Editorial: Academic deadlines

With the release of Princeton’s course offerings for the fall semester and this past week’s course selection process, the Editorial Board believes it timely to discuss the practices surrounding course deadlines. In particular, the board is troubled by the uneven distribution of information available to students prior to academic deadlines such as the deadline for selecting of courses and deadline for pass/D/fail election.

Princeton offers a wealth of courses for its students. Currently, course information — such as application due dates, grading descriptions on syllabi and midterm feedback — is not entirely transparent, accessible or timely with respect to the Registrar’s academic deadlines. This lack of information at the appropriate time impairs students’ ability to thoughtfully select their courses and to track their progress in courses once enrolled. Because these practices greatly impact students’ educational choices, the board recommends that course application due dates are standardized, that accurate syllabi are posted online, and that professors be strongly encouraged to return midterm feedback before the P/D/F deadline.

Presently, courses requiring an application have differing application deadlines set throughout the preceding semester; these deadlines are usually before undergraduates’ course selection. However, these deadlines are not always well publicized, causing many students who might otherwise apply to miss the opportunity to take the course. Courses requiring an application typically offer an enriching opportunity to study a particular subject in depth, as in an upper-level seminar; to collaborate with a visiting artist or professor on a project, as in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Ateliers; or to engage in hands-on study through travel, or fieldwork, during school breaks. To make these deadlines more uniform and facilitate students’ participation in the these courses, the board calls for a University-wide course application deadline and a list of all courses requiring an application. Such changes would make the deadline to apply for courses widely known among the student body and would help ensure that all students who want to submit applications have the opportunity to do so.

Following this improvement to course selection, the board encourages the Registrar to require that professors post syllabi online. Although students may shop syllabi online via Blackboard, professors sometimes do not post syllabi, making access to relevant course information nearly impossible before the first day of class. Moreover, the syllabi submitted on Blackboard do not always accurately reflect the course’s grading breakdown, resulting in confusion and misunderstanding among students as to how they will be graded. Concretely, the Registrar’s page may indicate that a course will consist of papers, when, in fact, it will consist of a midterm and final examination. If the Registrar compelled professors to post syllabi online containing relevant grading information and a reading list, students would be able to select courses in a more informed fashion, thereby improving the experience of both faculty and the student body in courses.

Beyond course selection, the board recommends that the Registrar require instructors to submit midterm feedback to students in advance of the P/D/F election deadline. At present, the P/D/F deadline is set so that students can act on midterm grades. In practice, however, students do not always receive feedback in time to make an informed decision. Excepting 200- and 100-level classes where a letter midterm grade is required, there is no official deadline for submitting grades on midterm work. Because of this, instructors do not always grade students’ midterms prior to the P/D/F deadline. Receiving feedback too late prohibits students from changing the pattern of their study habits and making informed decisions about electing the P/D/F option. As academic performance is often a determining factor in these educational decisions, we encourage the Registrar and faculty to create a midterm-grading schedule that responds to students’ work in a timely fashion with either a grade or written feedback by the P/D/F deadline.

Changes in course application transparency, syllabi accessibility and midterm feedback will clarify the course and P/D/F selection process for undergraduates and allow them to make more informed decisions. The board believes that when students make informed course decisions, both students and faculty benefit because informed students are more likely than others to understand course expectations and complete their work in a satisfactory manner. Thus, the above detailed changes, while relatively minor, would constitute important improvements upon the current system of course selection and midterm feedback.