<p>I have heard that the TA language issue is still very much present from college friends whose kids are attending now/have attended in the last 10 years. There was testing in place when I went as well, but somehow an awful lot of the TAs seemed able to fudge it someone and get in. Agree that it is mostly 100 and 200 level course sections that have TAs, but then again… when the lecture has 200 people in it, and you see the TA for more time than you are in lecture, who are you going to get help from? Some classes only have sections (Calculus comes to mind), no lecture (if there is a professor, you don’t see them). And at least when I was there, the TAs did indeed do the grading for the classes. They graded papers, exams, and quizzes. The professors in intro classes with sections did NO grading whatsoever.</p>
<p>But I believe this is not just an issue at Michigan.</p>