This is indeed exactly what happend at my lower/middle/high school--we received a full paragraph from each teacher evaluating our performance every trimester.

This is indeed exactly what happend at my lower/middle/high school--we received a full paragraph from each teacher evaluating our performance every trimester. Doing so at a college scale would be too costly. But you do have all the grades that go into your average, comments on each essay, office hour time, etcetera. The nuances of your performance don't matter in your GPA, that is, your Grade Point Average, but you do have a bit more information available to you, yourself.