Amid concerns about grade inflation, officials at Princeton University have proposed a limit on the number of A's that professors may give to students.

The university issued a series of recommendations to faculty members on Tuesday that would set a common grading standard in all departments on the campus, limiting the number of A's to less than 35 percent of the grades in undergraduate courses. A's would make up no more than 55 percent of grades for the independent work that is required of juniors and seniors.

A survey by Princeton last year found that A's accounted for 44 percent to 55 percent of grades at the eight Ivy League colleges, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Chicago. At Princeton, approximately 46 percent of grades were A's.

In a cover letter accompanying the proposals, Nancy W. Malkiel, dean of Princeton's undergraduate college, wrote that the recommended change "responds to the desire of the department chairs that all departments be asked to meet common expectations."

"It responds to the desire of students for evenhandedness in grading across all departments," the letter went on. "And it positions Princeton to take national leadership in tackling what has seemed an intractable national problem."

Princeton's Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing first urged the university to develop strategies to curb grade inflation in 1998. Since then, the university has asked professors to record on their grading sheets the number of final grades they give in each letter category.

Faculty members also receive reports showing how their grading compares with that in their department and with the university's as a whole.

Despite those efforts, grades at Princeton have continued to go up, leading Ms. Malkiel to conclude that the university needed to take "more aggressive steps."

The university also circulated the proposals among students and planned a series of discussions on the campus. The faculty is scheduled to consider the proposals at an April 26 meeting.