The University of Michigan said on Monday that it was pumping the brakes on a plan to forgo letter grades for many freshmen.
Under the plan, freshmen in the College of Literature, Sciences and the Arts would have received marks of “pass” or “no credit” on their transcripts for first semester courses, rather than traditional letter grades.
The pilot program, scheduled to begin in fall of 2027, was intended to ease students into the academic demands of college, the university has said. But it spurred backlash from critics, including some alumni, who argued the plan would undermine the prestige of one of the nation’s most competitive public universities.
In a message sent to leadership of the college on Monday, Domenico Grasso, president of the university, said that “extensive media coverage” gave rise to “distorted narratives” about the program that put its success at risk.
“I worry that our students could bear the consequences of those misperceptions, including being unfairly portrayed as coddled or unprepared for the demands of a rigorous Michigan education,” Mr. Grasso said in the message.
School leadership requested the program be paused “to allow for further input, analysis and discussion,” the university’s College of Literature, Science and the Arts said in a statement posted online.
Under the pilot program, professors still would have issued letter grades. But the marks would have been recorded internally by the university and not reflected on students’ transcripts.
About 3,500 of the university’s 8,000 first-year students are enrolled in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, the school’s largest college.
The program, officially announced last month, was intended to “curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” the university previously said.
A number of the nation’s most competitive universities have made similar efforts. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has long followed a protocol for freshmen like the one the University of Michigan had proposed.
Still, Michigan’s proposal faced immediate criticism and calls for the opposite approach — or an increase in rigor on campus.
In recent years, grading practices at some of the nation’s elite institutions have faced heightened scrutiny. Amid reports of grade inflation, Harvard University in May moved to restrict the number of A grades professors are permitted to hand out in undergraduate classes.
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