Senior spearheads effort to rethink P/D/F option

Students will be able to rescind a course's P/D/F grading option at any point during their undergraduate careers, if a proposal to overhaul the University's P/D/F policy is embraced by the administration.

The proposal (read the full text), spearheaded by Graham Gottlieb '07, will be discussed at the first USG meeting Sunday.

Certain aspects of the current policy, Gottlieb said, "don't make sense. It is poorly designed because it penalizes students for doing well in a P/D/F."

Currently, students can only rescind a P/D/F before the ninth week of the semester. If the proposal is accepted, students will have a longer time to rescind the option and be able to designate eight courses P/D/F, as long as only four are eventually graded in this way.

The idea for the proposal came from Gottlieb's experience at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, N.Y., where the students are not given any grades.

"I never had a grade in my life prior to coming to Princeton," Gottlieb said. "I noticed in the first three years at Princeton, a lot of my friends were taking a P/D/F class to fulfill requirements that they wanted to get out of the way."

For Gottlieb, the idea of a P/D/F option is "to increase intellectual curiosity, but from my experience [at Princeton], it dramatically decreased effort and curiosity."

The current P/D/F policy was approved in 1998 when the University decreased the number of allotted P/D/F courses from six to four and allowed students up to the ninth week to rescind the option.

USG vice president Rob Biederman '08 said this is the first time in his memory that anyone has proposed a change to the policy.

"It looks interesting to me, and I really want to know what the Senate thinks," Biederman said.

"We should let it be debated by the Senate. If people agree with it, there should no reason why the University shouldn't consider it."

Besides adding the proposal to the Sunday night meeting agenda, Biederman said the USG is writing a survey to find out if students are dissatisfied with the current policy.

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"Maybe it isn't a good use of the USG's time," Biederman said. "This is what the survey would aim to elucidate. First, are students unhappy with the policy, and if they are, what is their problem with it? This very much remains to be seen."

Students who learned of the proposal said they would support extended time to rescind a P/D/F option.

"I've had classes where I've done poorly on the midterm and improved my grade with the final," Anuraag Parikh '08 said.

"There should be no reason why students should not be able to rescind a P/D/F if they are still willing to work hard for their grade."

Gottlieb has not discussed his proposal with anyone from the University administration, but said he plans on meeting with Associate Dean of the College Peter Quimby.

Even if the policy is not accepted, Gottlieb said he hopes it will spark discussion on the shortcomings of the current P/D/F policy.

"The fundamental point of the proposal is not to have it be followed word by word, but to begin a dialogue to make the P/D/F system better." Gottlieb said.

"This could be in any number of ways."