One of the gems in the crown of Brown’s Open Curriculum is the Satisfactory/No Credit grading option. It helps to foster creative exploration of courses far afield from a student’s main interest, and can embolden students to take courses that they would not otherwise attempt. However, S/NC does not come without its pitfalls. After 34 years of teaching at Brown, I’ve acquired some perspective on the dangers of an unchecked pass/fail grading option — and what we might do to fix it.
In 2022, I wrote that “advisors should steer students away from invoking their pass/fail privileges in concentration courses.” Unfortunately, we have not seen a dip in the use of the S/NC option. Even more concerning, some, such as Matthew Donato, executive director of the Center for Career Exploration and an associate dean of the College, advise that “if a student feels like they can’t get an A in a course, they should take that course S/NC.” This is not what the system was intended to promote. To strengthen undergraduate education, Brown must restrict the use of the S/NC option in advanced concentration requirements once a student has declared.
This proposal preserves the strengths of the Open Curriculum as a vehicle for exploration while preventing its use in ways that inadvertently deprive students of the rigor and sustained effort necessary for meaningful intellectual growth. I am perfectly comfortable accepting that introductory or even intermediate courses in a concentration, if taken before the declaration date, can be taken S/NC. After all, many students are still exploring different academic paths at that stage and have not yet settled on a concentration.
But once the declaration has been filed, the use of the S/NC option in concentration courses should be stopped. This is the oral contract that I make with each of my advisees in the concentrations of applied math-economics, math-economics and computer science-economics, where I have served as an advisor for decades.
Why is the use of the S/NC option a bad idea in advanced concentration courses?
The S/NC option is less conducive to learning. When a student takes a course pass/fail, they are not required to work nearly as hard as they would if they were taking the course for a grade. One study on the effect of switching first-year, first-semester courses at Wellesley College to mandatory pass/fail found a reduction in grades, which the authors attribute to reduced effort.
Athletes know this well: In their competitive sports environments, they are challenged to the limit, to see what level they can achieve. This should be true also in academics. It is important for each student to challenge themselves as much as they can to figure out how far they can go, how much effort they can give. This level of challenge is essential to learning, and should be pursued by students and the University as a part of our fundamental mission. Students abusing the S/NC option are cheating themselves out of receiving the full benefits of a Brown education by avoiding this rigor.
Taking concentration courses S/NC harms a student’s credentials. While Donato advises that S/NC courses don’t necessarily look bad to graduate programs or employers, in my experience, this is not the case. As medical and law school applications grow increasingly competitive and many Ph.D. programs cut back admissions of new students, graduate school programs routinely receive far more qualified applicants than they can admit. A transcript laden with S’s only shows graduate schools that the student aimed no higher than a minimally “satisfactory” performance, especially when those courses are in the student’s field of interest.
Finally, producing transcripts where the S/NC option is abused is harmful to Brown’s reputation as a first-rate academic institution. This was not the case in the recent past — Brown used to award B’s as the second most common grade. By contrast, in the 2023-2024 academic year, 85% of grades awarded were A’s or S’s, C’s were unheard of and B’s were rarely given. When so many students receive either the highest possible mark or a non-evaluative “S,” the transcript ceases to function as a meaningful measure of distinction, and signals a lack of rigor within our institution. If we want to continue claiming that a Brown degree reflects serious academic achievement, we must restore a culture in which grades differentiate levels of performance, and show that our undergraduates are challenged.
The freedom to explore widely does not require the absence of meaningful academic standards. Brown’s distinctive curriculum was designed to encourage intellectual risk-taking and curiosity, not to dilute evaluative rigor in the very courses that define a student’s concentration. Thoughtfully limiting S/NC in advanced concentration coursework would preserve the spirit of exploration while ensuring that core academic achievement is transparently demonstrated. I pray the University takes this challenge seriously and acts to regulate S/NC use in order to equip its graduates with an education that means something.
Roberto Serrano is the Harrison S. Kravis University Professor of Economics and was the chair of the Economics Department from 2010 to 2014. He can be reached at roberto_serrano@brown.edu. Please send responses to this opinion to letters@browndailyherald.com and other op-eds to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
