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| Despite the Pandemic, My College Is Allowing Grades. Isn’t That Unfair? | Despite the Pandemic, My College Is Allowing Grades. Isn’t That Unfair? |
| (1 day later) | |
| I am student at a New England liberal arts college that was considering a universal credit/no-credit grading policy in light of the inequalities wrought by the pandemic. Everyone has left campus, so all of the equalizing properties of a residential college are now gone, and students are experiencing lots of extra stress and trauma. Faculty ultimately voted down this universal standard in favor of an opt-in credit/no-credit option, a decision students suspect was influenced by the fact that colleges that have decided on universal pass/fail policies have been subject to lawsuits initiated by students who want either grades or refunds. It’s worth noting that the universal credit/no-credit proposal received overwhelming support from students versus the opt-in policy. | I am student at a New England liberal arts college that was considering a universal credit/no-credit grading policy in light of the inequalities wrought by the pandemic. Everyone has left campus, so all of the equalizing properties of a residential college are now gone, and students are experiencing lots of extra stress and trauma. Faculty ultimately voted down this universal standard in favor of an opt-in credit/no-credit option, a decision students suspect was influenced by the fact that colleges that have decided on universal pass/fail policies have been subject to lawsuits initiated by students who want either grades or refunds. It’s worth noting that the universal credit/no-credit proposal received overwhelming support from students versus the opt-in policy. |
| Given that graduate schools strongly prefer letter grades, I think that students should still elect the credit/no-credit option en masse, because if we do not all act in solidarity, only students who need the no-credit option will be harmed. I think it is morally wrong for privileged proponents of universal credit/no-credit to accept high grades this semester instead. My best friend disagrees. She says that, although it is a shame that universal credit/no-credit was not passed, students should still take the high grades and the attendant G.P.A. boost if they want to. What do you think? Name Withheld | Given that graduate schools strongly prefer letter grades, I think that students should still elect the credit/no-credit option en masse, because if we do not all act in solidarity, only students who need the no-credit option will be harmed. I think it is morally wrong for privileged proponents of universal credit/no-credit to accept high grades this semester instead. My best friend disagrees. She says that, although it is a shame that universal credit/no-credit was not passed, students should still take the high grades and the attendant G.P.A. boost if they want to. What do you think? Name Withheld |
| Our moral intuitions are affected by the narratives they alight on. Here’s one. Marisol was raised by a single mother, an immigrant from the Philippines who cleaned hotel rooms until she was debilitated by lupus. The first person in her family to attend college, Marisol is now anxious about getting into a good medical school and learning how to help people like her mom. Her classmate Vance views her as a grind, a grade grubber. But he comes from a rich and well-connected family and has a guaranteed job at graduation; though brilliant at beer pong, he is quite content to coast on what used to be called gentleman’s C’s (which have, in our day, turned miraculously into B’s). A third of the way into the semester, during which Marisol aced all her course work, the pandemic caused the campus to close. Now Marisol, propping her battered laptop on her mother’s old sewing table, is determined to see her hard work recognized. How do we feel about Vance’s urging her not to ask for a grade? | Our moral intuitions are affected by the narratives they alight on. Here’s one. Marisol was raised by a single mother, an immigrant from the Philippines who cleaned hotel rooms until she was debilitated by lupus. The first person in her family to attend college, Marisol is now anxious about getting into a good medical school and learning how to help people like her mom. Her classmate Vance views her as a grind, a grade grubber. But he comes from a rich and well-connected family and has a guaranteed job at graduation; though brilliant at beer pong, he is quite content to coast on what used to be called gentleman’s C’s (which have, in our day, turned miraculously into B’s). A third of the way into the semester, during which Marisol aced all her course work, the pandemic caused the campus to close. Now Marisol, propping her battered laptop on her mother’s old sewing table, is determined to see her hard work recognized. How do we feel about Vance’s urging her not to ask for a grade? |
