Click here for testimonials from fellow Hoyas.

Please add your testimonials here if you’d like to share your opinions as to how universal grading policies like  Double A and mandatory P/F can negatively impact you and your academic success, or to share how the extended deadline to opt into P/F will assist you in these trying times. All responses are recorded ANONYMOUSLY.

THE PETITION:

We believe an inflexible universal grading policy obstructs fairness and reduces potential for academic success for a significant portion of the GU student body. In this petition, we propose that the University:

• Maintains the current optional P/F policy, but;
• Moves the deadline to decide to take a course for P/F to after final examinations and two days after final grades are due, namely, by May 15th, 2020 at 12:00pm EST.

We then offer our reasoning against the previously proposed universal grading systems, such as 

• The “Double A policy” recently advocated by certain members of GUSA leadership; and
• Mandatory or universal P/F.

Why extend the deadline for choosing to take a course for P/F?

Classes evaluate students in different ways, which has implications for a student’s decision to take a course P/F. For example, certain social science and STEM exam-based courses place heavy weight on final exams, unlike most paper-based courses. It would be unfair to students of exam-based majors if they needed to make the P/F decision with little idea of what their final grade will look like, while other students may already have their entire grade calculated. Additionally, by forcing students to make the decision before exams, the students who elect P/F will have much less incentive to study for the exam, which has implications for their mastery of the material and could alter the curve in curved courses.

In addition, maintaining an optional P/F policy rewards students for their hard work in the first nine weeks of the semester. It also provides students who feel they cannot focus on their schoolwork during the pandemic to experience no negative effects on their grades and GPA, while allowing those that do want to focus on schoolwork to maintain a level of dedication and motivation similar to what they felt before virtual instruction. The optional P/F enables students to decide what is best given their own circumstances.

Therefore, to increase flexibility and reduce stress for every individual student and circumstance, we believe it is most fair if students, by May 15th, are able to decide from which classes, if any, they would like to take a course for P/F. Peer universities such as Notre Dame, Amherst College, UW Madison, and Carnegie Mellon have already announced they are allowing students to make this decision after final exams are graded. 

Our rebuttal against "Double A" policy:

1. Allowing faculty members to decide the cutoff for A/A- (i.e. 70%? 94%?) will create inconsistencies in expectations across different courses and different faculty;
2. A term of A/A- for all students will inflate the GPAs of the Classes of 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, which could be seen as unfavorable by employers and graduate school admissions, unfairly inflate the cutoffs for Latin Honors for the entering classes of 2024 and beyond who do not receive this “boost” semester, and unfairly exclude students who studied abroad in Spring 2020 who do not receive the boosts either;
3. There will be serious uncertainties as to how graduate programs and employers will consider the “A-” across the board, as students not deserving to pass a course will receive an A-, and the A- will range from 0% completion of course material to whatever the cutoff is;
4. The Double A system is a “freebie” that can and will discourage until the conclusion of the term continuation of hard work, which is expected of successful students;
5. The Double A system will make it so that students who put no work into their classes before spring break get the same grades as students who sacrificed a lot of hours to earn their grades;
6. The Double A system, if adopted, establishes a dangerous precedent as the de facto system in the case of future disruptions to on-campus academics, which will continue to dilute GPAs;
7. No other institution of higher education has adopted a double A policy, so this would put Georgetown students at an unfair advantage in comparison to college students from other universities when it comes to fellowship and other post-graduate opportunities. 

Moreover, the “Double A” policy contradicts the University’s “Studying, Grades, and Credit” regulations on its bulletin, which state that  “the academic learning of students is, in the University’s eyes, their most significant responsibility.” The Double A policy dilutes the strength of the University’s mission by encouraging a significant number of students to forego hard work, as hard work will be rendered  unnecessary for high grades in Spring 2020.

Our rebuttal against mandatory P/F and Universal Pass:

A mandatory P/F or a Universal Pass will take away the hard work many students have done up until the migration to the virtual learning platform. There are students such as:

• Those who were wishing to raise their GPA through their Spring 2020 grades to be competitive for employment, grad school, and fellowship opportunities;
• Those who went abroad in previous semesters who would not like to have two full semesters be pass-fail;
• First generation and/or low-income students or students whose high schools may not have prepared them as well for Georgetown-level classwork, who had a rougher freshman “transition” year and want to use subsequent semesters to raise their GPAs after adjusting to Georgetown;
• and more plainly, those who have worked really hard for a full nine weeks this term and would not like their hard work to go down the drain.

 

Ever since the Optional P/F policy was adopted in March, students have already begun to plan around the flexibilities it offers. It is unfair if the University adopts a radical, universal grading policy that denies students the once-promised flexibility. Instead, allowing the extension will make the grading system more fair for students who have heavier weights on final examinations than their peers. The extension would also give students sufficient information to make their P/F decision, since students will themselves have a better understanding of the effects of COVID-19 on their ability to complete the term.

For these reasons, we believe the University, if it is considering altering the current system, must take into account the needs of the entire student body. It is the university’s duty to maintain impartiality and academic rigor, and we find the current optional P/F with an extended deadline to be the most inclusive and flexible for all undergraduates.

Please sign the petition if you disagree with the currently circulating universal grading proposals and/or if you find this modification to the current grading  policy to be most flexible and most beneficial for our student body.