A state school in Michigan is adopting a policy to cover freshmen’s first semester grades.
Beginning fall 2027, the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) will not put grades on students’ transcripts from their first semester. The transcript will indicate either that the student passed or received no credit for each course, but will not include a letter grade indicator.
This “First-Semester Grade Covering Pilot Program” is intended to “help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” the LSA website reports.
The University of Michigan joins four other American universities that have similar programs — including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which has done it since 1968. California Institute of Technology, Wellesley College and Swarthmore College also have similar policies. Johns Hopkins University had a similar policy from 1971 until they eliminated it in 2017, according to a 2016 Johns Hopkins newsletter.
“[F]aculty members say that too often covered grades merely delay development of study skills and adaptation to college-level work,” Johns Hopkins University Deans Beverly J. Wendland and Ed Schlesinger wrote in an email to the students explaining the elimination of the policy. “At the same time, covered grades negatively impact students who perform well as first-semester freshmen,” an article in Johns Hopkins’ student-published newsletter stated at the time.
The University of Michigan LSA, however, hopes the pilot program will “help first-year students acclimate to the demands of college and allow intrinsic motivations to guide personally meaningful academic journeys,” according its website.
The LSA is the largest of the University’s 19 schools colleges, and had 3,521 first-year students enter in the fall of 2025, according to LSA At A Glance.
The LSA first-year students “will still receive grades and instructor feedback in every course” for the first semester, but those grades will not show up on a transcript or be reflected in their GPA, according to the website.
MIT tells students its similar grading policy is “designed to ease your transition to MIT by giving you time to adjust to factors like increased workloads and variations in academic preparation and teaching methods,” according to its website.
LSA has offered optional “pass/fail grading” since fall 2024, wherein the registrar enters the student’s grade as pass or fail, instead of a letter grade, according to the LSA website. A C- through A+ receives a passing grade, and anything below a C- receives a failing grade. This option is only available for certain courses, like electives, and does not work for classes required for a student’s major or minor.
(DCNF)
