Covered Grades In School

Covered grades have existed at many educational institutions across the United States for decades. At Johns Hopkins University, this policy only applied in the fall semester of a student’s first year. Instructors would assign letter grades, which would ultimately be covered by the following system: letters grades of ‘C-’ or above were assigned an ‘S’ and given credit while those below ‘C-’ were assigned a ‘U’ (JHU FAQs). Covered grades in the first semester are akin to having classes graded on a pass or fail standard, which greatly reduces the stress and pressure that incoming freshman face since actual letter grades do not appear on transcripts. Covered grades have been at Johns Hopkins since 1971 and were originally designed to ease the

The pressures students face are much greater than previous years in high school. The need to meet new people, find a high paying job, and extracurriculars all play a role in elevating stress levels on college campuses. Now, JHU freshman can add worrying about fall semester grades to that list of never ending reasons of why students are so stressed. According to Ross et al., stress levels in college have been increasing dramatically and over 75% college students feel stressed about grades (4). Hopkins is notorious for its competitive academic environment, and students often feel even more stressed than those in the survey. Incoming freshman are faced with grade deflation and a cutthroat culture that forces students to classify fellow classmates as their competitors. However, under a covered grades system, students do not see other students as competition rather they can freely work together. This is important for the well being of the school because college environment should not feel like a tournament to see who's the best, it should be a group effort to help everyone become better

Having covered grades will help students transition to college better by teaching them the right mindset that grades are not the most important factor in life. Having this mindset will help students build healthy habits and be well rounded. Mental health has become a huge issue in the country. According to the APA, “anxiety is the top presenting concern among college students (41.6 percent), followed by depression (36.4 percent)” (13). The more pressing concern is that these numbers are still on the rise today. Covered grades could relieve freshman from many of these mental health illnesses by allowing students the time to adjust to a different environment. JHU is not prepared to handle mental health illnesses and students that need help academically (Recover Hopkins 4). Even the tutoring programs are self enrolled and often do not have enough spaces for students that want help. Also, many of these tutoring programs are skewed towards math and sciences courses that leave many students to find help