‘Bettor’ way to get an A
Now students are really going to start hitting the bookies.
A new online company is letting students at dozens of colleges bet on how high their course grades will be — and earn hundreds of dollars if they’re right.
The higher they aim with their grades, the more they can take home — including a payout of $2,000 on a bet of $20 that they can graduate with a grade-point average of 4.0.
The Web site, Ultrinsic, was founded by two Queens College graduates who made a friendly bet several years ago on an upcoming test — and realized that even relatively small amounts of money could be great motivation to study harder.
Based on a variety of factors — including a student’s past performance and the difficulty of the class — the site calculates the odds of achieving particular grades.
The program is launching at 36 colleges this fall — including St. John’s, Columbia and Queens — after having been piloted with 600 students at NYU and the University of Pennsylvania last year.
