Why the University of Michigan Is Dropping Letter Grades for New Students
Starting in fall 2027, first-semester students at the University of Michigan's largest college will no longer receive letter grades like A, B, or C on their official transcripts. Instead, they will get either a "pass" or "no credit" for their first semester. These marks will not affect their GPA, the number that colleges use to measure how well a student is doing overall.
The college will still keep private records of the real grades for purposes like academic advising, scholarships, and internship applications. From the second semester onward, grades will show up on transcripts and count toward GPAs as they normally would.
LSA Dean Rosario Ceballo said the change could help with "alarming rates of stress, depression and anxiety among students." Timothy McKay, an associate dean at the college, said the program would give students a "smooth on-ramp from high school into a rigorous college education and a chance to build early momentum."
The university said the goal is to help new students adjust to college life and encourage teamwork over competition. The program is part of a campus-wide effort called the Student Success Initiative, which focuses on helping students get off to a strong start. Staff and faculty across the university are still working out the details.
The decision came after a mental health study covering 135 U.S. colleges and universities. The 2024-2025 Healthy Minds Study found that severe depression among students dropped to 18 percent, down from 23 percent in 2022. Suicidal thoughts fell to 11 percent, down from 15 percent over the same period.
The broader picture is that colleges across the country are split on how to handle grades and student readiness. Michigan is joining a group of schools trying to ease the pressure on new students. According to the Wall Street Journal, schools like Caltech, Swarthmore College, Wellesley College, and MIT are trying similar grade-covering programs.
At the same time, some universities are going the opposite direction. In May, Harvard faculty voted to limit A grades to about 20 percent of students to stop grade inflation, which is when grades go up over time without students necessarily learning more. In June, math and science professors at the University of California asked leaders to bring back entrance exams, saying students were arriving less prepared. UC San Diego found that the percentage of students needing to catch up on basic math before taking precalculus jumped from 0.5 percent in 2020 to 8.5 percent in 2025.
Under the college's current policy, students can already choose to take a course on a pass/fail basis, where the grade does not affect their GPA. Instructors do not know which students choose this option and still report regular grades. The new pilot program does something similar but applies it to all first-semester students automatically, and uses the label "No Credit" instead of "Fail" on the transcript. The college is still designing the program with input from faculty and staff.
