FAQ Universal Pass at Yale

Thank you for taking the time to learn more about our cause! Below you can find answers to many of the questions you may have about our goals. You can find a more condensed version here.

1. What does “Universal Pass” (UP) mean?

2. How does UP differ from Credit/D/Fail?
3. Why is this more equitable than giving students the choice to opt-in to Pass/Fail?
4. How will Universal Pass affect me earning my distributional and major requirements?
5. What will drive students to complete their coursework for the semester with a UP policy?
6. If students do not have the necessary technological/internet access, wouldn’t a better solution be for Yale to pay for all students to have access?
7. Many students will need the grade boost this semester when applying for graduate programs. How will Universal Pass account for students whose GPAs matter significantly in the face of post-undergrad opportunities?
8. What about students applying to highly competitive post-undergraduate programs, like medical schools and ABET certification?
9. Many students worked hard for the first half of the semester. Should they be allowed to present grades up until the academic midterm?
10. Why not give affected students a tuition refund and allow them to withdraw without penalty instead of adopting a Universal Pass policy?
11. Yale was unfair anyways. Why should this change now?
12. How would the implementation of a UP policy affect senior theses and Distinctions?
13. Why should Yale universally pass students in technical skill classes (i.e. computer programming) if they may not be able to learn the material as well at home? What happens when these classes are needed for base learning for higher sequence classes?
14. How will scholarships be affected by Universal Pass?
15. Why can we not make adjustments for students on a case-by-case basis?
16. I used a Credit/D/F this semester. If UP passes, will I get that Credit/D/F back?
17. Should I get a full tuition refund because I enrolled with the understanding that I would work toward a GPA?
18. The YCC Survey has no option for Universal Pass, rather Universal Pass/No Credit. Why is that?

1. What does “Universal Pass” (UP) mean?

1. Under a UP system, students would receive credit for their courses and a grade of “P” on their transcript. With UP, no student will be penalized for factors out of their control. Every student in Yale College will pass their courses and receive credit towards their major, distributional requirements, and graduation. In the context of graduate program applications, everyone’s transcripts would also be accompanied by a letter explaining the extenuating circumstances of the pandemic that led to this outcome.

2. How does UP differ from Credit/D/Fail?

1. Students are currently operating under extraordinary circumstances. This should be reflected on their transcripts. A grade of “P” along with an explanation of the context of the pandemic would buffer the potentially negative connotations of a grade of “Credit” for future employers and graduate admissions officers. Further, with a Credit/D/Fail system, students are still at risk of receiving a grade of D or failing. Credit/D/Fail is also currently limited to four classes total throughout your undergraduate trajectory, and only two per semester. Lastly, contrary to the guidelines of Credit/D/Fail, under UP all courses will still satisfy any distributional and major requirements they were previously allotted to.

3. Why is this more equitable than giving students the choice to opt-in to Pass/Fail?

1. The optional route discriminates against students who are struggling while outside of Yale. A distinction between a Pass/Fail and a letter grade creates a stigma around choosing Pass/Fail. When employers or graduate schools compare students, students who chose the Pass/Fail option could be perceived as less deserving of the position than those who opted into receiving a letter grade. That stigma will fall on lines of socioeconomic status, disability, race, sexual orientation, and documentation status. Students without internet access, stable housing, or food security will be forced to choose Pass/Fail because of their unique situation. Alternatively, students who don't have the ability to stay academically afloat during this crisis may feel pressured to display a letter grade that is not representative of their full potential, for fear of the stigma associated with Pass/Fail. This will again result in students being penalized academically for circumstances beyond their control.

4. How will Universal Pass affect me earning my distributional and major requirements?

1. Under a UP policy, all courses will satisfy any distributional, major, and graduation requirements to which they were previously allotted.

5. What will drive students to complete their coursework for the semester with a UP policy?

1. Yale students are passionate about their coursework, and a UP system would encourage them to work hard without fear of being academically punished because of factors beyond their control.
2. Additionally, the students who are likely to fail under Pass/Fail are not lazy students, but those whose home lives prevent them from studying effectively. So functionally, moving to UP is the same as Pass/Fail except that it helps those who are most disadvantaged by the pandemic.

