Reply to is AI making a high GPA less impressive?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP asks whether AI is making a high GPA less impressive.  In my experience, the performance of today's college students as a population is so far off the mark that AI is in some ways the least of the problems.  The biggest issue is the ability to read and distill information.  They genuinely don't know how to do that, and they also report not doing it in high school.  Reading that is assigned for homework is simply ignored, and written assignments are often ignored, too, especially if there is not a discernible straight line between class and some kind of tangible benefit (like an internship or athletic eligibility).  My students are still really lovely people, and polite and respectful, too.  They are just consciously opting out of much of the learning that college provides.  Grades are not a motivator, and explanations about the usefulness of certain kinds of material or certain ways of learning or thinking have only limited effect.

So a high GPA means very little to me now when I am trying to think through the achievements of an undergraduate.  I have to look at the list of courses a student has taken, and even at the people they have studied with, to know whether I should even be interested.  Often what is more impressive is what kinds of truly independent experiences they have undertaken.  Did they manage to study abroad at a program not run by our own university?  Do they know a language we don't teach?  Did they land an internship at a place we don't have strong connections?  Did they get a summer job in a city outside our region and away from their home?  Do they participate in a volunteer or service activity that is removed from our orbit?  Do they maintain a high-level skill or interest that they cultivate outside of or away from school?  Do they dedicate time and energy to a demanding job - or even the needs of a family?  Things like this suggest capacity for independent thought, high executive functioning, resilience, creativity, and even courage.  Those are the students I tend to believe in most, not just those who earned decent grades in return for taking exactly what was required and doing little else of meaning.[/quote]

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