UGA Prof Lets Students Choose Own Grades for "Stress Reduction"

[interchange]

Holy balls. Apparently this is real. I couldn't believe it, but I've also post the web archived version from the UGA site itself:

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9551
https://web.archive.org/web/20170807163817/http://people.terry.uga.edu/rwatson/mist4610/

That such policies are even entertainable in today's world -- pretty crazy

 

[HomerJS]

You mean like members of congress voting themselves raises?

 

[fskimospy]

Holy balls. Apparently this is real. I couldn't believe it, but I've also post the web archived version from the UGA site itself:

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=9551
https://web.archive.org/web/20170807163817/http://people.terry.uga.edu/rwatson/mist4610/

That such policies are even entertainable in today's world -- pretty crazy

Some colleges are doing away with grades altogether, which I'm pretty fine with. In my experience GPA is at least as strongly influenced by what courses you take, what professors you had, and what school you went to as it does the quality of your work.

If anything I think grades provide some sort of numeric assessment that provides a false sense of certainty. I mean if I showed you two candidates that appeared otherwise identical but one had a higher GPA how confident would you be that they were actually superior? In my opinion, not very.

I wouldn't go as far as this guy but I would support making all classes pass/fail. Or, if you want to go the other way, grade by class rank in every class. The current system is not a useful metric for measuring ability so it's hard to get mad if people ignore it.

 

[bshole]

Some colleges are doing away with grades altogether, which I'm pretty fine with. In my experience GPA is at least as strongly influenced by what courses you take, what professors you had, and what school you went to as it does the quality of your work.

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper? This is especially important in STEM fields. I can see doing away with grades for the useless liberal arts majors, but with regard to the majors upon which this nation's survival is dependent (engineering), hell fucking no. Getting good grades in a hard engineering curriculum is indicative of a highly intelligent person with superior analytic problem solving skills.

 

[fskimospy]

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper? This is especially important in STEM fields. I can see doing away with grades for the useless liberal arts majors, but with regard to the majors upon which this nation's survival is dependent (engineering), hell fucking no. Getting good grades in a hard engineering curriculum is indicative of a highly intelligent person with superior analytic problem solving skills.

Hence pass/fail or class rank. With pass/fail you're simply recognizing the GPA system is not useful and with class rank you would be providing an explicit statement of relative ability. Depending on what college and professors someone had a 2.5 at one college could be a 3.5 at another and if anything in my experience the fancier the school's name the easier the grading. Unless hiring managers are accounting for this, which they are very likely not, GPA is not providing useful hiring information.

Don't take my word for it, Google also considers it to be a near-worthless criterion:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/b...=0&smid=tw-nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow

One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight correlation. Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything.

 

[senseamp]

Oh look, people being too nice to each other. Time for Republican RAGE!!!

 

[IronWing]

Evergreen College doesn't have grades. It is all fine until a student wants to get into grad school.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Some colleges are doing away with grades altogether, which I'm pretty fine with. In my experience GPA is at least as strongly influenced by what courses you take, what professors you had, and what school you went to as it does the quality of your work.

If anything I think grades provide some sort of numeric assessment that provides a false sense of certainty. I mean if I showed you two candidates that appeared otherwise identical but one had a higher GPA how confident would you be that they were actually superior? In my opinion, not very.

I wouldn't go as far as this guy but I would support making all classes pass/fail. Or, if you want to go the other way, grade by class rank in every class. The current system is not a useful metric for measuring ability so it's hard to get mad if people ignore it.

I disagree. All a pass fail would do is muddy the waters more when it comes to admission to grad and professional schools. These places do look at the reputation of the school and metrics. If one wants to get into Cornell Vet school there's more than a grade and part of that is the school. a 4.0 from a rigorous program means something. It does not when it's from a "party till you pass" institution.

Getting a job right after graduation is one thing. Competitive post grad studies is another. I think my wife would quit teaching if her barely marginal students could not be discerned from the finest to go on to medical school or a top tier graduate biology program.

 

[fskimospy]

I disagree. All a pass fail would do is muddy the waters more when it comes to admission to grad and professional schools. These places do look at the reputation of the school and metrics. If one wants to get into Cornell Vet school there's more than a grade and part of that is the school. a 4.0 from a rigorous program means something. It does not when it's from a "party till you pass" institution.

Getting a job right after graduation is one thing. Competitive post grad studies is another. I think my wife would quit teaching if her barely marginal students could not be discerned from the finest to go on to medical school or a top tier graduate biology program.

If grades aren't good at measuring the final product why should they be used for selection in the intermediate steps?

