Fellow parents,
How do you feel about your college students take one or more classes pass/fail?
Part of me gets it and part of me thinks its a bit of a cop-out and that my kid won’t put much effort into the class.
When I was a student, I used this option but in a very specific way. I took any class in my major or in my “wheelhouse” for a grade. I used pass/fail for classes that interested me, but I wasn’t sure how I would do and I didn’t want the pressure. It was nice when feeling swamped by other classes to be able to relax a little on that one. Most students who used this option used it this way.
I usually took 3 classes semester for a grade and the 4th S/NC (what they called it at my school). Sometimes I loved my S/NC class more than the others because I felt I was taking it solely for the interesting subject matter and the learning, and not because it was required or I needed the A.
So while I do admit to slacking a bit in those classes because they were pass/fail, I still remember them fondly and in some cases more than classes in my major!
My husband I took Design of Concrete Foundations in grad school, pass/fail! 
It was the semester before we got married. We didn’t work very hard and were lucky to pass. I also took tennis pass/fail, because I like to play but I’m not very coordinated.
I wouldn’t mind if my kids took a few classes pass/fail. They’re under enough pressure already.
S had to take sailing P/NP or equivalent, I believe. There was no graded option. I took all my PE classes that way, as well as jewelry making. I also took conversational Spanish that way, as I was the only person in the class not majoring in Spanish. I believe it has a place.
Wellesley encourages this so that students will take riskier classes. It can’t be a class in your major, but it can be used for a distribution requirement. You can only do one per semester this way. The downside is that if you do really well, your grade is still only a pass.
Back in my day…Honors classes were H/P/F and were then not part of the gpa. I don’t know why, but that’s the only way Honors classes were offered. Same with a program called Experimental Studies. Many of those courses were taught by adjuncts, across all departments and schools. They were only offered P/F. Two of my favorite classes were Experimental Studies, War Movies and Genealogy (long before you could just go on Ancestors.com and go back 5 generations in a night). I learned a lot in both classes and remember it better than most other courses.
We could also take ‘regular’ courses P/F, but it was limited, I think, to courses not in your major and not core requirements because I know I’d have taken biology p/f if I could have!
Chemistry major- Honors undergrad who hated to write (even though placed in limited student Honors Lit - before AP days eliminated most “sophomore” lit classes freshmen took). Junior year took “Fantasy and Science Fiction” lit course P/F as an excuse to read. “Early” morning lecture (8:50 am- btw 15 min passing so screwy start times for those 50 minute hours- still stuck in my brain) that I became guilty of skipping. Got a B on the short story assignment and went to all discussion groups. Good prof but- slept in.
Never take a course for your major or breadth requirements P/F. Otherwise it’s great to have a class you can get whatever you want from without striving for the A. College is for an education and fun courses are part of that.
Highly recommend it.