<p>I cannot believe they would do away with the “NR” option. For those of us old timers that were there under the original “Plan”, we had no grades. You had “AC” which was acceptable, “AD” which was acceptable with distinction, and then “NR”. This type of grading made the atmosphere very teamwork oriented. Students were always diving in to help other students with their work and help them understand because you weren’t “competing” for grades.</p>
<p>As noted above, NR’s were really important with those “stretch” classes or when you wanted to see if something like Organic Chemistry was really as bad as the Chem Eng’s made it out to be (it was…). Or take that Oceanography class and find out 3 weeks in that it really wasn’t really what you expected it to be… I’m sure there was a ton of complaining when they went to “real” grades. I know I would have been VERY vocally against it, but they were trying to hold on to ABET accreditation and ABET just doesn’t “get it” sometimes. </p>
<p>Doing away with the NR just wouldn’t make any sense at all in the WPI culture that they try to foster. Besides, then there would be no “snowflakes” either! (For those not up to speed on WPI lingo, a snowflake is a report card with nothing on it… I never got one, but my roomate sophomore year did… She transfered to Worcester State the next year…) </p>
<p>Just be glad they did get rid of the competency exam…</p>