teacher that doesnt give fractional grades?

[lick]

has anyone ever had a teacher that would only give solid letter grades, say an A or a B. not an A+, A-, B+, B-, etc?

my damn physics teacher this semester is apparently this way. I thought i was going to get an A-, but apparently my grade fell due to one project, which put me at a B+. But when i checked my grades, I got a B. So I emailed the TA and sure enough, I had an 89 about, but since the teacher doesnt give any fractional grades, I get a B.

How fair is that? So the guy that has an 81 in the class gets the same grade as me although I have an 89?

Im just kind of bent since this is my lowest grade. I was so close to an A and when I found out I didnt even get the plus, I was annoyed.

had to rant..

[RG570]

should'nt 81 be a C?

[orbital]

Never heard of that before. I sure would be pissed off too.

[Rastaman]

Originally posted by RG570
should'nt 81 be a C?


LOL! Whats a D then? a 73?


I've never heard of teachers only giving out solid grades without correlating it with percentages. If your school calculates gpa by % then you really don't need to worry, if not, I'd suggest getting in contact with the department head to bitch and moan about the situation. Good luck buddy.

[GhettoSmurf]

i agree that does suck. my teachers give us fractional grades. like if i got an 89.5 she would round it up to a 90. but a 89.4 would be rounded down to an 89.

[IceRgrrl]

It's usually up to the discretion of the instructor to decide how he/she will structure grades. Some institutions ONLY give whole letter grades and it could be that your instructor came from that system and is used to it. Either way, it's probably a good idea to find out in the beginning what the grading system will be and then aim for a little higher than what you need/want. That way even if you slip up on something, you've got a little cushion. :)

[ElPietro]

Shouldn't the actual possible grades you can get be standard in any given institution? If what above is true, that makes no sense. If you all have marks out of 100, and there is a generally accepted range on what each percentage means, how hard is it to simply put a damn plus beside a letter when it's been earned?

Sounds absolutely retarded to me, considering how easy it is to resolve this for everyone. It's not like it even requires the professor to think, or do additional work.

[Y2A]

Originally posted by ElPietro
Shouldn't the actual possible grades you can get be standard in any given institution? If what above is true, that makes no sense. If you all have marks out of 100, and there is a generally accepted range on what each percentage means, how hard is it to simply put a damn plus beside a letter when it's been earned?

Sounds absolutely retarded to me, considering how easy it is to resolve this for everyone. It's not like it even requires the professor to think, or do additional work.

Yeah, Ive heard that some colleges dont give fractional grades, but its the whole institution, not just one class.

[ElPietro]

So depending on what institution you go to, you need to make grade adjustments to compare results from school to school? Forgive me, but isn't this the "education" system? You'd expect educated people, to not have such stupid policy, but I guess using the term education here is somewhat ironic, given the circumstances. How hard is it to fricking grade with the same standard. Sure there are tough classes, or tough profs, but you'd figure they'd all have enough intellectual capacity to use the same grading structure. It's not like it's so f*cking hard.

[Y2A]

Columbia law school doesnt even give grades, you pass or fail :)

[Ironman8]

My teacher does that. But, if I got a 91.5, it would drop to an 89.0. WTF?!

[Gyno Rhino]

We should get rid of the + - crap.

A is excellent
B is above avg
C is avg
D is below avg
F is fail

Seems simple enough and accurate enough to me. Don't need any plus or minus crap.

[WillKuenzel]

Originally posted by Gyno Rhino
A is excellent
B is above avg
C is avg
D is below avg
F is fail

This is the way its always been for me. Grade school, high school and college. There never were any partial points. Its easy enough.

[Fightin Irish]

Originally posted by Y2A
Columbia law school doesnt even give grades, you pass or fail :)

Are you serious? How sweet is that... Want to go to law school, don't think I could get into Columbia's program though. I wish all I took was pass/fail classes.

[Y2A]

Originally posted by Fightin Irish


Are you serious? How sweet is that... Want to go to law school, don't think I could get into Columbia's program though. I wish all I took was pass/fail classes.

Thats what my tax law teacher told me last night. You should go to UM law school... for the babes in this city :D

[ElPietro]

Personally, I prefer just knowing the percentage. Whether some fool says it's a B, or an A, or a B+, the exact percentage shows what I accomplished.

I just think it should be standard across the board, it's such a trivial matter to decide, yet you see such varied practices. Sure you can have people just pass or fail, or only full grades, but if you want people to excel, and be able to show they've improved, or been rewarded for their achievement, a more thorough grading system is required. Otherwise, most will only do what it takes to get their "pass" or settle for a B, since a B+ is not attainable, while an A is out of reach.

[Berserker]

College I went to switched to AB, combining A- and B+. I think you should have some kind of spit. But in the end everybody is playing by the same rules and evens out. THough if you got just one teacher doing it could become unfair on your GPA. Also if you have an 89 at the end of the semester are you going to get a 3 or 3.5 thats what matters.

[Fightin Irish]

Originally posted by Y2A


Thats what my tax law teacher told me last night. You should go to UM law school... for the babes in this city :D

My cousin went to Columbia's law school, but he was also valedictorian out of Carnegie Mellon. I don't quite have those credentials, but if UM's law school is more reasonable, definitely have to consider it. I heard they have a lot of latino's down there. I love my Latin women ;)


Originally posted by ElPiertro

I just think it should be standard across the board, it's such a trivial matter to decide, yet you see such varied practices

I concur with your thoughts about your theory of standard grading across the board, but unfortunatley the school system is a never ending battle. There are different universities with different standards, which immediately will change what an A that you earned from an average school may be a B or even a C in certain Ivy League schools. Since that is the way it is, I dont' believe its possible to have a standard grading system across the board, as appealling as the theory may be.

