Hampshire no doubt collected her tuition!
Many of these schools DO have the ability to provide an actual grade if needed. For example, for students applying to medical school, Pass isn’t good enough. They need an actual grade and these schools do provide that.
Most employers would like to see a GPA. People don’t hire people GPA unseen. So pretty much every person needs a GPA. So why bother hide it? And who are they hiding it from? From the student?
1 Like
Bennington is ungraded, so is Reed (Reed grades but students don’t see their grades unless they ask). At Stanford, students can switch their grading format for any given class to Credit/No Credit until 2 weeks before the end of the quarter.
1 Like
Sarah Lawrence is also ungraded. And some schools do allow a high proportion of classes taken with pass/no pass grades…Brown’s been mentioned, but Oberlin is another example.
So, I learned only a few years ago - that unlike employers here in the north east, many employers on the west coast don’t care much (or at all) about GPAs. Could be an east coast/west coast thing or maybe industry specific (old school companies vs new tech).
4 Likes
That’s NOT the case for most of the required courses and for courses that are designated as letter grades only.
This is precisely what I fear. At my spouse’s current college over 60% are low income/1st gen students who in this case also have very poor K-12 backgrounds for the most part; the best thing they can learn at college is actually how to function in the real system of evaluations- how work really is. You have to show up on time, follow directions, actually turn in the work on time and at a decent standard, etc. or there will be consequences. Probably half of his students don’t seem to have been asked to do even these basic things in high school, and they therefore don’t understand the system.
More privileged students have been functioning in that system since Pre-K often and usually observe it at home. They don’t necessarily need to “learn” those basic skills by being graded in college. People who already have mastered that systemic knowledge of meeting standards and soft skills in our society sometimes don’t realize that other people weren’t so lucky in their education/ family life thus far before college.
I do like the idea of academic bankruptcy, though. They allowed people to delete an entire semester at my undergraduate college. Just wipe it out. I had two friends with 0.0 GPAs in freshman year who went on to graduate in engineering and business respectively. They drank too much that year. Students could jettison the whole semester, but it had to be the entire semester not just some grades. That seems like a good option in cases of mental health, too much partying, adjusting to college, etc.
4 Likes
Presumably they have a tough OA. Then you can dispense with the GPA.
You can’t have a warm fuzzy conversation and hire a person, unless it is for a sales job.
Most my sons job descriptions required a 3.0 or 3.2 or the preferred 3 point whatever.
He always attached a transcript of the system was set up for it.
2 Likes
I live in the Bay Area and remember when UCSC went from not grading to grading. A lot of the complaints that drove that move were from graduates saying they were having a hard time getting jobs because employers didn’t like the non-traditional evaluation system.
A Stanford a student can only switch to credit / no credit grading, if credit / no credit grading is offered in the class. In my experience, most classes do not offer the option for pass/fail grading Stanford also has the requirement that, “No more than 36 units of Stanford course work (including activity courses) in which a ‘CR’ or ‘S’ was awarded can be applied toward the 180 (225 if dual degrees are being pursued) units required for a bachelor’s degree” Many majors have far more stringent requirements beyond this. For example, the first major I checked was math. The handbook states, “From Autumn 2021 onwards all courses towards the Math major must be taken for a letter grade.”
You may be thinking of COVID. During COVID Stanford temporarily gave the option for CR/NC grading in all classes This was a temporary policy due to COVID that ended quite some time ago, which relates to why the math major quoted above says, “from Autumn 2021 onwards.”
True. But at most of these tech companies the process starts with a coding and technical knowledge assessment (both online/automated and in-person. Multiple rounds). If you get through all that, your GPA doesn’t really matter.
3 Likes
I think a GPA threshold is clearly imposed if the very first round cannot be an OA. Sometimes, kids are not offered an OA automatically on sending a resume, to west coast tech companies. So clearly some GPA thresholding is happening even if the first round is an OA. And when there is a GPA threshold, in tech, the sense is that it is something like a 3.7 or a 3.8. I think for banking jobs, for non-hooked candidates, it is probably a 3.9.
When GPA is used, it’s typically used as a simple way to screen a large number of applicants, and the portion using such a screen is dropping. The NACE surveys, the majority of employers used to say the used a GPA screen each year. However, in the most recent survey, only 37% said they used a GPA screen, with by far the most common threshold being 3.0. >= 3.0 GPA means pass screen and focus on other criteria.
My daughter is a sophomore at Stanford and used the C/NC for a STEM class last spring. It was a required class for her major. You’re right that only a certain number of credits are allowed C/NC
That doesn’t contradict anything I wrote.
I’ve seen kids with a relevant resume and far higher GPAs than 3.0 getting ghosted.
I didn’t say it contradicted you. But it’s not a COVID thing. ETA of course students need to manage the policy within the requirements of their major. She took the class in Spring 22
Stanford offered all classes CR/NC in 2020 due to COVID. Stanford ended this policy of all classes offered CR/NC in fall 2021, after COVID was more in control, with less remote classes. See the section at Can I Take This Course for Credit/No Credit?(CR,normally%20a%20D%2D%20or%20better. for more detail under “During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stanford created a number of grading policy exceptions applicable to the 2019-20 and 2020-21 academic years only.”
Note that ending all classes being offered CR/NC does not mean no classes can be taken CR/NC. I don’t doubt that your daughter took a class CR/NC in 2022.
1 Like