Student Sues for for getting a C

[Easy Mac]

Student sues university over grade


By Julie Masis
BOSTON (Reuters) - A student is suing a Massachusetts university over what he says is an unfair grade in a philosophy course, saying it could kill his chances of entering law school.
Brian Marquis, 50, said on Wednesday that he filed the lawsuit against the University of Massachusetts last week after receiving a "C" instead of the "A minus" he had expected.
"Quite frankly, I find this utterly unacceptable," Marquis, who worked as a legal assistant before returning to college, said from the university in Amherst in western Massachusetts.
The teaching assistant redrew the grading scale "to make grades more representative of student performance", which turned Marquis's 92.1 percent points into 84 percent, which became a C, according to an e-mail by the teaching assistant.
At the university, an 84 percent score can produce a grade between "A-" to a "C" depending on the professor's preferences, according to the school newspaper, the Daily Collegian.
School officials declined to comment on the case.
Sheldon Steinbach, a former chief attorney for the American Council on Education, representing over 1,800 colleges for over three decades, said such cases are rare and the handful of students who have sued over grades typically lost in court.
© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved.

So he got a 92, but the curve made it an 84. Then the university considers an 84 anything from a C to an A-. The first part makes sense (though I never understood curves), but why is there a differing scale for the second part? And why a 92.1? Why not just move everything to a 1000 point scale so its easier to narrow down what is what.

Either way, if the reason he got a C was because it was more indicative of the abilities of the student, I don't really see a problem with that. If they think you did C work, you did C work... though I do have a problem with the teacher adjusting things at the end of the semester... at least be consistent in your grading.

[BrianD]

It can be hard to assign homework and grades in a way that takes human judgement out of the equation...especially in something other than a hard science. Teaching quality may differ from semester to semester and grading practices may fluctuate. The purpose of a curve is to take all of this into account and still assign fair grades. If the teacher graded everyone too high, or made the class too easy, you could end up with a 92 and still be in the middle of the class.

We don't know for sure from the story, but I would guess that the curve was known. What we can't know is whether the kid knew he was in the middle of the pack as the semester went on.

[Easy Mac]

But should the student be penalized because the professor doesn't know how to grade or made the course to easy? You're assuming that their understanding of the subject is lesser than what you allowed them to demonstrate.

[TurnerONU22]

I've never understood the fact of curving down. As a student, I'd be really mad if I had counted up my points to a certain grade and had them reduced. As a teaching assistant for a 'hard science' (organic chemistry), its not as cut and dry as some people may think, as I have to give partial credit, and try to be consistant at the same time.

I just think, as a professor, you should have some knowledge of how your grades are going to fall, and try to have an average grade somewhere in the C range, not something like a B+, which sound like happened in this class. In fact, I'd rather give really hard tests, where the average was in the D range and then curve it up. That seems to be the most challenging and allows for an upward curve, so the student's final grade ends up being a little better than they calculated, not worse.

[vtbub]

Am I the only one who sees some irony on shifty grades in a philosophy class?

[BrianD]

But should the student be penalized because the professor doesn't know how to grade or made the course to easy? You're assuming that their understanding of the subject is lesser than what you allowed them to demonstrate.

It isn't that they don't know how to grade, it is that it is difficult to objectively grade in a class like this. The grading almost has to be subjective and bias can run both ways. If the professor is doing his/her job correctly, any bias that shows up should be consistent and will be evident in the final class distribution.

The issue of making a class too easy is also tough to address. The prof may have had to slow down for slower students, or he/she may have done a particularly good job of teaching this semester.

The understanding of the subject wouldn't be lesser than what they were allowed to demonstrate. If the student was curved down to a C, that means that about half the class demonstrated a better understanding. If the class was too easy, then the student should have been able to do better than 92.1...most of the rest of the class did.

They only way this wouldn't be acceptable is if the students didn't know they were being curved, or weren't made to understand that grades could be curved down.

