In this article, the assessment practice known as the "grade conference" is analysed using an interactionally oriented narrative approach. The aim is to explore the grade conference and what it entails for students when executed in their fourth year of compulsory school, as part of a trial of an educational reform where students receive grades from year four instead of year six. Two cases illustrate the way that students are positioned and ascribed different paths and prospects in and through stories located within the grade conference. Findings show that students are ascribed individual responsibilities and their positions as students are largely evaluated by individual characteristics in these stories. It is concluded that the grade conference is a practice that may influence the students' views of their potential in school, as the narratives about their paths and prospects discursively make different routes more or less viable.