Michigan also dropped their mandate for ACT / SAT to obtain admission. So, yes, I would say that's pretty broken. Combined with systematic grade inflation American universities as a whole are removing any real feedback about student preparation, level of effort, or ability.

Caltech, too. It was the entire first year when I was there but they have since changed to to the first two terms then normal grades for third term.

However, Caltech and MIT have a reason for this that probably doesn't apply to a large (35000 undergraduate) public university like UM.

Caltech, MIT, and UM all have incoming classes that did very well in high school. Around 88% of the UM class was in the top 10% of high school. It is 96+% for Caltech and MIT.

At all three most students will be going from having been one of the top students at every school they have attended to a school where they are more average. This drop on average will be bigger at Caltech and MIT because their students are clustered more tightly toward the top of their high school class.

Another thing that makes the drop bigger at Caltech (and MIT?) is that UM has a way more flexible schedule. For example if you take physics in your first year, they have I believe three different courses for that. One if for people majoring in life sciences and emphasizes the physics most useful in those areas. Another is for engineers and others doing practical applications. It is more rigorous. The third is for physics majors.

Compare to Caltech. First, there is no "if you take physics". It is a first year requirement. Second, there is just one course. Go to Caltech to major in English (which does occasionally happen! [1]) and your first year you are taking the same required physics and math courses that people there for physics and math are taking. Third, because admissions specifically looked for people with very strong math/science ability, the professors don't have to slow down. Those courses cram a lot into a short time compared to even the courses meant for people majoring in their subject at less specialized schools.

The net effect is that for a top high school student Caltech and MIT are much bigger academic shocks than UM because even though at UM you can find comparable courses structural differences due to its size and its much bigger number of students mean it doesn't make you take a bunch of rigorous courses right from the start at an insane pace.

[1] It is rare. The reasons some have done it include:

• They intend to be science writers or science journalists.

• They intend to go to medical school. Medical school admissions committees like English majors and they like a hard science background.

• They intend to go to law school. An English major with a serious hard science education and a law degree is a good fit for patent law or for going into science policy work.

Everything I've heard about MIT is that the school itself is softer than others, but the students are very competitive, which makes it actually hard.

Then there are Ivies and Stanford which are just soft.

Coincidentally just last week a relative recounted a conversation with someone who used to be a student counselor (or psychiatrist?) at MIT who said MIT should be even softer on students. WTF, right? The dynamic, the counselor explained, is that MIT is already extremely hyper-competitive to get into and so it already selects for students who are very self-driven and competitive. Hence they tend to take on a much harder workload than they can handle, especially because MIT courses are no joke either no matter how smart you are.

This causes very high levels of stress amongst a large portion of the student body. The counselor hence wished MIT had even softer policies to make it easier for students to walk away from courses with no repercussions.

Pass/No Record is one of MITs best ideas for undergrads (that and S^3).

It lets you actually focus on getting acclimated and into the groove without being worried about the difference between an A and a B.