[TurnerONU22]

The teaching assistant redrew the grading scale "to make grades more representative of student performance"

Let me fix that:

The teaching assistant was lazy for the whole quarter/semester and graded WAY too easy. The person in charge got mad that the grades were too good, so the TA had to cover his own butt and redraw the grading scale "to make grades more representative of student performance".

[BrianD]

I've never understood the fact of curving down. As a student, I'd be really mad if I had counted up my points to a certain grade and had them reduced. As a teaching assistant for a 'hard science' (organic chemistry), its not as cut and dry as some people may think, as I have to give partial credit, and try to be consistant at the same time.

I just think, as a professor, you should have some knowledge of how your grades are going to fall, and try to have an average grade somewhere in the C range, not something like a B+, which sound like happened in this class. In fact, I'd rather give really hard tests, where the average was in the D range and then curve it up. That seems to be the most challenging and allows for an upward curve, so the student's final grade ends up being a little better than they calculated, not worse.

Your situation is really no different, you just get the happy feeling of thinking you are getting a better grade than you deserved. In both cases, you are being positioned to your rank in class and being assigned a corresponding grade. If a grade is going to be curved, it should be made known that grades on any particular assignment/test don't correlate directly to a class grade.

[BrianD]

Am I the only one who sees some irony on shifty grades in a philosophy class?

It would have been more ironic had it been an ethics class.

[BrianD]

The teaching assistant redrew the grading scale "to make grades more representative of student performance"

Let me fix that:

The teaching assistant was lazy for the whole quarter/semester and graded WAY too easy. The person in charge got mad that the grades were too good, so the TA had to cover his own butt and redraw the grading scale "to make grades more representative of student performance".

That may be the case, or it may not. It is a curve. That is what you do with a curve.

[TurnerONU22]

It isn't that they don't know how to grade, it is that it is difficult to objectively grade in a class like this. The grading almost has to be subjective and bias can run both ways. If the professor is doing his/her job correctly, any bias that shows up should be consistent and will be evident in the final class distribution.

The issue of making a class too easy is also tough to address. The prof may have had to slow down for slower students, or he/she may have done a particularly good job of teaching this semester.

The understanding of the subject wouldn't be lesser than what they were allowed to demonstrate. If the student was curved down to a C, that means that about half the class demonstrated a better understanding. If the class was too easy, then the student should have been able to do better than 92.1...most of the rest of the class did.

They only way this wouldn't be acceptable is if the students didn't know they were being curved, or weren't made to understand that grades could be curved down.

I just have too many problems of curving the class the same way everytime. Just as the professor might have done a better job of teaching, he or she might have had a smarter class than the previous one. Should the smarter class and the dumber class have the same amount of A's?

Although, like you have said, we don't know if the student knew about a possible curve or not. If the student knew ahead of time, then it still doesn't make it right, but the student should have done better.

[ISiddiqui]

an 84 percent score can produce a grade between "A-" to a "C" depending on the professor's preferences

What in the Hell? That's ridiculous! So really, your score means absolutely nothing... well, I guess it means you didn't fail.

[BrianD]

I just have too many problems of curving the class the same way everytime. Just as the professor might have done a better job of teaching, he or she might have had a smarter class than the previous one. Should the smarter class and the dumber class have the same amount of A's?

This is very true, and it could penalize the smarter class. Grading in schools (just like performance evaluations in business) is an inexact science. The attempt is to make things as fair as possible, but it isn't perfect.

Although, like you have said, we don't know if the student knew about a possible curve or not. If the student knew ahead of time, then it still doesn't make it right, but the student should have done better.

If he knew about the curve, then he either did only "average" in this class, or he figured out what score he thought he needed and didn't work to do better. Neither of these situations sound worthy of an A. Again, it comes down to an explanation of the grading system.

[BrianD]

What in the Hell? That's ridiculous! So really, your score means absolutely nothing... well, I guess it means you didn't fail.

It means that the professors set their own grading scale and criteria...which is fair if it is set at the beginning of class.

