Breaking News: UMich Ross Curve New Guidelines

Thoughts???

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Dear BBA Students,

At Michigan Ross, our greatest strength is our community. We have listened closely to your feedback regarding the academic environment, specifically your desire for a grading system that rewards mastery and encourages collective success rather than internal competition.

I am happy to share that our Faculty has voted on a historic change to our grading guidelines. Effective Fall Semester 2026, Ross will implement a unified set of community norms designed to provide consistency across the BBA program and ensure that academic rigor and student well-being are mutually supportive. 

These guidelines establish new shared expectations for grading practices across courses. Ross faculty will design and assess course content with the goal of achieving the following average GPAs:

Course Category | Target Average GPA
Core Courses | 3.40
Elective Courses | 3.55

These targets are not forced curves or required distributions. Rather, they reflect a faculty-wide agreement on expected levels of rigor and mastery, fairness, consistency, and a common community standard.

This is a change I have championed during my term as associate dean and one that I firmly believe in. It is a testament to our Dean's leadership and to our faculty's dedication to the student experience. It reaffirms that at Michigan Ross, academic rigor thrives best in a culture of mutual achievement. Special thanks to Kelly Higgins, Director of Student Wellness, who led an effort along with Social Work Intern Nicole Westphal and ASSET Research Group to document student impact, to the Ross Undergraduate Student Advisory Board (RUSAB) for gathering and summarizing student perspectives, and to all of you who shared your voices regarding the importance of this change.

If you have questions, we encourage you to contact your Academic Advisor. We are excited to move forward into this new chapter of academic excellence with you.

Best regards,

Cathy