 

[Blackjack200]

Oh look, people being too nice to each other. Time for Republican RAGE!!!

Can you imagine how miserable you'd have to be to get all wound up anytime a child found relief from gender anxiety or professor tried to address a problem in their classroom? It's a politics of insanely irritable and endlessly triggered people.

I think my wife would quit teaching if her barely marginal students could not be discerned from the finest to go on to medical school or a top tier graduate biology program.

Oh really? There's no way a medical school can discern a barely marginal student from a high performer without GPA?

 

[justoh]

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper? This is especially important in STEM fields. I can see doing away with grades for the useless liberal arts majors, but with regard to the majors upon which this nation's survival is dependent (engineering), hell fucking no. Getting good grades in a hard engineering curriculum is indicative of a highly intelligent person with superior analytic problem solving skills.

On the other hand, how is democracy supposed to work without the liberal arts, which is the only way one learns how to think. Oh wait, you elected trump. It doesn't.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Some colleges are doing away with grades altogether, which I'm pretty fine with. In my experience GPA is at least as strongly influenced by what courses you take, what professors you had, and what school you went to as it does the quality of your work.

If anything I think grades provide some sort of numeric assessment that provides a false sense of certainty. I mean if I showed you two candidates that appeared otherwise identical but one had a higher GPA how confident would you be that they were actually superior? In my opinion, not very.

I wouldn't go as far as this guy but I would support making all classes pass/fail. Or, if you want to go the other way, grade by class rank in every class. The current system is not a useful metric for measuring ability so it's hard to get mad if people ignore it.

You were a C Student weren't 'ya?

Nope, sorry, disagree. I was a C student and I still say GPA is crucial. How the hell do you evaluate if its a pass or a fail? Oh yeah, based on GPA

 

[fskimospy]

You were a C Student weren't 'ya?

Nope, sorry, disagree. I was a C student and I still say GPA is crucial. How the hell do you evaluate if its a pass or a fail? Oh yeah, based on GPA

Nah, I was a decent but not great student. Just above a 3.5. Serious question, Google finds GPA to be a near worthless metric after studying the issue intently. Is there a particular reason why you think they are wrong?

 

[IronWing]

Oh really? There's no way a medical school can discern a barely marginal student from a high performer without GPA?

GPA, MCAT, transcript, and essay for the usual factors. An admissions officer is reviewing hundreds or thousands of applications. GPA and MCAT scores are quick to review and subject to automated sorting. Even transcript reviews could be partially automated. If a student doesn't supply a GPA, I doubt an admissions officer will take the time to look at the transcript or essay. In the case of an Evergreen graduate, an admissions officer would have to read through years of narrative evaluations written by Evergreen profs. Ain't no one got time for that.

 

[fskimospy]

GPA, MCAT, transcript, and essay for the usual factors. An admissions officer is reviewing hundreds or thousands of applications. GPA and MCAT scores are quick to review and subject to automated sorting. Even transcript reviews could be partially automated. If a student doesn't supply a GPA, I doubt an admissions officer will take the time to look at the transcript or essay. In the case of an Evergreen graduate, an admissions officer would have to read through years of narrative evaluations written by Evergreen profs. Ain't no one got time for that.

So is the argument that we should keep sorting graduates on this thing that appears to have no predictive value because it's easier? I mean admissions officers might keep doing it but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. This seems to come back to my original point that people THINK GPA means something, which in many ways is worse than nothing at all because it gives a false sense of certainty.

Of course what holds true for Google doesn't have to hold true everywhere but I haven't seen many other rigorous analyses of this type that address performance. Usually the studies I see correlate higher GPA with higher earnings, but the obvious confound to that is shown in this thread. People with higher GPA's earn more because people think GPA means they are better even if it doesn't.

 

[LevelSea]

Nah, I was a decent but not great student. Just above a 3.5. Serious question, Google finds GPA to be a near worthless metric after studying the issue intently. Is there a particular reason why you think they are wrong?

I'm sure there's not any selection bias in regards to choosing whether to go through Google's hiring process.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Nah, I was a decent but not great student. Just above a 3.5. Serious question, Google finds GPA to be a near worthless metric after studying the issue intently. Is there a particular reason why you think they are wrong?

GPA is meaningless to Google because they have the luxury of recruiting top tier talent from top tier universities. GOP becomes irrelevant when your candidate pool is MIT, Stanford and Berkeley. That is why their interviewing process famously goes down the critical thinking path.

However, GPA very much played a role in the talent pipeline from which they draw candidates.