[ISiddiqui]

It means that the professors set their own grading scale and criteria...which is fair if it is set at the beginning of class.

I'd imagine that the numerical scale should include that sort of stuff. It isn't standardized tests they are taking, is it?

[gstelmack]

I actually lost out on Valedictorian of my high school class because:

1. (Not relevant to the discussion) We had a student transfer in from another high school where she had more opportunities for AP classes (which were given a 5 on the GPA scale instead of 4 for an A), and thus entered with a higher GPA. Me and the eventual Salutatorian almost caught her anyway, but lost out by a few thousandths thanks to the bonus points we never had an opportunity to earn.

2. (Relevant) I was in a different AP English class from the eventual Salutatorian. For those familiar with AP back in the 80s (I have no idea how it works now), they graded on a 1-9 scale, with 9s being very rare and difficult to land. The two classes graded the same on the AP work, but one teacher decided a 7-9 was good for an A, while the other one (mine) decided you needed a 9 for an A. That meant I was getting Cs for work that was a B or A in the other class. Same exact quality of work, lower grade depending on which teacher you got.

I fought a bit, ended up dealing with it, but given how much money can ride on these things, I can see lawsuits for lost scholarship money, lost wage potential, etc if you can prove it was an unfair grade.

[BrianD]

I'd imagine that the numerical scale should include that sort of stuff. It isn't standardized tests they are taking, is it?

Being a University, I would doubt they are standardized tests. I think it would make sense to have all of the professors use the same grading scale (which could easily be curved from whatever scale they prefer to use), but I don't see using different scales as inherently bad. It could be confusing though.

[WVUFAN]

It means that the professors set their own grading scale and criteria...which is fair if it is set at the beginning of class.

Not if that class if required to graduate. You're got a captive audience in that case.

Regardless, what happened to the idea of grading each student on his/her own merit, and not based on how well others did?

[st.cronin]

I don't know the law, but short of some sort of discrimination, isn't this an academic freedom issue? If a professor wants to fail an entire class, and the University backs him, what's wrong with that?

[JonInMiddleGA]

What in the Hell? That's ridiculous! So really, your score means absolutely nothing

I guess this shouldn't really be a surprise to me since I've been seeing it done since my son was in 1st grade.

It's probably not "absolutely nothing", but in the end it's about the same as it was when I was in school three decades ago: you likely to get whatever grade the teacher happens to want to give you, not the one that actually earned on paper.

[ISiddiqui]

I don't know the law, but short of some sort of discrimination, isn't this an academic freedom issue? If a professor wants to fail an entire class, and the University backs him, what's wrong with that?

I believe you are right. I mean this suit will likely get no where unless he can show racial or religious or gender discrimination. If the school lets him, the prof is in the clear.

[BrianD]

Not if that class if required to graduate. You're got a captive audience in that case.

I probably worded that poorly. It shouldn't matter if one Philosophy professor requires a 95 for an A while another requires a 90 for an A. What should matter is that the difficulty of getting a 95 in the first class is approximately the same as getting a 90 in the second class. People get hung up on the numbers, but the numbers are meaningless if the grading criteria don't match.

Regardless, what happened to the idea of grading each student on his/her own merit, and not based on how well others did?

That is easy to do in an objectively graded class, but less easy in a subjective class.

[WVUFAN]

I probably worded that poorly. It shouldn't matter if one Philosophy professor requires a 95 for an A while another requires a 90 for an A. What should matter is that the difficulty of getting a 95 in the first class is approximately the same as getting a 90 in the second class. People get hung up on the numbers, but the numbers are meaningless if the grading criteria don't match.

Ok. Gotcha. I agree completely.

[BrianD]

I guess this shouldn't really be a surprise to me since I've been seeing it done since my son was in 1st grade.

It's probably not "absolutely nothing", but in the end it's about the same as it was when I was in school three decades ago: you likely to get whatever grade the teacher happens to want to give you, not the one that actually earned on paper.