[Y2A]

Originally posted by Fightin Irish


My cousin went to Columbia's law school, but he was also valedictorian out of Carnegie Mellon. I don't quite have those credentials, but if UM's law school is more reasonable, definitely have to consider it. I heard they have a lot of latino's down there. I love my Latin women ;)



Latin women EVERYWHERE. I love them too :D We can have a WBB latina hunt here :D

[IceRgrrl]

Even if you decide to get rid of plus/minus or use percentages, that doesn't do anything to standardize the system. If I go to an ultra competitive program in an elite school, a 75% there msy be better than a 90% at a dumbass college. Then there's the whole grade inflation syndrome...where A's were rare 25 years ago, now every student expects A's and B's and more A's and B's are often given than C's.

Then there's the matter of curved vs. uncurved or straight scale grading. Does your grade only depend on the percentage of the total points possible that you received or does it depend on what percentage of the class you beat?

At the heart of the matter is the understanding that with any sort of grading system or method of measuring this esoteric thing we call learning, we are trying to quantify what is inherently unquantifiable. Learning is a qualitative process that encompasses a wide range of skills, connections, problem solving ability, common sense, and other intangibles that can never be accurately weighed and measured numerically, so we do the best we can with this grade system.

In any grading system though, the one thing that DOES work in general is that the better students will tend to rise to the top of the stack, no matter what measurement system is being used.

[Berserker]

IcR right. When it comes to degrees you need to look more at the school then the GPA the person had. Its tough cause multiplie teachers teach the same class some are better teachers, some just give better grades.
When I was graduating I had job interviews were they told me they didn't care about my GPA if I graduated MTU it was good enough.

[lick]

i agree with what you all are saying. its hard to quantify my learning experience in the class, but to get one teacher out of 100 that doesnt follow the same grading system is lame, imo.

i was just annoyed because i am really starting to take my grades and school serious, and this slight lowering of my semester gpa bugs me :)

im anal, what can i say

[RoidRage]

Thats the way my college is. Final averages are not fractional. But some professors give out B-- and A-- I have no idea what a B minus minus is suppose to be *shrug*

[ryan1117]

I like not having fractional grades. Many times, I can go into the final knowing my grade will only change with a 20% or 80% on the final. It takes away pressure.

I also wish schools would be required to curve the class to a C. I'm not saying they have to fail a certain percentage, but they should make certain percentages or standard deviations cutoffs for other grades away from a C. (for example, a new grade every x percent above or below the class average) (pretty much all of my classes do that) It is pretty frustrating hearing all these people from cupcake majors (that half the class gets an A and the other half gets a B) bragging about their GPA. But, once I get done with my major, I'm confident employers will realize that grading is not inflated and a student that merely graduates is probably better than many A students in other majors.

[Praetorian]

Originally posted by Gyno Rhino
We should get rid of the + - crap.

A is excellent
B is above avg
C is avg
D is below avg
F is fail

Seems simple enough and accurate enough to me. Don't need any plus or minus crap.

this is the system adapted by the norwegian unis. it suxs. it doesnt weed out the idiots.

[kimpy225]

In my school it is the A+,A,A-,B+... etc system
but the range is...
90-100 A
80-89 B
70-79 C
60-69 D
<60 F
the (+) and (-) depend on the teachers and what they want it to be
it could be... 90-92=A-
or it could be 90-94=A-
some dont give A+'s even if you have 100%

in my cousins school, they only use the solid letter grades A,B,C,D,F

in some catholic schools, they just use the number system; they dont even know what equals an A cause they dont get As
under 70 is failing for them

in some private catholic schools they use the strange system of grading
where each number is a letter grade but its off..
its like... 93 is an A and so on
and i think anything below 65 or 70 is failing
something like that
none of my guy friends are on now or else i would ask what it really is

BTW: these are all HS grading systems

and i think.. maybe they should just use the number system
it would be nationwide.. and it would be easier to judge scores
cause it sucks that some schools have the harder systems and some dont
you could have a 99 or a 89.5 and still have an "A"

[Reinier]

here we get 100 point max
like a 7.4 is decent, a 9.3 is rather excellent

[Praetorian]

here it is 1-6, 6 is the top grade.

on test you can get ie 4-,4,4+,4/5 or 5/4 but on the report card, you only got a whole no, like 5.

[kimpy225]

heres that other schools grading:

94 and up=A, 90-93=B+, 86-89=B, 81-85=C+, 77-80=C, 74-77=D+, 70-73=D

[SpeedyD]

My son goes to a state university,and overall GPA levels differ from same state schools.His school requires 3.5 or better to qualify for dean's list,while our largest state university requires a 3.0 or better !Never could understand that.It seems to me after reading all these posts,and talking with my son,each teacher/proffesor can pretty much grade their class the way they want. I guess the answer is to be prepared at the beginning of each course,by knowing exactly how the course will be graded,by that particular teacher.

[SpeedyD]

Lick, the fact that you care that much about your grades,is very cool!!!!! Keep up the good work! From a mom who knows where your coming from! Just don't let your grades rule your whole life!

[lick]

Originally posted by SpeedyD
Lick, the fact that you care that much about your grades,is very cool!!!!! Keep up the good work! From a mom who knows where your coming from! Just don't let your grades rule your whole life!

thanks. its taken awhile and some time off, but ive finally started to really care about how im doing in school. (paying for it does that to you).

i am really surprised to hear about all these different grading schemes. all of the schools ive gone to have pretty much followed the same scheme. I think this is the first teacher ive ever had that hasnt given fractional grades. Maybe something I will have to get used to when i go to other schools. Thats weak.