| Grades serve many functions. They tell you how your teachers think you’re doing; and especially when teachers grade on a curve, they may tell you how you’re doing relative to your classmates. Of course, there are other ways of getting that information — from scores on exams, comments on papers or remarks during office hours. Your point, though, is that undergraduate grades can also play a role when it comes to employment or admission to competitive graduate or professional programs. Your further thought is that it would be wrong to give privileged students a competitive advantage over students who weren’t able to do their best work from home. | Grades serve many functions. They tell you how your teachers think you’re doing; and especially when teachers grade on a curve, they may tell you how you’re doing relative to your classmates. Of course, there are other ways of getting that information — from scores on exams, comments on papers or remarks during office hours. Your point, though, is that undergraduate grades can also play a role when it comes to employment or admission to competitive graduate or professional programs. Your further thought is that it would be wrong to give privileged students a competitive advantage over students who weren’t able to do their best work from home. |
| That’s a serious consideration in favor of a universal credit/no-credit policy for this semester. Our Vance and Marisol story is hardly representative; Vance may be a stereotype of a disappearing genus. But you’re viewing the problem too narrowly. First, if any advantage was to come to a student from taking the course for a regular grade, it would be in competition not just against their college classmates but against a far wider cohort of college grads from around the country. Given the vast range of responses from colleges to the pandemic, the effect on a student’s prospects, either way, is likely to be marginal. You mention graduate schools: Sensible grad schools will look at letters of recommendation from professors and gauge their enthusiasm. I’ll also note that a credit/no-credit policy does nothing for students who, owing to straitened circumstances at home, end up not getting credit, and perhaps not being able to graduate on time and without additional expense. | That’s a serious consideration in favor of a universal credit/no-credit policy for this semester. Our Vance and Marisol story is hardly representative; Vance may be a stereotype of a disappearing genus. But you’re viewing the problem too narrowly. First, if any advantage was to come to a student from taking the course for a regular grade, it would be in competition not just against their college classmates but against a far wider cohort of college grads from around the country. Given the vast range of responses from colleges to the pandemic, the effect on a student’s prospects, either way, is likely to be marginal. You mention graduate schools: Sensible grad schools will look at letters of recommendation from professors and gauge their enthusiasm. I’ll also note that a credit/no-credit policy does nothing for students who, owing to straitened circumstances at home, end up not getting credit, and perhaps not being able to graduate on time and without additional expense. |
| Finally, you may have an exaggerated sense of the equalizing properties of a campus. Vance aside, there’s reason to think that expensively educated children, even in the dorm room, have an advantage when it comes their college grades. They belong to what, in “The Meritocracy Trap,” Daniel Markovits calls “the narrow, super-educated caste that wins the competition for places and grades at the top schools and universities.” According to a 2017 study, if your parents are in the top 1 percent of the income distribution, you’re 77 times more likely to end up in the Ivy League than you are if your parents are in the bottom 20 percent. And the disparities perpetuate themselves: Markovits notes, for instance, that a greater number of Yale Law students “grew up in households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than in the entire bottom half.” | Finally, you may have an exaggerated sense of the equalizing properties of a campus. Vance aside, there’s reason to think that expensively educated children, even in the dorm room, have an advantage when it comes their college grades. They belong to what, in “The Meritocracy Trap,” Daniel Markovits calls “the narrow, super-educated caste that wins the competition for places and grades at the top schools and universities.” According to a 2017 study, if your parents are in the top 1 percent of the income distribution, you’re 77 times more likely to end up in the Ivy League than you are if your parents are in the bottom 20 percent. And the disparities perpetuate themselves: Markovits notes, for instance, that a greater number of Yale Law students “grew up in households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than in the entire bottom half.” |
| The greatest inequities in our educational system derive from the fact that elite parents are able to secure all kinds of advantages for their children, in ways that give them an enormous leg up in the competition for educational opportunities and rewarding careers. We’ve effectively been increasing the obstacles Marisol must surmount. I see why you think that there’s an unfairness in the way that your college has chosen to respond. But given that the policy doesn’t significantly increase the unfairness in the system taken as a whole, I wonder if your proposed solidarity movement is aimed at the right target. | The greatest inequities in our educational system derive from the fact that elite parents are able to secure all kinds of advantages for their children, in ways that give them an enormous leg up in the competition for educational opportunities and rewarding careers. We’ve effectively been increasing the obstacles Marisol must surmount. I see why you think that there’s an unfairness in the way that your college has chosen to respond. But given that the policy doesn’t significantly increase the unfairness in the system taken as a whole, I wonder if your proposed solidarity movement is aimed at the right target. |