6. If students do not have the necessary technological/internet access, wouldn’t a better solution be for Yale to pay for all students to have access?

1. Firstly, it is very important to note and acknowledge that many students do not have internet access to complete their coursework and to study for their exams. Many students are putting themselves and their families at risk by traveling miles to their nearest internet café or public library, against CDC recommendations of social distancing, for the sole purpose of being able to attend class.
2. Secondly, the problems low-income and international students face stem from much more than just a lack of technological access. Many low-income students will now have to take care of younger siblings because of public school closings. Additionally, many students lack a quiet space to study in when they live in multigenerational housing and with public libraries closing. Time differences also play a major role in academic success, an obstacle particularly challenging for international students who returned home, as well as students stuck abroad. If a student has to stay awake until 3 AM every Monday-Thursday just to attend class, they will be exhausted, and unable to learn as well as they would be able to under normal campus conditions. Thus, the only solution to provide educational equity in this situation is to enact a UP policy. This policy aims to alleviate structural inequities that cannot be solved by Yale throwing money at our problems.

7. Many students will need the grade boost this semester when applying for graduate programs. How will Universal Pass account for students whose GPAs matter significantly in the face of post-undergrad opportunities?

1. If the UP policy is implemented as standard university policy, the absence of grades will not be a burden that would fall on individual students. GPA gaps resulting from missing grades this semester would be explained by this extenuating circumstance in a letter from the university. MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Barnard, Dartmouth, Williams, Wellesley, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan have already implemented a universal credit/no credit policy for this semester.
2. Graduate schools and their students are also dealing with this crisis right now just as we are. Several graduate programs, including Yale Law School, have successfully implemented similar measures for their own students. Stanford Medicine also recently switched to Pass/Fail policy because of the inequities caused by the crisis. There is no reason for graduate schools not to be flexible and cognizant of the severity of this pandemic’s impact on students, and it is only fitting that their admissions policies take that into account moving forward. One could argue that displaying grades, including lower ones, should merit the same response from graduate programs, but it is also unfair and taxing on students to demand that they individually resurface and explain the traumas and hardships they experienced during this pandemic to legitimize their performance. In a recent email, the Associate Dean of Admissions at UCSF, David Wofsy, said “You do not need to worry about pass/fail grades during this period. We always consider grades in the context of numerous other aspects.”
3. As students across more and more universities push for, and successfully implement, UP and similar policies, there will be even greater pressure on graduate schools to recognize this semester as one occurring under highly unusual circumstances. This will make it clear to graduate schools that whatever GPA boost that could’ve occurred during this semester was less pressing than students’ struggles during this global crisis.
4. We also stand by UP instead of the option to show students grades because many graduate school admissions ask for student self-reporting, which would still throw many students under the bus if they are not able to perform as well as their peers due to the circumstances of the pandemic. Eliminating the stigma of pass-based grading in the face of graduate admissions only works if no one can submit a letter grade that would disadvantage their peers in the eyes of these institutions.
5. Finally, it is uncertain that students, even those with access to resources like shelter and internet, will continue to do as well as they did at the beginning of this semester. While those without basic access to healthcare, food, and hygiene products are surely more vulnerable to COVID-19 and its detrimental effects, everyone is at risk in this pandemic. Many of us and our loved ones may be deeply impacted, and it is nearly impossible to predict how it will affect our lives and our academic performance.

8. What about students applying to highly competitive post-undergraduate programs, like medical schools and ABET certification?

