Pass/Fail For Everyone

The 2014-15 school year is the second year that the "Pass/Fail" plan is being tested at the Academy. The school, in hopes of deciding whether to continue or to discontinue this for future classes, has attempted this with the class of 2017 and 2018 and will for 2019.The outline of the plan indicates that preps will receive pass/fail assessments for their first terms at Exeter. In other words, their first terms will not count towards their total grade point average. Often, pass/fail will greatly affect the dynamic of the Harkness classrooms. I have noticed that with pass/fail, some students miss the point of the concept and do not work hard at all during that term. On the other hand, others take advantage of this concept and adjust to the Exeter academic life, doing well in the terms following. One must take into account, however, that only new preps will be able to make use of this. Nowhere does it say that new lowers, or even new uppers, receive pass/fail for their first term. And this is where the plan becomes questionable.First, let us contrast the new preps and new lowers. Many will say that the maturity level or the academic level would differ between the two grades. Everywhere on campus, however, there are lowers who are younger than preps. There are even uppers who are younger than preps. In addition, there are numerous amounts of preps who are in higher math classes, science courses and taking more difficult electives. Is maturity and academia really a factor for the lack of pass/fail in new lowers and uppers?All new students, whether a senior or a prep, have to adapt to Exeter life in academic, athletic and social ways. Preps do not have a more difficult time adapting; in fact, they may have it easier. New lowers and uppers come into a community where friend groups have already been made and academic and athletic standards have already been set by their peers. On the other hand, preps come in new together, meaning that there are no friend groups (unless students chat over Facebook to create "Quad Squads"). Similarly, they are all in the same situation for sports. Each student has to "try out" the same for every athletic team.One might say that if the Academy allows new lowers and uppers to have pass/fail, not enough grades will be attributed to the students’ final grades, thus resulting in an inaccurate final GPA. For most students, however, the first term at Exeter is the most difficult one, thus resulting in a lower GPA than the other terms. If pass/fail is not established for these students as well, then the first term, which is usually lower than the other terms, will also cause an inaccurate final GPA. The inaccuracy due to the first term may more greatly affect GPA’s of students who have few terms to begin with.The goal of pass/fail was to let preps become accustomed to Exeter before having to worry about their GPA. In personal experience, I found the pass/fail strategy extremely useful for my first term at Exeter. I wish that other new students would not receive an unfair disadvantage simply because they come to the Academy one or two school years older than the preps.