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

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

#481

Post by throwaway89864 »

iamnothere wrote: post #56
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…

We need to normalize a gap year, or at least a gap semester. Young adults need a break after the pressure of graduation and college admissions, and whether it’s work or travel, some perspective helps ground the college experience and make it a choice instead of an obligation. In my experience, many freshmen treated their first year as a gap year anyways, especially if they took difficult senior classes. First year cl…

A gap year, no grades and claiming some kind of disability (30-45% of students were noted to game the system this way in some colleges) would do marvels, I'm sure. The only part that is missing is religion. Oh wait, Catholicism is now on the rise in the relevant age groups. Oopsie Protestant America.

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

#482

Post by massysett »

cogman10 wrote: post #277
ungreased0675 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers thinking a UofM degree is a joke. Hiring practices expanding to include multiple take-home exercises to prove competency. Students not fully learning foundational knowledge they’ll need later because the class is an easy pass.

> Employers thinking a UofM degree is a joke. I've never cared about where the degree of someone comes from. You really think and employer is going to look at UofM and say "Oh, they gave their students a 1 semester reprieve, obviously they are of lower quality"? > Hiring practices expanding to include multiple take-home exercises to prove competency. Why would the policy of UofM change the hiring practices of compani…

> You really think and employer is going to look at UofM and say "Oh, they gave their students a 1 semester reprieve, obviously they are of lower quality"?

Yes. This will be evident on the transcript. It won’t reduce a student from “must-hire” to “do not interview.” But it could make a marginal difference when two students are compared.

One has all A and the other has all P. If the all A is Ohio State and the all P is Michigan, if I’m otherwise indifferent I might hire Ohio State.

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

#483

Post by wredcoll »

7402 wrote: post #410
wredcoll wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Famously places like china/india/japan/etc have extremely traumatic final exams. There was just an article about suicides from some kind of (indian?) final exam screw up. It doesn't take much of a logical leap to associate it with the pressure put on the children taking the tests. Presumably that kind of pressure ia coming to america.

children? Showing my age here, I guess. Fifty years ago, 18-year-olds in college were referred to as "men" and "women."

50 years ago a lot of people were called a lot of things.

As a society we haven't really figured out how to talk about periods of life when there's more than "child" and "adult".

It is, of course, simpler and easier to just draw some arbitrary lines and treat everyone the same but I'm unconvinced that simpler and easier is the right metric here.

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

#484

Post by alephnerd »

costco wrote: post #422
alephnerd wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^^^ This. 100% This. This kind of applicant is now treated as table stakes for programs like UMich, and acceptance rates for impacted majors like CS in top programs have dropped to single digits. It is ridiculously competitive to get into top programs now. I got into an Ivy in the late 2000s to early 2010s. With my stats from back then (13 APs all 4s and 5s, a 4.5+ GPA, varsity wrestling, JV XCountry, NHS, CSF, USAPH…

I'm pretty sure you would get into Berkeley with that profile. Also you can just major in math and get a job as a software engineer anyways. I agree that the system has reached the point of absurdity though. ETH Zurich and KU Leuven have the best solution to this issue in my mind, which is to let everyone in but make the classes ridiculously hard so that 50% leave in the first year.

> I'm pretty sure you would get into Berkeley with that profile

I was rejected from EECS@Cal and CS@CMU at the time (though my alum interviewer for CMU kept in contact with me to this day, and helped open doors for me professionally) yet got into an Ivy and waitlisted at MIT ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And this was before college admissions got as competitive as it is for you guys today.

> Also you can just major in math and get a job as a software engineer anyways

Absolutely! Applied Math is a heavily interdisciplinary major that is very powerful.

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

#485

Post by brendoelfrendo »

dghlsakjg wrote: post #474
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes? When I started college 16-ish years ago the '08 financial crisis was still fresh in my mind. Many of my peers were deeply concerned about the kinds of jobs and wages they could expect to find after graduation.