1. Just like other graduate programs, medical schools and engineering schools have been dealing with the same problems we are during this pandemic. Medical school labs have shut down, and graduate programs all over have moved online, with some instituting alternative grading measures themselves. Medical schools such as Stanford Med have switched over to a Pass/Fail grading system to account for students affected by the epidemic. We reached out to Stanford Medical School and other medical schools to ask about how they will be handling this semester, and an admissions correspondent from Stanford has said that they “understand the current situation with courses as [their] courses have moved to Pass/Fail.” Yale, Stanford, Cornell, and Berkeley law schools have also switched to a similar system of credit/no credit for the semester in response to the pandemic. Graduate programs are cognizant of the disruptions that come with a crisis like this, and they are moving to address the inequities of this crisis for their students. It is clear from these examples that these institutions should and will be understanding of the circumstances that have made it necessary for us to demand UP.
2. Other undergraduate institutions such as MIT and Stanford have already implemented grading systems that eliminate letter grades for this semester. The increasing number of institutions moving toward this model is an incentive for medical schools and similarly rigorous graduate programs to make this semester an exception for all, as it would not be fair for them to deny entry to multiple schools’ applicant classes solely on the basis of missing grades. MIT and Stanford also have a lot of highly competent pre-meds and engineers, and it’s very unlikely that any institution would deny an entire class of MIT and Stanford’s pre-meds and engineering students due to one semester.
3. According to ABET’s official statement on COVID-19 accreditation, “ABET understands the need for programs to temporarily modify program delivery methods in order to safeguard their communities during the current health crisis caused by COVID-19. It is not necessary to report any short term (current or summer semester) changes to program delivery or content to us.” In other words, ABET has confirmed that they will accept universally passing grades.  

9. Many students worked hard for the first half of the semester. Should they be allowed to present grades up until the academic midterm?

1. It is important to acknowledge and praise the hard work done by students at the beginning of the semester, but we must also take into account that classes offered at Yale College are structured differently. While one class may have had two writing assignments worth 60% of the final grade before the midterm, another class might have a final worth 50% of the final grade. It is unfair to have students’ uncompleted grades be scrutinized, compared, and held against them especially when the semester was uprooted so abruptly.
2. Because of this, one of the leading reasons students will choose to have Ps on their transcripts is the structure of the course they are taking, rather than their actual academic achievement during the first half of this semester. As echoed throughout this document, the absence of grades entirely would be the most equitable measure that our community can take in this period of difficulty.
3. It is also important to note that the students who may not wish to present grades or will be disproportionately affected by COVID-19 also worked hard at the beginning of the semester! Adopting a UP policy will prevent their hard work from turning into lower grades which they would not have received under normal circumstances.

10. Why not give affected students a tuition refund and allow them to withdraw without penalty instead of adopting a Universal Pass policy?

1. This option would once again deepen the divide between those who have the resources and freedom to fully complete remote classes online to the best of their ability, and those who do not. This obliges disadvantaged students to choose between attending to their family’s economic security and physical health and staying on track academically. For low-income students, the possibility of getting a full-time job to support their families if they were to withdraw from classes this semester is slim, given the economic impact of the pandemic — many working people are already being laid off in the service industries and similar sectors.
2. Many institutional resources and benefits are withdrawn when students take a leave from school, further removing any sort of institutional support that the university can provide for students in this challenging time.
3. For many international students, a tuition refund and the ability to withdraw is not a reasonable option as it will jeopardize their visa status.

11. Yale was unfair anyways. Why should this change now?

1. We should strive to be the change we want to see. There is no reason to confine our expectations of the institutions we love to what the world has tried to force us to accept as reasonable and just.
2. Education has become even more inequitable now due to the university’s response to COVID-19, however necessary it was to protect public health and safety. Physically being on campus normally provides some degree of equalization, but without any access to campus assets, we cannot expect all students to produce the same quality of educational labor. The resource gap has widened, and we must act accordingly.

12. How would the implementation of a UP policy affect senior theses and Distinctions?

1. UP would not have a direct effect on senior theses. Instead, considerations and decisions regarding senior theses and distinctions in a major subject or program will be dealt with by departments and their respective Directors of Undergraduate Studies.

13. Why should Yale universally pass students in technical skill classes (i.e. computer programming) if they may not be able to learn the material as well at home? What happens when these classes are needed for base learning for higher sequence classes?

1. The same question applies to moving technical courses, like labs, online – why move them online and provide no support for remedial courses? Why are free remedial classes not offered in the fall? We ask the same question to Yale administration, as their approach to dealing with this answers no more questions than does ours. What UP does account for--which the status quo does not--is that many students’ academics will be impacted in unpredictable ways by the pandemic, for reasons out of their control. In a time like this, grades will ultimately reflect the vast inequity in students’ circumstances rather than their drive and ability to do well under more usual circumstances, rendering them meaningless in the face of a global crisis.

