Grades

Apparently I missed this earlier, but Harvard has decided to switch from a traditional grading system to one similar to Yale's, Honors-Pass-Low Pass-Fail. My first reaction was "Well, crap. Why did they do this now, after I've finished?" But then I thought about it a bit more...

It seems like the only effect this will have will be to reduce the gray areas. There will be no more A-/B+ distinctions, but there will still essentially be As, Bs, a rare C (I've heard they exist, but I'm not totally convinced...), and people who fall off the face of the planet and therefore fail. One thing I think it will do for students, though, is give them more faith in the grading system - as it was when I was there it seemed extremely arbitrary, and I think that was largely because we had pluses and minuses and it was all a crapshoot (honest professors would even admit that). This way, there will be clear "Honors" students, clear "Low Pass" students (rarely, probably), and everyone else will Pass. I think it will take some pressure off, and will allow people like me, who are only aiming to Pass anyway, to relax a bit. Not that HLS is any more stressful than any other law school (probably less so, actually, because as Dean Kagan (I think? or was it Jon Hanson?) says, once you get in you're pretty much "off the treadmill" - you're employable as long as you aren't crazy and you maintain some minimal degree of studiousness... but that's another post altogether.).

Anyway, those are my quick thoughts on that. I reserve the right to change my opinion, of course. Anyone else have thoughts?