"The teacher doesn't like me so I got a bad grade"?

[JonInMiddleGA]

"The teacher doesn't like me so I got a bad grade"?

Or the reverse, the teacher likes a student so they get a final mark higher than their grades would have earned.

[BrianD]

Or the reverse, the teacher likes a student so they get a final mark higher than their grades would have earned.

Could be. I know I hear this kind of complaint often, but I have no way of knowing how often it happens. I'd like to hope that it wouldn't happen, but I'm not dumb enough to believe it doesn't.

[Easy Mac]

It happens 26.3% of the time, but 12.8% with a curve.

[BrianD]

It happens 26.3% of the time, but 12.8% with a curve.

Nice. :)

[Abe Sargent]

As a polisci professor I;ve never moved a student up or down one minus or plus, let alone a full grade. Polisci is not an exact scienec,e but I don't beleive in curves one way or the other.

In fact, my classes seem to have an anti-bell curve, with a lot of As and Fs, and a good numner of Bs and Ds and a few Cs. I take it to mean that some shouldn;t relaly be in college (freshman american governemnt), some don;t know how to study for college tetss or prepare for college classes, some don;t care, and then some are ready, able, and intelligent enough to follow the matieral. Since my clas breaks down about even A/F, my head of the dept has never seemed to care, but if I were to curve that, it would end up being very unnatural, moving As and Fs into Bs and Ds and moving Bs and Ds into Cs. It'd be a lot of ick.

-Anxiety

[cuervo72]

I actually lost out on Valedictorian of my high school class because:

1. (Not relevant to the discussion) We had a student transfer in from another high school where she had more opportunities for AP classes (which were given a 5 on the GPA scale instead of 4 for an A), and thus entered with a higher GPA. Me and the eventual Salutatorian almost caught her anyway, but lost out by a few thousandths thanks to the bonus points we never had an opportunity to earn.


Our valedictorian got a slight edge from getting out of gym class and the drag that would have been on her 4+ GPA. But that was minor compared to other factors...both AP and honors classes were weighted, and I'm sure some of these classes were tougher than others. Additionally, 9th grade was part of Jr. High, so these grades were coming from three different schools. I recall classmates from my Jr. High as being at a distinct disadvantage - even our best students (GPA-wise I was not one of these, I was ranked somewhere in the 40s or 50s) had to climb the rankings ladder from 10th through 12th grades.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I don't know the law, but short of some sort of discrimination, isn't this an academic freedom issue? If a professor wants to fail an entire class, and the University backs him, what's wrong with that?

Hmm, just mulling this one over. Absent some identifiable discrimination, the best I can come up with is breach of implied contract. That is, the student pays his tuition under an implied promise that he will receive a reasonable (whatever that means) education and be graded fairly. His argument is that the University breached the agreement to grade fairly or something like that. Seems weak if the grading was simply done by curve and not any personal animosity by the professor. In other words, if the professor can show there was a reasonably objective basis for the grading, the student is SOL.

Edit: I am also thinking that if the school is a public one, that there may be some separate abuse of power, due process argument. That's about all the brain power I want to give this one.

[Aardvark]

Not if that class if required to graduate. You're got a captive audience in that case.

Regardless, what happened to the idea of grading each student on his/her own merit, and not based on how well others did?

Having been a professor, I can state that I did grade students on their own merit when determining their numerical grade. The problem is then assigning the letter grades. You don't want to practice grade inversion (or at least I didn't), where you give someone a higher letter grade than someone else who had a higher numerical grade. In general, I drew the line between A and B somewhere in the mid-80s, but it really depended on how tough I thought the exam questions had been that semester. Depending on whether I thought I had good students or not, between 10% and 30% of the class would get A's. I usually looked for gaps in scores to draw the lines. If, for example, there was a gap between 89 and 86, that would be a better place to draw the A/B line than arbitrarily at 90. For one thing, it would give me a better feeling about whether I had graded the students absolutely fairly, or exactly. I generally found that the C grades were mostly students who tried hard, but missed an assignment or two, and good mediocre grades. In general, I tried to draw the line between C and D at the point at which students had bad grades because they couldn't bother to hand in assignments. There is a real art to figuring out how to assign grades, and I really hated handing out failing grades to students.

