What are the merits of the UC Santa Cruz grading system?
Starting with new students entering in fall 2001, we adopted one of the most comprehensive systems for evaluating students’ academic performance of any research university in the United States: letter grades plus written evaluations of student performance. For a number of years, students were given detailed comments on their work. Students were able to select traditional letter grades in addition to the comments. Now they still receive these narrative evaluations, or performance evaluations, along with grades. Performance evaluations are intended to supplement the final quarterly grades by further describing the strengths and weaknesses of a student’s work and assessing the general understanding of the course content. Evaluations are used at UC Santa Cruz in academic advising, reviewing scholarship applications and awarding College Honors and Honors designations. According to Dr. Barbara Rogoff, a UC Santa Cruz Foundation– endowed professor in psychology who researches the development
