Last week, my dad and I had a very brief conversation regarding the current GPA grading system in the US. As a professor, my dad was concerned over the academics of a student applying to join his research group. He didn’t like seeing pass/fail grades on a student’s transcript, as he felt that it obscured the student’s true performance in that class. His stance isn’t completely unfounded. During the pandemic, my high school shifted their grading policies to be more lenient. Grade inflation was quite common, and high grades were given to students in classes they didn’t care about or barely put effort into. An even more lenient grading system such as pass/fail would’ve exacerbated this effect and made it impossible to gauge students’ strengths in academics.

That being said, however, the class that I learned the most from implemented a pass/fail grading system. Not having to worry about my grade or performing well on tests took all the stress out of learning, and allowed me to focus on the material. The class opened my eyes to what I believe education should be – driven by curiosity with the aim of learning, not for the purpose of achieving a high number. It must be noted that the class was only available for students who had excelled in and completed all of the other math courses offered by the school. My classmates were all highly intelligent individuals who had already proven their ability to succeed in a traditional classroom environment. However, I firmly believe that this grading system would still benefit everyone regardless of their performance with current grading systems.

The increasing competitiveness of college admissions and job applications has led many schools to inflate their grades, making their students seem more academically talented than students from other schools. Organizations such as the ACT have warned against the dangers of grade inflation, citing concerns over not being able to differentiate students based on GPA alone and advocating for the use of objective measures such as standardized tests. However, a study conducted by Brigham Young University and Purdue University actually revealed that grade inflation actually doesn’t appear to have an impact on how much students learned from their introductory classes. In fact, they found that the only significant difference was an increase in college completion rates. Fully switching to a pass/fail grading system could serve as a way to stop the exclusion of students based on GPA, increasing the participation of historically marginalized groups in STEM majors.