 

[1prophet]

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper? This is especially important in STEM fields. I can see doing away with grades for the useless liberal arts majors, but with regard to the majors upon which this nation's survival is dependent (engineering), hell fucking no. Getting good grades in a hard engineering curriculum is indicative of a highly intelligent person with superior analytic problem solving skills.

You just lobby congress for more H1-B visas and use situations like this to justify it, why you can't hire an American,

Looks like liberals and conservatives are locked in a race to the bottom land called idiocracy, one uses religion and ignorance while the other uses political correctness while handing out trophies and rewards to all just for participation so nobodies snowflake feelings would be hurt.

 

[IronWing]

So is the argument that we should keep sorting graduates on this thing that appears to have no predictive value because it's easier? I mean admissions officers might keep doing it but that doesn't mean it's a good idea. This seems to come back to my original point that people THINK GPA means something, which in many ways is worse than nothing at all because it gives a false sense of certainty.

Of course what holds true for Google doesn't have to hold true everywhere but I haven't seen many other rigorous analyses of this type that address performance. Usually the studies I see correlate higher GPA with higher earnings, but the obvious confound to that is shown in this thread. People with higher GPA's earn more because people think GPA means they are better even if it doesn't.

Yep. Unless one can find an equally easy metric to sort on that is more meaningful than test scores and GPA, these will continue to be used. A better predictor might be parental income history but I bet we don't want to go there.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

Nah, I was a decent but not great student. Just above a 3.5. Serious question, Google finds GPA to be a near worthless metric after studying the issue intently. Is there a particular reason why you think they are wrong?

Google isn't everyone though - and we all know they lean politically to the left just like any other out in the bay area.

But there are plenty of other reasons such as scholarships that depend upon it, knowing whom is at the top of a class - and there are plenty of employers that still request it.

I do agree though, how grades are determined can vary a decent amount depending on the class (if it's multiple choice, essays, or written responses) and professor. But I still think it's crucial to know who - especially for tough STEM majors like physics - the number of people who come out with a 4.0 GPA. Typically 4.0 in these types of fields are few and far regardless of the school. I don't think it's fair to lump them all in the same group, it just seems like the "everyone gets a trophy!" route.

 

[fskimospy]

I'm sure there's not any selection bias in regards to choosing whether to go through Google's hiring process.

Just so I understand you correctly are you claiming that Google's environment and employees are so unique that this finding cannot be generalized in any way? Specifically, you seem to be saying that the difference between Google's environment and the average American workplace is so large in this respect that it would be at least reasonably likely to turn a null hypothesis confirmation into a finding so strongly significant that it should influence the average American company's HR policy. If so, what's the basis for this? If not, what are you saying?

From everything I've read the relationship between GPA and job performance is generally on the side of no relationship and even in the studies that do find them the percentage of the variance it explains is tiny. It is a waste of everyone's time.

 

[ch33zw1z]

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper? This is especially important in STEM fields. I can see doing away with grades for the useless liberal arts majors, but with regard to the majors upon which this nation's survival is dependent (engineering), hell fucking no. Getting good grades in a hard engineering curriculum is indicative of a highly intelligent person with superior analytic problem solving skills.

Pay to play is how it's always been. I work with people holding 4 year degrees in comp Sci, and they asking the lowly field tech for the right Linux commands for pretty basic stuff. Book smarts don't always translate to real world knowledge

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Evergreen College doesn't have grades. It is all fine until a student wants to get into grad school.

Why would anyone that cared about grad school go to Evergreen College? Is a Masters or Doctorate in American Indian Folk Opera a major career boost?

How in the hell are companies supposed to know if a person is competent if the diploma is basically toilet paper?

That ship has already sailed. Diplomas are good for the college, a lot less so for the grad.

 

[fskimospy]

I feel like most people are defending using GPA as a selection criteria because that's the way it's always been done. If it's actually strongly related to job performance then there should be a lot of research out there that shows it's one of the best ways of predicting future employee performance. From what I've read the research either shows no relationship or shows one that's far weaker than lots of other ways you could evaluate people.

If someone wants to show research with a strong correlation that explains a lot of the variance between applicants I'd love to see it.

 

[IronWing]

I feel like most people are defending using GPA as a selection criteria because that's the way it's always been done. If it's actually strongly related to job performance then there should be a lot of research out there that shows it's one of the best ways of predicting future employee performance. From what I've read the research either shows no relationship or shows one that's far weaker than lots of other ways you could evaluate people.

If someone wants to show research with a strong correlation that explains a lot of the variance between applicants I'd love to see it.

Alternatives?