I agree.
But it does go both ways…it’s not reasonable (IMO obviously) for schools like Bowdoin and Haverford to say they ‘know’ grad schools/med schools etc., will accept P/F grades.
They don’t know that, nor can they be certain that even if med schools understand the implications of covid-19 (which of course they will), it does not mean when evaluating similar applicants, one with grades and one with P/F, that the one with grades wouldn’t have an advantage.
@homerdog , yes. The default for all classes this semester is marked as C/nc, but if a student wants to they can go to the registrar and ask to have the grade uncovered- it would then appear as a letter grade with corresponding numeric value on the 4 point scale on their transcript. The debate, I guess, is kids trying to decide where to draw the line on uncovering. Haverford isn’t known for 4.0s or anything, so some kids are thinking even a B is better than just a pass for some courses. Being told she has three As makes my D want to uncover those, but not if it looks bad to keep the one pass. I don’t know. I guess they’ll all figure out and do what they think is best for them right now. My D is choosing her courses for fall right now, and definitely choosing with the idea of which would work better online in the back of her head.
@milgymfam yes that is different that mandatory C/NC. If everyone has C/NC, then grad schools know they had no choice in the matter and can’t hold it against them since it was not their choice. I wouldn’t know what to do if I was a student who could choose for each class. I agree that’s tricky.
I feel confident in making the following three predictions:
[ol][]Some graduate and professional programs will be hardnosed about Spring 2020 grades, and others won’t.
[]Very, very, very few of them will state clearly (or even not so clearly!) what their policies are.
[*]In fact, their policies are unlikely to very often be either consistent or codified, even informally within the group making admissions decisions for any given program.[/ol]
@dfbdfb How can any program be hard nosed about these spring grades? Are you saying, then, that certain schools will flat out not accept any student who was not given grades this semester? Even a Harvard student who has a high GPA from the rest of his semesters? That’s not what we are hearing from Bowdoin and we’ve been told they did their due diligence having checked with many medical, law, and grad schools. And why would two schools like Bowdoin and Harvard do anything to hurt their students chances at grad school acceptances?
Wayoutwestmom discusses med school and P/F grade issue in the following threads.
Takeaway is no one knows what will happen because med schools haven’t discussed this yet…but historically, online classes and P/F grades aren’t allowed.
Nearly Everyone will have some online premed reqs this summer, but some will have grades and some P/F. That’s The problem…given two similar applicants, one with grades and one without, the one with grades may be advantaged. And because if a lack of transparency In med school admissions (same as elsewhere), no one would ever know.
IMO, Bowdoin, representing that they know C/NC will be OK is premature.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22698569#Comment_22698569
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/22672686#Comment_22672686
@homerdog, the core of what I’m saying is that programs will be making up the admissions rules as they go along—and predicting which programs will do what on any given day isn’t currently predictable, and in fact might not even be retrospectively reconstructible later on.
D19 is a science major who is planning to attend grad school and her college is offering the option to take classes P/F. However, I’m also concerned about grad school admissions and have advised her against converting to P/F. For students who have been severely impacted by the disruption caused by Covid-19, it could make sense to choose alternative grading, but that isn’t the case for D. Interestingly, many students support the double A model (all grades either an A or A-), but I’m not sure the college will go that route.
I cannot imagine that any grad school will not “accept” P/F grades for this semester if that was the only grading option made available by the college.
I would expect that the grading circumstances for this semester would become a notation on the transcript, similar to the HS school report that explains their grading scale and weighting system.
Haven’t heard of the double A model, can’t say that I like it! Let’s not devalue an A. If colleges want to be sensitive to all of the challenges this semester, P/F seems like a good option.
I agree. I am pretty certain that most PhD and non-professional master’s programs will be OK with P/F or any other non-letter grades for The Spring Of The Coronavirus. They are generally looking for students with high research potential, and GPAs are generally secondary for PhD programs admissions.
P/F is not the only grading option available to D at this point so I think she should just accept the grades she earns. She’ll end up with a mix of As and Bs so I don’t really see the point in opting for P/F. If the school universally opts everyone in, then so be it.
Thanks for the info about PhD programs and what they look for. I was drawing on my own experience applying to law school where GPA was very important.
My kids are considering taking some of their classes P/F and grades for others. The P/F would be classes non essential to their majors. I guess they have up until the last week or 2 of school to decide what they want on their transcript.
Neither of them heading to med or law school, but may want to pursue MBA, and I can’t see a school not accepting them for a P/F in Japanese Culture or Public Speaking. So far they have good grades, involved with activities at school, will have internships or co-ops completed so I think they’d do OK in grad school admission programs.
So maybe they’ll see where their grades stand in a few weeks and make a decision. I told them I did not feel strongly one way or the other, just keep working hard and do your best. I didn’t want to pile unnecessary stress on them if it’s not going to matter.