An exception to grading everyone the same was in a class which had a considerable number of graduate students in it, such as intro Operating Systems -- you had undergraduates plus about 1/4 of the class were graduate students taking it as a remedial course. If I didn't separate out the graduate students, then almost all the A's, and most of the B's, would go to them, which wouldn't be fair. Also, because of the way grades work, a C for a graduate student is equivelent to a D for an undergrad. (As in, take the course over again.) Also, graduate students usually have to keep a higher GPA to graduate. (At my department it was 3.0 vs. 2.5)

[sabotai]

Or the reverse, the teacher likes a student so they get a final mark higher than their grades would have earned.

That was me in high school. :)

I completely and utterly abused the hell out of my teachers' love for me. I learned early that in high school, all you have to do is keep your damn mouth shut during class, except to answer the occasional question, and the teachers let you get away with anything.

[Ksyrup]

I actually lost out on Valedictorian of my high school class because:

1. (Not relevant to the discussion) We had a student transfer in from another high school where she had more opportunities for AP classes (which were given a 5 on the GPA scale instead of 4 for an A), and thus entered with a higher GPA. Me and the eventual Salutatorian almost caught her anyway, but lost out by a few thousandths thanks to the bonus points we never had an opportunity to earn.

I had the exact same thing happen. Two guys transferred in our senior year, and with the grade point averages they allowed them to transfer, I ended up third. It was basically the academic version of an athlete transferring to a good high school footbal program so they could start - except no one cared about it but me.

[Ksyrup]

Dola.

And I find it ironic that this guy is bitching about curved grading, when that's exactly how law school grading is done across the board. Usually curved up, but where I went, 80 was the median and half the class had to fall below it and half above it. So while it was unusal for a class to do too well, there were instances where grades were curved down to fit the requirements.

[miked]

I teach at a pretty big University, we have a "rubric" that we give the students the first day of class. It states that they will be graded in 4 areas and then gives what an A-F is in each category. They have 3 projects during the semester and each one they get feedback and a grade. But it is still a bit subjective, since if they show significant improvement, we are more likely to weigh the later projects more heavily. We try not to punish them for the laziness they learned in high school ;)

But seriously, teachers have to have some sort of grade freedom, otherwise we may as well just give standardized tests from 1st grade on and everyone can be judged solely on grades.

[King of New York]

Since all the profs are coming out of the woodwork...(full disclosure: I teach history, wtih some objective tests that are graded numerically, and some essay tests and papers that are graded more subjectively with a letter)

1) I never curve course grades up or down. You get what you get. If you all ace the class, I'm not knocking you down just to make me look tougher, and if you all get Cs, I'm not bumping you up just to make me look competent.

2) I will curve objective, numerically graded examinations up, if the class average falls in the C range or lower, but I won't curve the average higher than a B Minus

3) I never curve objective, numerically graded examinations down

[Logan]

I think this is actually pretty simple. If at the beginning of the semester, the professor made it clear that a score of 92.1 will result in an A grade, he deserves the A. If the prof said that grades are subject to a curve, with X% falling into a certain grade range, he deserves the grade he got.

Scenario #2 sounds much more likely, even though I did have some professors that told us "90-100 will always be an A, 85-89 will always be a B+, 80-84 will always be a B (we only had flat grades and pluses), etc."

As a student, I always found it hard to conceptualize how my solid 95% could end up with me getting a B. Of course, I didn't have trouble understanding why my 78% was scaled up to a B+ because the highest average in the class ending up being an 87. One of life's little mysteries :).

My third edit: It really comes down to the prof asking himself, "Did I put together a curriculum that was challenging enough to warrant 30% of the students in the class getting A's?" Sure it sounds high, but exceptions happen. You could find yourself with a class that is just brighter than classes you've previously had -- doesn't mean they should be punished.

