Word: gradings
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Anne Giedinghagen wanted desperately to stay in school. Having struggled with depression and anorexia since the sixth grade, the rail-thin Cornell junior was meeting regularly with a therapist at the university's counseling center in Ithaca, N.Y. But late last fall, when she told her therapist about her increasingly strong urge to kill herself, Giedinghagen received an ultimatum from the school she loved so much: she had to get better or she would have to leave. So she did what any crafty 20-year-old would do. She tried to carve out a third option--feigning improvement...
...while Harvard students should be spending their time taking intellectual risks and picking at will from among the course offerings of the world’s premier university faculty, many choose instead to gravitate toward those classes where they can feel assured of a high grade...
...very least, the prospect of a low grade often dissuades Harvard students from taking classes they otherwise might. The overall affect of this GPA-mania on the quality of our undergraduate education is regrettable...
...Students are forced into an agonizing dilemma: risk getting a bad grade, or get locked into the certainty of a not-so-impressive-looking P on the transcript. In most cases, as Wolcowitz said, students avoid making that choice...
...This minor change transforms the pass/fail option from a preemptive admission of defeat—one which most overachievers are unwilling to settle for—into a sort of grade insurance. If, as usual, they pulled it out in the end, they could always cash in their Ps for shinier, more respectable-looking...