This will be a weird blip in time and I think schools and employers are going to have a little leeway. I think schools and employers will be looking for solid candidates with a proven record over a long period of time and will disregard this particular timeframe.
Agree. I think what seems to be an increasing number of schools going test-optional for the next application cycle only is one indication of that.
S19 gets to decide by mid April if he wants grades or P/F for particular classes. I think he’ll communicate with professors before then to get some guidance. I think it’s still not clear if D17’s college will do all P/F or let kids choose. I can understand arguments for both options. I agree with above that there will be some leeway and the overall record will be evaluated rather than focusing on this strange semester. However, I’m guessing for med school and certain grad programs that if all other things are equal (which is not usually the case) if two candidates are compared and one has high grades in difficult courses and one has “passing” grades, that might help the first candidate. Time will tell. So much uncertainty. I’m usually not the most optimistic person, but I’m trying to remain hopeful that my kids can be away at college next year.
The UofSc Faculty Senate just passed the ultimate P/F amendment. This semester only, you can wait until you see your end-of-quarter grades then decide if you want any classes changed to P/F. No restrictions on whether it is for a major or core requirement. S19 decided he would wait on one of his classes (an elective).
I think that part of the argument for schools doing exclusive C/NC is that, for schools giving grades, they will still have an asterisk because colleges are likely to be lenient in their grading policies now that classes are online. These online classes are not what were planned and it will be hard for professors to switch to a new model and then give Bs (or Cs). So, getting an A in any class this semester will be taken with a grain of salt. That’s my take, anyway, on the language I’ve seen in the messages from schools that have decided to go strictly with N/NC. Better to just say they are not comfortable with their professors giving grades in classes that are not the whole curriculum that was planned. As long as kids are given no choice, it cannot be held against them. I think I’m thankful that our kids are freshman. It seems less likely to affect them since they will have more years to prove themselves in class.
^ Colleges mandating P/F aren’t likely to be lenient as well? My guess is that one is really going to have to try to fail any course this semester or quarter.
It seems presumptuous for some colleges to be speculating on the integrity of another’s grading system. My three in college all attend institutions with both a quarter system and the ability to transition to remote learning relatively quickly. Each institution also offered on campus housing to those who couldn’t return to their home countries or their home. So there has been no need to switch to an across-the-board P/F system; as is the case normally, P/F is possible under limited conditions and via a conversation with your instructor and your advisor. Could be wrong here, but sweeping “one size fits all” changes to the grading policy seem designed to accommodate administrators more than either faculty or students.
@JBFlying i don’t agree with that at all. Pass fail is not a cop out for the faculty. Schools like Harvard wouldn’t make a decision like that. They know that a lot of kids are going home to difficult situations and that makes it harder for them to do well in class. They are trying to make sure those kids don’t fall through the cracks for no fault of their own. In this situation, everyone is stressed out and some are handling it better than others. Some have parents losing jobs or family members who will get sick. They don’t want the kids in better situations to be able to take their A and other kids to have to choose a Pass. Then, if a grad school or company is comparing those two kids from the same school, they could favor the student with the A. If everyone is forced to take the Pass, then it evens the playing field. And for the record, S19 is working just as hard as are his professors.
@SammoJ Binghamton University adopted the same policy. It certainly gives the students a lot of options–but in the end I believe my D will opt for grades as she is a pre-med and we feel that P/F would likely put her at a disadvantage.
As a faculty member, I know that, for most of the kids, the course they are getting is not the course for which they signed up, they do not have the resources that the course assumes that they have, and they are new to the Online Class platform as well.
Most importantly, the lack of equality in family resources is stark. A kid from a wealth family will have their own room, a top-of-the-line computer, high speed reliable internet, and food security. A student from a low income family will have none of that, and will be at a HUGE disadvantage. It is bad enough that he are setting up our entire college admissions system to benefit the wealthy. However, this is sabotaging the few low income kids who beat the odds. Now they are put at a huge disadvantage in keeping up with basic coursework.
All of my students were doing excellent jobs before the rug was pulled out from under their feet, and I will grade them based on that, so long as they at least put an effort to finish the work. It is group projects, and the groups seem to be supporting each other, and all seem aware of the difficulties that individual students are having. This class will all receive very high grades, so long as they do their best in the conditions in which they find themselves. Just based on the fact that the entire class made sure to be present at the online lecture that I gave (which went on for more than 1.5 hours), despite the fact that some were logging in on their phones, or with faulty internet connections. Yet they all were there. And that alone supports my decision to likely go with the double A system this semester.
These kids aren’t getting A’s because they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing, they all, without exception, are going above and beyond the basic requirements of the class. That is what, in my opinion, it means to earn an A.
PS. During the first presentations of each group, all teams did a better job than the majority of talks that I have seen at conferences from people with PhDs and years of experience.