Herman Rubin wrote:

Furthermore, I see nothing wrong with signing up for a
course and then deciding it is not worth completing. I
see nothing wrong with collecting a lot of D's and F's;
the straight-A student tends to be weak and shallow in
the important things.

Interesting, and if such a student were to attend college and have that
same attitude about his/her school work and then earn a bunch of D's or
F's, don't you think it is a safe assumption that the student will be
placed on academic probation or suspension? So, there are consequences
to being a slackard.

Many high schools will not reveal grades or GPAs or
class ranks to universities, including most of the
good ones in Indiana. In that case, the admissions
department, of whatever school, would not know about
those poor grades.


I work in the admissions office at a large public university and I can
tell you, the high school students who apply at our university are
required to provide high school transcripts with their applications.
These transcripts *do* reveal grades and GPAs. Many provide class
rank. We probably only receive one or two transcripts a year from high
schools that do not grade their students. However, they will provide a
course description of each course that they student took and then a
notation beside it that says "if the student were to receive a grade in
this course, he/she would have earned an 'A'or 'B' or whatever." So
I'm doubtful that there are really that many students who don't have
grades or gpa's recorded on their transcripts. Even the homeschooled
kids have grades recorded on their transcripts. Of course, they're all
A's. ;-)

lisa



What we really need for university admission, and even
for high school graduation, is a comprehensive examination
of sufficient length, with no multiple choice questions,
and examining understanding.


--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Department of Statistics, Purdue University
Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558