Lila Gongora
LV Life Editor
While some University of La Verne students think first semester freshmen should be able to take all of their classes pass/fail, or ungraded, the majority responding to an informal survey said they prefer letter grades for all.
Specifically, among 26 students asked, 12 said they think such a pass/fail option is a good idea, while 14 said they don’t think this would benefit incoming freshmen.
The Campus Times survey, taken last week, was in response to news that the University of Michigan plans to launch a “grade covering,” or pass/fail, pilot program beginning in the fall of 2027, when freshmen in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts will receive a pass, “P,” or no credit, “NC,” grade for all classes their first semester.
The Michigan initiative was designed with the intention of curbing a mental health crisis in college-aged students and to help freshman students explore their interests under less grade-pressure.
But at La Verne some students feel forgoing letter grades would be a net negative.
Brooke Chavez, a sophomore psychology major here, said she was concerned with how this system would affect a student’s long-term academic journey.
“I wouldn’t want students that have all A’s to be grouped in the exact same category as students that are barely getting by with a C-,” Chavez said. “It would get freshmen used to being lazier.”
“Would you rather your brain surgeon have a 4.0 or a pass?” added John Bartelt, an elementary education professor at ULV.
Amanda Miller, director of the University career center and an academic advisor, said she thinks the pass/fail option could be beneficial.
“I think especially freshmen coming into their first semester,… they’re still trying to adapt and get used to what college life is like,” Miller said. “We see a lot of those students who struggle in their first year and their GPA is impacted by one bad semester.”
Miller explained that complications with this system would mostly come from major courses that tend to have a letter grade as a basis of a student’s mastery on a topic. However, the system as a whole could help students with the transition from high school to college.
“When it impacts their GPA, it also impacts their financial aid and it just trickles down with other problems,” Miller said.
Some students and professors against the pass/fail option, however, said it could cause students to fall behind.
John Bartelt and his wife Linda Bartelt co-teach courses across departments. They explained that if there is no specific metric in which coursework can be tracked, it becomes harder for the professor to know what academic resources their student needs.
Linda Bartelt questioned what else may be happening in a student’s life that could be contributing to a mental health crisis. She and her husband cautioned against adjusting academic systems before analyzing other factors in a young person’s life, such as finances or home situations.
“I think that we definitely have seen attention spans go down, writing abilities have gone down, just critical thinking skills have gone down, so I think we’re rewarding that,” Linda Bartelt said.
The pass/fail debate is not new. Colleges including Harvey Mudd, Brown University, Caltech and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology also have a pass/fail option for first semester freshmen.
Johns Hopkins implemented “covered grades” in 1971 to make the transition from high school to university easier.
These “covered grades” worked in the same way that the pass/no credit system works. Letter grades are kept internally with the registrar, but on transcripts no letter grade is shown for the first semester of college. However, Johns Hopkins got rid of the policy in 2017, as faculty members found a delay in the development of their students and a negative impact on high-performing students.
The most recent data from the Center for Health Policy Research shows that severe depressive symptoms in university students have dropped to 18% in the 2024-2025 academic year compared to 23% in 2022.
The Bartelts suggested that having freshmen students take strictly on-ground classes, or removing technology from classrooms, could aid in academic success, leading to less stress surrounding grades.
Rania Kartouch, a recent graduate of the University of La Verne, who now works for the Office of Admission said that this system would draw in certain freshmen while turning away others.
“I don’t want to be just another number,” Kartouch said. “If everybody else in my class also passed, that’s not really indicative of the difficulty of the course, or of my performance.”
Kartouch worries that presenting a pass/no credit system to students belittles their capability to obtain a passing letter grade.
For more information about the Michigan policy visit lsa.umich.edu/lsa/academics/lsa-first-semester-grade-covering-pilot-program.html.
Lila Gongora can be reached at lila.gongora@laverne.edu.
Lila Gongora is a sophomore communications major with a concentration in public relations. She is the LV Life editor for the Campus Times and previously served as a staff writer.
