I'm aware that this philosophy of education and grading exists, and it may well be superior, but it's not how things worked in any part of my education. Grades

I'm aware that this philosophy of education and grading exists, and it may well be superior, but it's not how things worked in any part of my education. Grades indicated how well you met the instructor's expectations. Most classes gave mostly As and Bs: if you weren't going to do well relative to the course, you wouldn't let it get to the point of a letter grade. Instead the differentiation was between departments and courses. It was well understood that X majors were Y majors who couldn't hack it, and that within a major, certain classes were for high-achieving masochists while others were schedule padding. (This was crucial information, not just dick-measuring. You could easily put yourself in crisis by taking a class beyond your abilities, or multiple hard classes at once. Friends helped each other avoid such nightmares). If you asked me to evaluate a classmate's transcript, I wouldn't even look at their grades, only at the classes they allowed themselves to have grades in. No one has ever asked me that, or to see my transcript.