease can't measure grading directly.
• Spring 2027 syllabi are often drafts. The syllabus point system treats small or pre-announced exams the same as full exams.
• Enrollment limits can change before registration.

Sources: Q Guide course evaluations (Fall 2023 to Spring 2026), Gen Ed course directory, my.harvard course pages, Harvard Syllabus Explorer, and reporting on the grading vote by The Crimson and Inside Higher Ed.