This study focuses on data collected at "Progressive Secondary School" in Southern California, a high school which uses narrative evaluations and other forms of alternative summative assessment on a school wide basis. Through a survey and personal interviews, students were asked to describe what they liked most and least about the use of narrative evaluations, and to discuss whether they thought receiving narrative evaluations was more or less stressful than receiving letter grades. Student responses revealed that most find narrative evaluations to be more stressful than letter grades, but ultimately more useful in terms of the amount of personalized detail supplied. A smaller sample of interviews with teachers indicated that while writing evaluations is time-consuming, it allows the opportunity to provide highly personalized feedback to students. Implications for the broader use of narrative evaluations in secondary schools are also discussed.