And did that worry manifest? As someone that graduated when you started and was much closer to 08, it turned out to be a non-issue for everyone I know that went to college with me.

It did not, at least not for me. But that wasn't the question: the question was whether or not it was something I thought about as a freshman. It was, though I obviously can't prove one way or another if my concern for the future made a difference in my earnings out of school. I can only provide my own anecdata on the matter.

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

#486

Post by UncleMeat »

nobodyandproud wrote: post #460
UncleMeat wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MIT has this policy. Do employers think that MIT degrees are a joke?

Interesting! It looks like MIT, Swarthmore, and Wellesley are the well-known ones so it has precedent. While I still think it's a disservice to the student, I'd be curious to hear from those that lived through this: Both those that attended and graduated and those that had to drop out. For the former I'm guessing there's not much to report. I'd be curious about the latter.

A friend of mine is a MIT professor. He reports that his students generally strongly support the policy.

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

#487

Post by cogman10 »

massysett wrote: post #482
cogman10 wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employers thinking a UofM degree is a joke. I've never cared about where the degree of someone comes from. You really think and employer is going to look at UofM and say "Oh, they gave their students a 1 semester reprieve, obviously they are of lower quality"? > Hiring practices expanding to include multiple take-home exercises to prove competency. Why would the policy of UofM change the hiring practices of compani…

> You really think and employer is going to look at UofM and say "Oh, they gave their students a 1 semester reprieve, obviously they are of lower quality"? Yes. This will be evident on the transcript. It won’t reduce a student from “must-hire” to “do not interview.” But it could make a marginal difference when two students are compared. One has all A and the other has all P. If the all A is Ohio State and the all P i…

> Yes. This will be evident on the transcript.

The transcript? Employers aren't pulling transcripts. I've done hiring interviews and reviews, the transcript has never come up.

About the only place this could come up is higher education.

This seems like you are reaching for straws.

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

#488

Post by SanjayMehta »

A few years ago a teacher was fired for passing out 0% grades when the stated school policy was a minimum of 50%. "Zero work, zero grade."

50% was the old zero, now zero grades are 100%?

https://www.wmtv15news.com/content/news/Florida-teacher-fire...

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

#489

Post by phil21 »

Aurornis wrote: post #187
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 and get into a good college, My neighborhood and social circle have a number of high school age children, some aiming for high ranking universities. None of them have these grueling 15 hour day schedules you’re describing. I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM. What unive…

> I don’t even know of a high school around me that starts at 7:30AM.

Within 30 minutes in each direction this was the normal start time for practically all high schools in my area growing up. Where I live now my niece who I occasionally drive to school when weather is bad starts at 7:30. We need to leave her house by 6:45 to make it on time with traffic.

The reason for the absurd starting times was always explained that bussing schedules forced it. They did not want to start grade school so early, and the same busses ran routes for both. One or the other had to start 60-90 minutes before the other.

I’d sleep in my clothes and try to make it out the door to be at my bus stop by 6:40 every morning. Luckily I had a really great bus driver who knew where I’d live and if I was running late would stop outside my house and honk.

You spent the entire morning extremely tired and a lot of kids slept through study hall or classes. The early study hall was coveted for this reason - additional time to sleep.

This was pretty much every bog standard public or private (think catholic schools) high school in the area.

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

#490

Post by jhbadger »

Joker_vD wrote: post #161
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…

> sports practice until 5:00. Gotta have that activity on your college application, not counting other volunteering and clubs in the open spaces. Still baffles me why is that even a thing that's considered at the colleges. I thought it was just a relic of Soviet past but no, apparently it exists in the US and other first world countries as well for some strange reason.

It really isn't. I've never played formalized sports in my life and had no problem getting into multiple universities (yes, a few decades ago but I doubt if society has become more sports driven; on the contrary people often say that due to the tech boom we now live in an era where if anything, unsporty nerds have too much power)
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