In fact, a delay in receiving grades will detrimentally affect many students, including myself. Among the students who will be adversely affected are seniors applying for graduate, medical or law schools. We are required to submit fall grades as soon as they become available. As students at other schools are submitting their grade reports in January, the post-graduate institutions can make decisions on their applications. A particularly good semester might earn a pre-med student an interview, for instance, but interview dates are few, and the schedules are rigid.
Time is crucial.
Every interview date that goes by means a potential reduction in the chances of getting in to that school. The post-graduate schools could care less that Yale TAs are on strike. Also, students with scholarships often need their grade reports to receive their checks. This is especially true of programs like Inroads which require students to maintain a certain GPA to receive money. Other scholarships often require grade reports as a check that students are still in school and paying tuition.