| My husband has a transgender sister who transitioned from male to female after being married and having children. My husband and his family have had a strained relationship with her since well before the transition. But his sister still takes her children to visit my mother-in-law occasionally. My mother-in-law (an immigrant) is not accepting of her child’s being transgender, and I think stays in touch with her mainly to stay in touch with the grandkids. When my husband’s sister visits, my mother-in-law mocks her to us in a cruel manner throughout her visits. | My husband has a transgender sister who transitioned from male to female after being married and having children. My husband and his family have had a strained relationship with her since well before the transition. But his sister still takes her children to visit my mother-in-law occasionally. My mother-in-law (an immigrant) is not accepting of her child’s being transgender, and I think stays in touch with her mainly to stay in touch with the grandkids. When my husband’s sister visits, my mother-in-law mocks her to us in a cruel manner throughout her visits. |
| I am bothered by the fact that my mother-in-law brings my husband’s sister and the grandkids into her home and yet talks behind her back and makes fun of her to others. I have communicated my frustration to my husband for not discussing this behavior with his mother, which he has acknowledged is wrong. But I struggle with how to respond to my mother-in-law. I fear that any attempt to express my discomfort may be seen as disrespectful or confrontational. But it also doesn’t feel OK to say nothing. Is it better to stick to the sidelines and hope my husband will address my mother-in-law when she behaves this way with us, or is there a productive and respectful way for me to have this conversation myself? If the latter, how might this be done? Name Withheld | I am bothered by the fact that my mother-in-law brings my husband’s sister and the grandkids into her home and yet talks behind her back and makes fun of her to others. I have communicated my frustration to my husband for not discussing this behavior with his mother, which he has acknowledged is wrong. But I struggle with how to respond to my mother-in-law. I fear that any attempt to express my discomfort may be seen as disrespectful or confrontational. But it also doesn’t feel OK to say nothing. Is it better to stick to the sidelines and hope my husband will address my mother-in-law when she behaves this way with us, or is there a productive and respectful way for me to have this conversation myself? If the latter, how might this be done? Name Withheld |
| Updated Aug. 19, 2020 | |
| The latest on how schools are navigating the pandemic. | The latest on how schools are navigating the pandemic. |
| Your mother-in-law’s attitudes may reflect the moral climate of the place she came from. But she’s here now and she has chosen to express her views to you. You’re entitled to tell her what you think. | Your mother-in-law’s attitudes may reflect the moral climate of the place she came from. But she’s here now and she has chosen to express her views to you. You’re entitled to tell her what you think. |
| And you’re right: What she’s doing is cruel, if not, alas, unusual. Your husband may find it painful to have to listen to his mother being rebuked by his wife. But at least he shares your views on this. I’d suggest that you speak for yourself, though, rather than giving in to the temptation of telling her that her son agrees with you. Let’s hope he has the courage to speak up on his own and say that you’re right. | And you’re right: What she’s doing is cruel, if not, alas, unusual. Your husband may find it painful to have to listen to his mother being rebuked by his wife. But at least he shares your views on this. I’d suggest that you speak for yourself, though, rather than giving in to the temptation of telling her that her son agrees with you. Let’s hope he has the courage to speak up on his own and say that you’re right. |
| I work at a very prestigious international civil-service organization. Recently an intern who worked on my team over the summer added me on LinkedIn. I had a quick look at his profile and was shocked to see that he claims having spent many months at my office when in reality he stayed for a few weeks. He was basically parachuted in to my team by a senior manager whose only comment was “Take good care of him.” I didn’t add him on LinkedIn, but I’m unsure whether I should be calling him out on his gross misrepresentation of his work experience. Name Withheld | I work at a very prestigious international civil-service organization. Recently an intern who worked on my team over the summer added me on LinkedIn. I had a quick look at his profile and was shocked to see that he claims having spent many months at my office when in reality he stayed for a few weeks. He was basically parachuted in to my team by a senior manager whose only comment was “Take good care of him.” I didn’t add him on LinkedIn, but I’m unsure whether I should be calling him out on his gross misrepresentation of his work experience. Name Withheld |
| Ask him to correct his entry. Yes, the world is full of lies, but that’s not a reason to stop caring about them. And because you were the person he reported to, you’re the person best placed to have him put this right. | Ask him to correct his entry. Yes, the world is full of lies, but that’s not a reason to stop caring about them. And because you were the person he reported to, you’re the person best placed to have him put this right. |