[Aardvark]

I think this is actually pretty simple. If at the beginning of the semester, the professor made it clear that a score of 92.1 will result in an A grade, he deserves the A. If the prof said that grades are subject to a curve, with X% falling into a certain grade range, he deserves the grade he got.

Scenario #2 sounds much more likely, even though I did have some professors that told us "90-100 will always be an A, 85-89 will always be a B+, 80-84 will always be a B (we only had flat grades and pluses), etc."

As a student, I always found it hard to conceptualize how my solid 95% could end up with me getting a B. Of course, I didn't have trouble understanding why my 78% was scaled up to a B+ because the highest average in the class ending up being an 87. One of life's little mysteries :).

For undergraduate classes, I always told the students the usual distribution, and what numeric grade that usually corresponded to, but told them that the distribution depended on how good the students were as a whole, the numeric grades depended on how aggressively I graded (which usually depended on whether I had 40 or 200 students to grade, without the use of an assistant). For each test (which, cumulatively, were usually 70% of the grade) I also gave them a letter grade indicating what quality of work that test represented.

[KevinNU7]

Curves are dumb. I don't know why a certain percentage need to fail and a certain precentage need to pass. Let the grades fall and then the adminstrators will be able to more easily judge if the ciriculum is being taught and tested as the right level (i.e. if everyone is getting A's they need to find out of the course is too easy and needs to be beefed up or dropped OR the teacher makes easy test and needs to go)

[Ksyrup]

I can still recall my 1L civil procedure class grade getting curved. I think I got an 82. We found out afterward that the average score was 27 pre-curve. So I probably got a 30 or so.

Oh, and it was multiple choice, which means the entire class, as a whole, would have been better off watching TV and drinking beer rather than studying, since we scored just above what we would have gotten by picking random answers.

[Ajaxab]

As a prof, I am also in King of New York's court (no pun intended) on the grading and curving question.

However, I find this discussion interesting in light of my experiences in teaching for five years each at universities in Canada and the US. Admittedly, my sample is small, but it seems American students are obsessed with grades and GPA in a way my Canadian students were not. Although I would suspect this kind of lawsuit could happen in Canada, I would also suspect it would be much less likely to happen.

I wonder if the grade obsession in the US has to do with the considerably higher cost of education. Many more Canadian students can afford to pay their own way than American students without the need for financial aid. Much of this financial aid hinges on a student's grades. This forces students to be obsessed with GPA.

[Generalization alert] But it definitely influences the way the two sets of students think about their education. American students seem much more outcome based than process based. They seem to want a good grade before they want to learn something (or maybe they're just more honest about it;) ). I cannot imagine receiving the question in a Canadian classroom that I got a couple of weeks ago from a student considering taking my class here in the US. The first question was not, "What am I going to learn in this class?" It was, "Will taking this class mean my GPA could go down?" This kind of attitude may be reality, but it saddens me to know that a student like this one cares more about the outcome than the fact that he might learn something that could make him a better human being and contributor to his society.

[AnalBumCover]

BOSTON (Reuters) - A student is suing a Massachusetts university over what he says is an unfair grade in a philosophy course, saying it could kill his chances of entering law school.

Brian Marquis, 50, said on Wednesday that he filed the lawsuit against the University of Massachusetts last week after receiving a "C" instead of the "A minus" he had expected.

He's 50? By the time he graduates law school, he'll be halfway to retirement.

[Logan]

As a prof, I am also in King of New York's court (no pun intended)

LIAR!!! You soooo intended that pun.

