Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 459 posts

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#361

Post by porridgeraisin »

cpburns2009 wrote: post #272
alephnerd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what it takes to get admitted into Mich tier programs in 2026? Kids will take multiple APs (taking 10+ isn't unheard of, and in a lot of high schools is expected), do multiple extracurriculars (debate, MUN, DECA sports, academic olympiads, theatre), volunteering (NHS, CSF, etc), and even take college classes in high school. On top of that while tests are optional, most students still submit their SAT and…

You can handle all of that in high school, but suddenly can't handle the mental stress of a grade report your first semester of college? Give me a break.

Yes, it doesn't transfer. This is because the type of work required to perform in school is completely different from the type of work required to perform in college. This means first sem performance often dives even for a diligent student. The stress is not about the first few course themselves rather it is that they can terribly impact your entire GPA. Considering how relatively unimportant the first sem courses are relative to the whole degree, it makes sense to drop it from the GPA. You could also assign them much fewer credits, that would be an alternative solution I suppose.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#362

Post by jghn »

atomicnumber3 wrote: post #310
jcranmer wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are, I think, three big hurdles for freshmen in college: First, college can be a very abrupt shift from "someone is watching over you" to "you, and only you, are responsible for yourself." If you slack off in high school, someone--your parents, your teachers, your school administration--is likely to get on your ass to put you back on track, and this is more likely to be the case for people who get into tougher…

"Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students" Interesting, that's not my observation at all. Instead freshman classes were the most grueling experiences, intentionally weed-out classes to try to detect and, well, weed-out early those who wouldn't have the combination of grit, intelligence and organization skills to make it to the end of the degree. I speak somewhat hyperbolically, it wa…

This was a few decades ago but we had 2 tiers of weed outs. The first was the intro classes that most everyone took their freshman year. Then there was another wave that was major specific and tended to show up 2nd semester of sophomore year into 1st semester of junior year, essentially the point where coursework was shifting almost entirely to be major specific.

So for instance, one of the notorious freshman weed out classes was a class that *every* engineering student took. But then each individual engineering major had their own handful of pain in the ass classes that showed up as the engineering curriculum diverged.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#363

Post by Aurornis »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #349
Aurornis wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve known a lot of Ivy League graduates and they were all very smart. Most of them were very good people, too. A lot of them came from backgrounds that didn’t include wealth or social connections. This goes against the stereotypes you read online, but many of them are motivated by a desire to sneer and cut down others’ achievements. Look up “tall poppy syndrome” for one phrase describing this phenomenon.

> I’ve known a lot of Ivy League graduates and they were all very smart. Most of them were very good people, too. A lot of them came from backgrounds that didn’t include wealth or social connections. Again, the fact that entry to the class system can be meritocratic is entirely disconnected from the fact of it operating as a class system. When I worked at Big tech I remember recruiters (US-based) talking about hiring…

I was responding to this part of your post:

> rather than a symbol of educational attainment.

Your original argument appeared to imply that it was a system designed to separate people by class, not by merit or educational attainment.

In my experience the people who are that selective about university pedigree are either doing it out of laziness (outsourcing selection process to the university filtering mechanism) or they have a degree from that system and believe that hiring people from it will automatically grant them more allies, thereby improving their own power.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#364

Post by chasd00 »

speak_plainly wrote: post #2

The stated reason for doing this seems suspicious. A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it. What I think is more likely is that this move will help them hire less qualified teachers and reduce administrative oversight as now they no longer have to worry about all the issues that come with grading, such as consistency, or the grades accurately reflecting performance. The quality o…

> A pass/fail dynamic would likely maintain student anxiety, if not increase it.

it will increase it because in pass/fail classes i have had you do not know if you're passing or failing until the final grade/result. With a grade average you know how far you are from failing but without it you have no idea. Maybe they keep the grading the same but whatever you end up with doesn't affect your GPA (good or bad), I can see that reducing anxiety. However, the students are going to be in for a shock the next semester when it's assumed they learned everything they should have first semester and class takes off from there.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#365

Post by boogieknite »

joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

its truly crazy. game days for sports take even more time

lucky she has you who considers this. speaking from experience: think about trying to handle that with parents who dont have time management skills

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#366

Post by oarla »

andsoitis wrote: post #222
joezydeco wrote: post #15

When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA and get into a good college, you can expect that they are going to throttle back once they're away from home with way more free time than is normal. From my kid's experience: she was up at 6:30am, in AP classes by 7:30am (three more to go during the day). Classes were done by 3:00, then sports practice…

> When you force high school kids to work days that are significantly longer than a normal adult to achieve a good GPA Is it possible that the kids who have to study very very long hours to get a GPA decent enough to get into college are just not that sharp?

If it’s the case, what’s wrong with that? Many have had to do that to get better gpa and college prospects.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#367

Post by odyssey7 »

zamadatix wrote: post #295
odyssey7 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paying a teacher to teach ≠ buying a credential. Failing to teach a student ≠> the student is mediocre. The student is mediocre ≠ the student is irredeemable and didn’t deserve an education in the first place. Honestly, it’s wild to me how reluctant people are to accept that teachers have a responsibility to teach their students. They will charge you $2000 a credit hour to have a teacher teach you — as if the teacher…

How is saying some students get weeded out the same thing as saying the teacher has zero responsibility to teach any of their students? Whether or not you pay or get paid to be at an educational institution, you should be weeded out (early, preferably) if you aren't going to put in your part. A portion of the educator's role is weeding out students who are not wanting/able to engage with the material before they spen…

Why take money from someone you know you can’t teach?

The reality is that prestigious universities routinely take money from incredibly talented people who are fully capable of learning calculus with or without a good teacher, the university gives them a careless or actively harmful teacher, and then the student is deemed a “weed” that was rightfully put in their proper place.

When you look at it this way, it’s clear that people are being scammed. Maybe that’s why universities are so reluctant to accept accountability for their teaching quality, blaming the students first and foremost.

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#368

Post by cj »

doctorwho42 wrote: post #232
alephnerd wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know what it takes to get admitted into Mich tier programs in 2026? Kids will take multiple APs (taking 10+ isn't unheard of, and in a lot of high schools is expected), do multiple extracurriculars (debate, MUN, DECA sports, academic olympiads, theatre), volunteering (NHS, CSF, etc), and even take college classes in high school. On top of that while tests are optional, most students still submit their SAT and…

Seriously, and how many HNers would cite MIT as one of the best around? Well I learned over a decade ago that they have had Pass/no-credit for the first year implemented for years... So at this point it wouldn't surprise me if you said it's been going on for two decades (at min.) Again, I think people are having the same reaction I had "what, MIT just gets off scotch free for the first year?!". Decade later, watching…

MIT describes the purpose of Pass/Fail during the first semester as:

> giving you time to adjust to factors like increased workloads and variations in academic preparation and teaching methods. [0]

I can 100% get behind that logic.

I can't get behind a college saying they're doing it to "curb a mental health crisis".

[0] https://registrar.mit.edu/classes-grades-evaluations/grades/...

Re: U of Michigan drops first-semester grades to ‘curb mental health crisis’

#369

Post by chasd00 »

stack_framer wrote: post #252

I bet some students who pass will face a mental health issue from not knowing whether they passed with an A or a C-.

that's pretty funny and i bet you're exactly right. It will drive high achieving kids crazy to go without a rank or grade and not knowing where they stand relative to their peers.

That reminds me of this simpsons clip where the elementary school teachers went on strike and Lisa has no one to grade her. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h4GD2feZ8Q

Post reply on HN