Which colleges don't have difficult competition/grading?

unalove
Sat, 15 Nov 2008 19:22:23 +0000

Just a correction if somebody wants to search for it:

“Colleges that Could Change Lives” in M. Rom’s post should be “Colleges that Change Lives.” It’s a book by Loren Pope that’s available on amazon.com or probably in a local bookstore (my local bookstore always has a ton of copies). Even though I ended up seriously considering only two or three schools on Mr. Pope’s list, I think he was onto something about choosing a schools that truly value the student and schools at which the student can grow. (He even points out that the book includes schools that would be perfect for one person and terrible for another).

Antioch, Evergreen State, Reed, and St. John’s College are all CTCL schools. Another CTCL school that wasn’t mentioned in the previous post was Hampshire College.

I’m still confused on Brown’s grading system-- S/NC (I think that’s what they call pass/fail) is optional-- the default is letter grades.

However, in the big picture, I’m not convinced that issuing or not issuing grades makes that much of a difference. Reed doesn’t readily make grades available (though I think they are issued?) but students there still work very hard. Academic stress can come (and, in my experience, more often comes) from within than from without. I attend a college with a traditional grading system and I very infrequently feel pressured because of the grading system.