A proposal to switch from a 15 to a 4.0 grading scale and drastically reduce the number of students who receive honors is likely to go to a vote before the Faculty by the end of the month.

Members of the Faculty Council—a committee of 18 faculty members who preview legislation before it goes before the full Faculty—said they had agreed last week on the proposal to change the grading scale.

But how to ensure the integrity of honors—the question that has occupied the Faculty all year—is still being debated.

“Faculty Council endorsed these ideas, but the legislation and the document to circulate to the Faculty are only now being drafted,” wrote Dean of Undergraduate Education Susan G. Pedersen ’81-’82 in an e-mail.

One proposal for honors reform being considered is to put a cap on the number of students who receive honors.

Ninety-one percent of seniors graduated with honors last year.

According to Faculty members, some suggest limiting the number of students who receive honors to 50 percent.

But students on the Committee of Undergraduate Education (CUE) said they do not think this is a sound solution.

“They should change the standards, not the numbers,” said Rohit Chopra ’04, who is also chair of the Student Affairs Committee of the Undergraduate Council.

“This seems like an attempt at a quick fix,” he said.

Others said they worry that external pressure may be driving the Faculty.

“Harvard should think about the needs of its students and not its embarrassment to the outside world,” said Alexander B. Patterson ’04.

The Faculty Council met last week to discuss a report issued by the Educational Policy Committee (EPC) on how to combat grade inflation.

The report—which took months to draft before it was discussed by CUE last week—was based on departmental recommendations and general discussion among the Faculty.

But the Faculty Council did not endorse any of the EPC’s major recommendations.