Steven Wolf and Jeremy Gelbart have literally made education a gamble.

The two University of Pennsylvania graduates created the website Ultrinsic.com, which allows students to place bets on what grade they expect to get. The website, which began in fall 2009, is open to Syracuse University students for the first time this semester.

The idea for Ultrinsic was sparked three years ago when Gelbart did not want to study for one of his exams. Wolf offered $100 to Gelbart if he got an A on the test. If he did not, Gelbart had to pay $20 to Wolf.

Gelbart won.

‘What a great motivation for students, we thought,’ Gelbart said. ‘We worked on establishing a business plan, and we launched our site at University of Pennsylvania and New York University fall 2009.’

Initially, 600 students joined the website. And this year, it opened membership to 34 universities, one of which is SU. Gelbart and Wolf are waiting to release membership statistics until they have more numbers, but Gelbart said the company is seeing positive improvement.

When students create profiles on the website, they input their grade point average, school and current schedule. Based on this information, Ultrinsic calculates the odds of the students getting a certain grade. The students then place bets on which grade they think they will get, starting at $25.

The students bet against the website, which only puts down money if the target grade is higher than the students’ current GPA.

‘If you are a B student and you put down a D grade, Ultrinsic.com won’t put down any grade because you will definitely get that grade,’ Gelbart said.

To ensure that students try not to cheat the website out of money, they must send their official transcripts to Ultrinsic when they try to withdraw their earnings.

Ima Usoroh, a junior in the College of Human Ecology, said she would not join the website because she believes people should get good grades because they want to, not because of an incentive.  

‘As a student, I do not have the money to be spending gambling on my grades,’ she said.

Currently, the website is not focused on making a profit, but it could start charging more if it proves successful in motivating students to get better grades, Gelbart said.

While online gambling is illegal, Gelbart said Ultrinsic does not fall under the criteria for online gambling.

For one, gambling is defined as a game of chance, but Ultrinsic works on the theory that the student is in control of his or her grade. Also, Gelbart said the website does not promote destructive behavior like gambling, but promotes doing work.

‘If you are going to define us as gambling you have to define a lot of other things as such, like school,’ Gelbart said. ‘You pay tons of money for school, but what happens if you don’t get a good GPA or don’t learn much? That is a gamble, too. If you are saying grades are assigned randomly then you are paying $40,000 for a chance at a good grade. Nobody says school is a gamble.’

hmbehre@syr.edu

 

Published on August 29, 2010 at 12:00 pm