Why it's hard to make the grade in publishing

Writing for publication is not like writing for your creative writing class. There are no grades on your assignments; truthfully there are rarely assignments at all, and you'll be lucky if you ever actually lay eyes on the prof or receive a rubric of any sort. And the whole thing is pass/fail. At first glance, it's the easiest class ever.

Here's the problem: the only passing grade is an "A".