"Any DEs out there - what would you say to a student who does this on a
PPL checkride ?"
I did it on a check ride, it did not turn out well......

I grew up in Alaska.
I had my PPSES, PP glider and 200 or so hours when I went away to college
While in college I went to the local FBO to get PPSEL.
I took the checkride in a Tomahawk.

On the Short field part of the landing test I was a little hot/high.
so I put the flaps up and did a hard slip , put the flaps back down
and landed exactly on the spot at exactly the correct speed with minimal roll out.

I think the slip scared the DE.
The DE immediatly announced You Fail!

So we taxied back to the FBO.

The DE proclaimed that slips are prohibited in a T Hawk.
When he was writing up my fail slip I pointed out that the POH clearly says
slips are permitted with the flaps up.
I'd memorized the POH from cover to cover in preperation for the checkride.

At this point steam was comming out of his ears and
he tore up the fail slip and wrote me a pass slip without
finishing the check ride.

All of this happened 25 years ago
I was a 21 year old college student with an attitude,
not the way I'd reccomend passing a checkride.

My experience is that the DE will fail you, but you will get your PPL anyway ;-)


Paul

P.S. That was my last flight ever in the tramua hawk, what a horrible airplane.