14. How will scholarships be affected by Universal Pass?

1. For students on scholarship who will need their letter grades, we want to implement a step by step process by which the scholarship organizations can understand the situation students are in and accommodations can be made for these students. This plan will also only accommodate scholarships that have already been earned and need GPA or letter grade confirmation for renewal to the following year. The purpose of the university and any grading policy at this time is to ease the burden on students, as so many are/will be impacted by the spread of COVID-19. We expect all measures to be taken by the university to protect students’ scholarships, so the burden of worrying about grades does not fall on students. One important note to be made is that in our proposed plan, specific grades do not exist, and therefore can never be given out to anybody.

1. First, we ask for students to email their scholarship organizations with an explanation of the universal pass policy. An email template can be made to assist with this step.
2. If the organization does not accept the students’ statement or requests something more official, the registrar’s office will issue a formal letter explaining Universal Pass policy, and how the student’s grade does not exist and can therefore not be communicated.
3. Based on anecdotal evidence, these two steps should be enough for most scholarship organizations to renew the scholarship to the next year, however, in the unlikely scenario that a scholarship threatens to cancel based on the fact that a student does not have a grade, Yale University will cover that scholarship using money donated for the purpose of financial aid.
4. This system is feasible. All first-year MIT students are evaluated on a Pass/Fail basis, yet students at MIT do not face their scholarships being withdrawn due to their policy. This has worked at other universities, there is no reason why it will not work at Yale.

2. We acknowledge that in this unfortunate situation, students on scholarship will be forced to pay attention to their academics to a degree that may be difficult without significant mental and physical health risk, however, it is beyond our ability to convince every single scholarship organization to accept a P on the transcript. We believe that it is the scholarship programs’ responsibility to accommodate students as COVID-19 disrupts everyone’s careers.
3. To re-emphasize, we urge for the Yale administration to take whatever action they can to ensure that scholarship funding--even from external sources--be maintained. Given Yale’s standing as a leading institution of higher ed, it does have the power to convince external institutions and programs to make accommodations for students struggling because of COVID-19, especially with the support of universal policies from schools like MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Barnard, Dartmouth, Williams, Wellesley, UC Berkeley, and the University of Michigan.

15. Why can we not make adjustments for students on a case-by-case basis?

1. Any case-by-case process will ultimately leave some students behind. Students’ situations will change as the semester continues, especially as COVID-19 spreads, and the situations some students are faced with at home are much too personal to be put under the kind of scrutiny a case-by-case system would require. Moreover, Yale College has over 5,000 undergraduate students, and a case-by-case procedure is bound to be inconsistent and create inequities. This is a global crisis, which is why the true magnitude and spread of its impact cannot be judged on a  case-by-case basis.

16. I used a Credit/D/F this semester. If UP passes, will I get that Credit/D/F back?

1. Yes! It is redundant for someone to have a Credit/D/F implemented in a Universal Pass semester, so we are making sure that students will get to use their Credit/D/Fs in another semester.

19. Should I get a full tuition refund because I enrolled with the understanding that I would work toward a GPA?

1. Ideally, you will have the majority or entirety of your tuition refunded, given that you did not agree to learning via online classes upon enrollment.
2. We understand that your GPA is an important academic component, but given the extreme global circumstances, we do not believe that the GPA system is an equitable reflection of students’ work right now. Rather, we advocate for continuity of education that allows each student to engage with academic material in adverse situations.

20. The YCC Survey has no option for Universal Pass, rather Universal Pass/No Credit. Why is that?

1. There are strict policies that prevent us from implementing a full Universal Pass system. Yale has to maintain some evaluation to be an accredited institution, and while we do support Universal Pass in its entirety and this campaign has been built off that, this factor is beyond our control.
2. Every other institution that has implemented the universal option did so with a fail or no record option accompaniment for this reason.

3. If UP/N were implemented, we are making sure that there is messaging from the administration that professors need to be lenient and not impose the No Credit option. There will also be a petition system in case this does happen.