University of Virginia Library

Mailing Grades

Each new semester brings new tuition
bills to pay and grade reports sent to parents
or guardians. Why do students get
the former, but not the latter? We pay the
bills and do the work but receive the results
only indirectly. We suspect that many
parents do not understand the meaning
of all the numbers on these reports sent
home. Certainly we know their significance
and the effects that they may have on our
future. Why not send them to us directly?

This direct word need be related only
after the fall semester, of course, for in
the summer students would be too hard for
the Bursar's office to reach if not at home.
In the winter, however, when the reports
go home and we go elsewhere, students
often return to school without having seen
their grades. Not all teachers post their
marks, and thus some grades pass to the
Bursar in seeming secrecy.

Perhaps the administration might argue
that students who want to find their standing
may very well do so. That may be
true, but would it not be easier to save
these students valuable time by sending
a report to each student's town address?

If this proposal proves impossible, then
at least maybe grade changes made as the
result of recording error could be sent to
the students involved. Out of personal experience
we know that when parents are
notified of these changes, they often assume
that the student has likewise been notified.
Thus students often labor in ignorance of
their altered status. It is this situation
which we particularly would like to see
changed, however few it might affect.

J.F.C.G.