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Grade Point Average

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As a first year student at Culver Stockton College with a 4.0 Grade Point Average, and someone who takes extreme pride in my grades, I am in support of eliminating the grading system at this institution. For many college students, grades are everything. Grades are a driving force of late nights, continuous hours spent in the library, a cluttered desk, and pen marks on the sides of hands. A grade is the deciding factor on how much money that student should pay for their education based on scholarships, if that student should continue participation in activity they are passionate about, or for some, if their education can even continue. It is also the source of millions of students, no matter the grade level stress and anxiety. It is now up to …show more content…
Tomar, a writer for The Quad the grading system that the United States is familiar with today dates back to 1897, when Mount Holyoke College first begin using a percentage of points earned and assigning that percentage with a letter grade, the grading structure all Americans are familiar with. This way of judging students based on performance and the correlation to percentages is 121 years old. Meaning it is an outdated way of judging students. Teaching styles and curriculum has changed hundreds of times since 1897, and yet the way the students are being graded on that ever changing curriculum hasn’t changed at all. Schools in the 1890’s still taught creation theory, in the majority of the country African American students were not even allowed to attend school, let alone go to school with children who were a different race than them. The United States and the school system in the United States has changed dramatically since the creation of the modernizing grading system, but yet society still holds that ancient system to be the best form of judging the capability and performance of millions of …show more content…
Society and students have become so dependent on this scale that it would be very hard to learn or judge the learning level without the grades. Like Tomar discussed, some students are so far into the system, it would be hard for a new way to be introduced, for example he discussed a high school senior that had a much harder time adjusting to the new grading in an experiment, because the student was so ingrained in the old system. I know personally, I use the grading system to judge where I stand in the class and to see if I have a handel on the material, and I know I am not the only one. “One of the best things you can say about grades is that students and teachers are used to them. We know what they mean, even if that meaning lacks nuance. Students can use grades to gauge where they are on the continuum between Excellence and Failure,” (Tomar). Changing the system so late in the game could have an adverse effect on the students, especially those who are accustomed to the old way of grading. It would probably be best to introduce the new way of grading in the lower levels, when the students are not used to or exposed to the old way, however grades in college are so important to everyone, and it is not fair to continue to grade students in a structure that

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