"By not adjusting their grading policies, STEM programs ultimately hurt..the economy"

[sakky]

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You conveniently chose to ignore my point, which was that students should understand how they’re doing in a course beyond what their grade tells them. Come on, students know whether they are just showing up to class or are really learning the material.

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<p>I did not choose to ignore this point - I simply question how much students could possibly know about how they’re doing. Again, I recall that engineering exam where a 30% was equal to an A. What matters is not how much you know, but how much you know *relative to the average student<a href=“who%20apparently%20knew%20only%2025%%20of%20the%20material”>/i</a>, but that’s not exactly easy for any student to ascertain. Honestly - do you really expect any student to tell themselves: “Well, I understand practically nothing, but at least I understand more than the other students do, who understand even less, so I should not drop the course.” </p>

<p>The opposite scenario happens as well. I remember one course where an 85% was a failing grade, because the mean was a 95%. Surely those students walked into that exam feeling excellent about themselves because they thought they knew the material well. And they did. The problem is that the other students knew it even better, but how were they supposed to know that? </p>

<p>The bottom line is that engineering grading is determined not by how much you learned, but by how much you learned relative to what other students have learned, and that’s not trivial to know. </p>

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I admitted the possibility that there might be an acting course somewhere that’s being done in a non-academic way. That’s a far cry from agreeing that there’s no difference between academic and work experience!

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<p>Is there a difference between academic and work experience? Of course! But is that difference respected today? Clearly no, which seems to be the basis for your proposal. </p>

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An American Studies professor certainly has the right to hold academic failures against students;

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The department has limited resources; why should a student who has already failed at engineering be given an opportunity in lieu of a student who has not? More importantly, why should the new engineering program not be able to use information about past academic performance to predict future academic performance in whatever way they see fit?

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<p>Fair enough. Then at least I hope that you would agree that such an attitude must inherently reduce experimentation and risk-taking. If somebody who tries engineering and fails is worse off than somebody who never even tried engineering at all (i.e. because he can’t get into the American Studies major), then that will only serve to discourage students from even trying in the first place. </p>

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Yes, I believe MIT is wrong in this matter, and that this practice represents a dangerous precedent I hope other well-meaning institutions don’t use as an excuse.

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<p>Too late - Caltech does something similar regarding its enforced freshman P/F scheme (where even a D grade will convert to a Pass and I doubt that there really are that many pure F’s at Caltech). And I personally think the most egregious policy of all is run by Stanford in which practically nobody ever fails at all. {You don’t really need a policy to conceal failing grades if practically nobody ever fails in the first place.} </p>

<p>Nevertheless, these are some of the most prominent engineering schools in the nation and so hold outsize influence upon what other engineering schools will do.</p>