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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’

#331

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

cogman10 wrote: post #317
iugtmkbdfil834 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We all know how it goes. Minimal adjustment is made to accommodate someone in some way only crazies like me would object to and soon the entire school is pass/fail depending on whether you show up with your own pencil; just to ensure we do not induce stress. Naturally, then stress will be first experienced in first real job, but lets have private ( non-school ) sector worry about that. Maybe they can institute their…

As I said to another commenter > That's the slippery slope fallacy. That's not what's being proposed and not what's going to happen. They have proposed 1 semester, if they propose extending it then I'll be right along side you saying that's ridiculous. However, it's just as likely that they'll say "Actually, 1 semester was too long, we'll just do it for 1/2 a semester".

It is genuinely hard to argue slippery slope fallacy when we have years upon years of examples like social promotion, resulting grade inflation and such. Own your argument man. If you are ok with end result, say so.

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

#332

Post by ryandrake »

alephnerd wrote: post #231
giantg2 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of that prestige is more regional. Perspectives change based on location and experience. The ivies tend to be more national.

They ain't. A non-trivial amount of people have not heard of Brown or Dartmouth, and confuse UPenn with Penn State. Hell, I didn't hear about Brown until high school and I ended up attending an Ivy lol. And employers and us alums of these programs know the difference is marginal.

I don't think anyone on the west coast of the US cares if you're an Ivy grad. Now, Stanford grads on the other hand, every employer seems to cream their jeans over them, for whatever reason. I knew a tech company that sorted their resumes into "Stanford" and "Everyone else". Having not gone there, I don't understand what the fuss is all about.

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

#333

Post by rahimnathwani »

I grew up in the UK. When I started working full time, I had three academic things on my CV:

- 11 GCSE grades

- 4 A level grades

- 1 University degree

For virtually all of these, the grades/results were determined by exams taken at the end of a period of study:

- GCSE exams taken at ~16yo

- A level exams taken at ~18yo

- University finals taken at ~21yo

At the time, I thought it was very very strange that my GCSE grades for English Language and English Literature were not based on exams, but on a bunch of essays I had written over a two year period.

It seemed strange because those past essays did not measure my current capability, but something else.

But this (measuring students on performance over multiple years) is the norm here in the US. Sure, many students take the SAT or ACT or various AP exams. But many students enter university with their academic performance measured on their high school GPA, which seemingly doesn't even attempt to measure mastery.

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

#334

Post by vel0city »

basisword wrote: post #177
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…

That blows my mind. It seems so unnecessary. It also doesn't seem to work given where the US ranks globally in education. Is the problem what the admission process? In the UK, even to get into the most prestigious universities you do the same exams as everyone else, maybe a little extra-curricular stuff, and interview with the university. The amount of studying in the evening is no different than anyone else trying t…

> It also doesn't seem to work given where the US ranks globally in education.

This is true because this isn't necessarily "the norm". Its very common to have this kind of life, but there are also a ton of kids who aren't as focused on their academics, who don't take AP classes, who aren't involved in clubs and sports. Only a little over a third of students take any AP exams, and only a bit over half of those end up taking multiple AP exams.

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

#335

Post by geodel »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #106
boelboel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder where all these HNers work. The majority of "slightly below top companies" seem to consist of mediocre workers, which is fine. Employees are just doing their job and if they fuck up, even badly, it's not too difficult for them to get a new job. Meanwhile a student getting a few subpar grades, often for reasons beyond their control, should somehow be punished forever.

>Employees are just doing their job and if they fuck up, even badly, it's not too difficult for them to get a new job. This might be news to many people. Or do you mean it’s not too difficult to get a new job at Walmart?

Building crud, bagging crud, greeting crud. All the same.

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

#336

Post by InitialLastName »

tdeck wrote: post #172
Joker_vD wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I have heard that it began to try to keep certain ethnic groups out of university and continued because sports bring in scholarship and (for D1 schools) sponsor money.

Not just ethnic groups. Schools mostly can't say "we only want rich people" but they definitely want to prefer students who will contribute to the donation revenue stream either themselves or through their parents. Signals like "doesn't have a job to take up their time in high school" and "parents can afford (and have the free time to enable) expensive, time-consuming activities" are really good proxies for that.

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

#337

Post by cindyllm »

Aurornis wrote: post #214
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't get all this existential talk about college acceptance. Yes, elite schools should expect elite applicants. As a non-US person who's worked for a bunch of US companies, my belief is that the Ivy League et al act as a class system, rather than a symbol of educational attainment.

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.

[dead]

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

#338

Post by mitchdoogle »

halls-940 wrote: post #249
anself wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not actually less certain now than it was then. It’s just the media has gotten louder. Cuban missilie crisis, civil rights, world wars, nuclear weapons, it has all been happening for a while.

When you look at real wages vs cost of living and the trend line is down and showing no signs of ever going back up, the question will I be able to afford the resources to survive and have a family, will my kids be able to afford a home, that's the growing uncertainty.

What are you looking at? Economic data shows real wages have trended up over the last 40 years, at least in the United States. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

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

#339

Post by vel0city »

estearum wrote: post #58
raddan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is about gunning for the elite/upper echelons of society. Is that what it’s about? Keep in that the University of Michigan is a public university, explicitly founded to “provide the inhabitants of this state with the means of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the various branches of literature, science, and the arts.” There’s nothing about being elite in there at all. This is an institution that serves the pub…

All universities are for the elites. I would love for that not to be the case, but the only reason admissions are this competitive is because there's competition for limited slots. And yes, certainly a (traditional) university education should not be required for having good career opportunities. IMO there's a need for a type of education that's vastly more scalable and still equips people with the beyond-secondary e…

Isn't that need of post-secondary education "solved" by community colleges? Extremely cheap for locals, usually offering degree/certification programs especially relevant to employers in the area, extremely lax requirements, etc?

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

#340

Post by mitchdoogle »

ungreased0675 wrote: post #268
cogman10 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What harm exactly do you think giving a single semester reprieve is going to cause these students?

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.

Few employers will even know this is a thing.
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