<p>I just read that all freshmen at Caltech take their classes pass/fail during their first two quarters to give them time to adjust to the pace.
Our local high school has had many conversations about ways to reduce student stress, but this idea has not come up yet.
Would it work to have all HS freshmen first semester classes pass/fail?</p>
<p>MIT does this too, except it's one semester instead of two quarters, since MIT doesn't use the quarter system.</p>
<p>One could conceivably do this at a high school, but I'm not sure it's necessary. Caltech and MIT are a lot more stressful and fast-paced than high school, even a good high school. And unlike most high schools, their freshman classes are composed primarily of students who have never had to put in significant effort to get top grades, and thus don't really know how to study for classes.</p>
<p>Hopkins also does "covered grades" first term of freshman year.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn't consider first term of high school to be the same level of adjustment or stress as a transition to college might be. And I'm not sure it would be a good idea to do this for freshmen in high school. Maybe this varies by environment - our small town high school is quite small and the kids have been together, most of them, since kindergarten.</p>
<p>Note that a number of colleges either don't look at freshman year grades, don't calculate them in the GPA they consider for admissions or some variation on this arrangement. Perhaps that is sufficient for those who think some "allowance" might be wise for hs first term academic performance.</p>
<p>Freshmen transitioning into public high schools generally have friends, knowledge of the community, live at home as they have for the previous years of their lives, know at least some upperclassmen, can continue in any out-of-school extracurriculars that they do, etc. They need only to get used to being in high school.</p>
<p>Freshmen transitioning into college (at least residential students) generally know maybe one or two other students (although this could vary at large public universities), must get to know a roommate, become accustomed to living away from home, deal with becoming completely responsible for themselves (no parents asking about homework, doing laundry, enforcing curfew), learn to navigate a totally new environment, and get used to college-level work.</p>
<p>Two very different situations. Pass-fail for public high school freshmen is simply unnecessary. (That being said, I do know that some boarding schools do allow pass-fail for freshmen, their situation being much more akin to that of college freshmen.)</p>