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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’

#281

Post by jorts »

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…

My public high school started at 7:10 a.m.; I assume it was to accommodate bus schedules.

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

#282

Post by geodel »

Thlom wrote: post #151
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…

Did she ever have time to just go outside and hang out with friends?

You are looking to "destroy kid's future" with such heresies like hanging out with friends. What's next? not going to school when one is sick?

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

#283

Post by jcranmer »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #175

The University of Michigan has around a 15% acceptance rate. How is it possible that they’re letting in kids who aren’t ready to do college level work? What are they selecting for?

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 colleges ("helicopter parents" are very real things). But in college, if you sleep in and miss all of your classes... no one is going to care. Well, your parents might, but your parents aren't with you in college to do anything about it. I've seen quite a few people who went from straight A's in high school to failing most of their college courses because of this.

Second, a lot of those accepted are going to be the smartest person in their class, who are now going to a college where they might be average--or even below average.

Finally, college courses are generally more difficult than a high school course, even an AP course, teaching the same material; there's just a lot more that's expected as students. Freshmen courses generally mitigate this somewhat to help ease in students, but by the time you get to a senior-level course, reading multiple research papers a day for per class is considered pretty normal. Of course, if you're a kid with a truckload of AP courses who let you skip your first year of college, now you're dropped into courses that expect you to have already adjusted to college life first.

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

#284

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

cogman10 wrote: post #182
ungreased0675 wrote: post #175

The University of Michigan has around a 15% acceptance rate. How is it possible that they’re letting in kids who aren’t ready to do college level work? What are they selecting for?

It's a pretty different environment going from high school to college. There's a dynamic change that's pretty sudden where your parents are no long really in the picture for support. What they are trying to do is keep the kids that would otherwise do well but might freak out in the first semester. Seems pretty fine to me especially since those are grades that if we are being honest really don't matter anyways.

Yes.. and that friction, too, served a purpose. There it a reason it tends to be referred to as a filter, because by first year you find out whether you have what it takes to survive that environment or not. The good news for everyone is that now we get to find out in 2nd year, where our sunk cost is much greater. Hurray for winning.

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

#285

Post by hirvi74 »

I honestly support this. At least at face value for the devil is always in the details. I have had a similar discussion with many of my friends that are academics. We all, more or less, agree that grades do not really serve their purported purpose.

Grades in their current form might be the purest incarnation of Goodhart's Law.

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

#286

Post by okaram »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #175

The University of Michigan has around a 15% acceptance rate. How is it possible that they’re letting in kids who aren’t ready to do college level work? What are they selecting for?

They are NOT saying they're not ready for college level work, right? They may not be ready for UMich college level work.

Also, they may need an adjustment period, which makes sense.

I think we need to wait and see how it works, before blindly criticizing a possible good idea

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

#288

Post by [deleted] »

mrngld wrote: post #120
culi wrote: post #18

https://archive.ph/FBFjJ Given that 75% of all grades in 2022 were A's, grade inflation has already made the indicator value of grades pretty meaningless. I think this take from a student captures it well: > Louth, 20 years old, said he earned all A’s and one B in his first semester and doubted he would have worked as hard had the classes been pass/fail. But he thinks he would have learned more from his classes witho…

But it's not true. Cute to say that, but I wouldn't believe it. Just like most students, given the opportunity to use AI to essentially cheat will often do so (look at the stunning percentages professors are detecting when they bother to try to figure it out), the same applies here; given the option to study these things more deeply or fire up Tinder, Facebook, Minecraft or whatever, they're going to do the latter.

[deleted]

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

#289

Post by t-3 »

freejazz wrote: post #261
t-3 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you would have to worry about your job being sent/lost to Mexico, Japan, China, etc. Now those jobs are already lost and we have a different vulnerability. Same story, different clothes.

At university? You sure about that?

Downsizing and outsourcing hit all non-management positions, the only moat against it was technical expertise, but that's been eroded for quite a while. How much moaning about development being outsourced to India have we heard in the past decade?

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

#290

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #244
naasking wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coddling is a big problem these days, and this focus on mental health is itself unhealthy. The assessment that "they would otherwise do well" is speculative, at best.

> this focus on mental health is itself unhealthy. Yes. We should ignore things like school shootings, which have long been described as the result of mental health issues. Ignore PTSD. Soldiers can just pull themselves up by their bootstraps. By all means, ignore the mental health of a rape victim or a child abuse victim. They can just tough it out. Clearly, that's the better strategy. Oh, and you've been working in…

I was not going to engage, but I decided to point out something. Strawmanning on HN won't get you far. There. Hope it helps.
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