University of Michigan college freshmen will no longer get grades in first semester
by Brad Matthews · The Washington TimesFreshmen in the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will not get grades in their first semester as part of an upcoming pilot program.
Starting in fall 2027, first-year students will either pass or receive no credit for their first-semester courses.
Officials said the change to the pass-fail system, also known as covering grades, will “help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis.”
The first-semester designations will not be put on external transcripts and will not factor into a student’s grade point average. Grading will start as normal in the next semester.
The pilot program is intended to acclimate freshmen to the pace of college and let them explore courses and subjects without fearing potential repercussions to their grade point average, officials said.
The college makes up a plurality of all incoming freshmen at the University of Michigan, accounting for 3,521 of the 8,178 first-year students that enrolled in fall 2025.
Similar programs also exist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wellesley College, and Swarthmore College, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Reactions to the plan have been mixed.
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University student body president Summit Louth, a 20-year-old junior, told the New York Times that the program would have been helpful for him as a freshman.
“You’re just figuring out how to be an adult and live on your own. It gets extremely stressful having to balance that with also wanting to be a straight-A student,” Mr. Louth told the New York Times.
Rice University professor Kenneth Lowande, who used to teach at the University of Michigan, argued that the program is largely irrelevant because of grade inflation, telling the Wall Street Journal that “grades have lost their value as an indication of quality or excellence.”
Neetu Arnold, who works on education policy at the Manhattan Institute think tank, told the Chronicle of Higher Education that the pilot program is “an attempt to address preparation gaps that could have been identified had Michigan required standardized tests in admissions.”
The University of Michigan does not require scores from the standardized SAT or ACT as part of admissions.
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The school will still keep internal records of a student’s first semester grade, since the grades can factor into academic advising and awards, compliance and scholarships.
Students will also have access to their grade records if needed for internships, for majors at the university outside the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, and for other academic or professional pursuits, officials said.
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