> antioch (at one time and perhaps still) has had an open-file policy, such
that
> any student who didn't like the grade they got in a course could simply
remove
> from their file the record of that course (grade & credit). this does not
seem
> to have affected the school's reputation adversely, that i am aware of.
Interesting. I presume that the transcript indicated this clearly? If
not, their reputation has just suffered.
If a potential employer was reading such a transcript in full knowledge
of the situation, and trying to compare it with a more usual style of
transcript, they might well count the credits per year and assume that any
missing credit might be an "F". A student carrying a light course load
might well be penalized heavily in this way.
I'm not saying that Antioch's decision is wrong; but it should be
understood that it has the potential to affect an alumnus' transcript
negatively as well as positively. Moreover, it does so in such a way that
some alumni run a risk of being suspected of failing courses so that others
can hide the fact that they failed them. (Moreover, any student who failed
to weed their transcript would lose out big time!) Throwing away data is
rarely good statistics.
-Robert Dawson
