Because college nowadays are optimized for grades. It is a natural decision to eventually focus on grade only in a zero-sum environment like colleges. Also, it

Because college nowadays are optimized for grades. It is a natural decision to eventually focus on grade only in a zero-sum environment like colleges. Also, it is a very good example of Goodhart's Law: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law