[Butter]

F on the thread title, but I'll curve it to a C

[BrianD]

Curves are dumb. I don't know why a certain percentage need to fail and a certain precentage need to pass. Let the grades fall and then the adminstrators will be able to more easily judge if the ciriculum is being taught and tested as the right level (i.e. if everyone is getting A's they need to find out of the course is too easy and needs to be beefed up or dropped OR the teacher makes easy test and needs to go)

In a perfect world, curves wouldn't be necessary. In this world, professors make little changes each year in the way classes are taught in an attempt to make them more effective. They bring in new reading materials and they use different teaching strategies. Curves are necessry because you can't know exactly how new strategies will work. Teaching is not a perfect science.

[Axxon]

Danged, I was hoping this was going to be another Blair Hornstine thread. :(

[rkmsuf]

"Cranky Old Dude Pissed At Grade ---Tells School To Stay Off His Lawn"

[gstelmack]

I wonder if the grade obsession in the US has to do with the considerably higher cost of education. Many more Canadian students can afford to pay their own way than American students without the need for financial aid. Much of this financial aid hinges on a student's grades. This forces students to be obsessed with GPA.

[Generalization alert] But it definitely influences the way the two sets of students think about their education. American students seem much more outcome based than process based. They seem to want a good grade before they want to learn something (or maybe they're just more honest about it;) ). I cannot imagine receiving the question in a Canadian classroom that I got a couple of weeks ago from a student considering taking my class here in the US. The first question was not, "What am I going to learn in this class?" It was, "Will taking this class mean my GPA could go down?" This kind of attitude may be reality, but it saddens me to know that a student like this one cares more about the outcome than the fact that he might learn something that could make him a better human being and contributor to his society.

I think you are hitting the nail on the head. Grades are important for admissions to schools and garnering the scholarships to pay for those schools. Just see the story that started this for a clear example. Since the end goal of an education is to land a good job (no, that's not the ideal goal, but preparation for employment is the primary reason for education in the United States), and the university you attend can have a big influence (depending on your area of study), coming out of high school with a high GPA can in fact be very important to your future career.

[TroyF]

There are a bunch of variables here we don't know. The first and most important is if the students were told of how the grading scale worked from the start of the class on. If he has a syllabus with the letter grades based on numbers (ie: 90-100 = A) and or there is no notation about a curve, then I think he has a lot of ground to stand on.

I also have a problem with the A- to C grade scale based on the same %. There are so many ethical issues involved here that it would take 3 days to write them all.

The last thing we don't know about is how the distribution of grades was set. If a person who had a 90.3 ended up with an A- or B, I think this student has a case.

[Arles]

[Generalization alert] But it definitely influences the way the two sets of students think about their education. American students seem much more outcome based than process based. They seem to want a good grade before they want to learn something (or maybe they're just more honest about it;) ). I cannot imagine receiving the question in a Canadian classroom that I got a couple of weeks ago from a student considering taking my class here in the US. The first question was not, "What am I going to learn in this class?" It was, "Will taking this class mean my GPA could go down?" This kind of attitude may be reality, but it saddens me to know that a student like this one cares more about the outcome than the fact that he might learn something that could make him a better human being and contributor to his society.
IMO, US students (again generalized) are much more competitive when it comes to academics than their European and Canadian counterparts. I think it's more of a societal issue in that US parents (as well as parents in some asian countries) tend to ride their kids a lot more to get good grades - to the point that grades are all that matter for most kids.

In the end, though, I don't really think it matters whether a kid is studying to help his GPA or studying because they simply want to learn. If the class is setup well, simply "studying to help your GPA" should end up with the kid learning a decent amount. I also have to think that a kid worried about his GPA might end up putting in the extra hours between 1 AM and 3 AM whereas the kid who simply wants to learn may be content with just quitting at midnight when they feel they have a good understanding (but maybe not as prepared for the test).

As to the initial post, I think all a professor can do is provide two things:

1. Clear definition of how grades will be formed (ie, 90-100 A, 80-89 B, .. or top 20 kids A, next 30 B, ...).
2. Accessible information on how you are doing throughout the course (ie, numerical grade or position in the class).

If he or she does those two things, I don't see how anyone can complain after the fact. So, I guess the question is how did this professor handle these aspects?

[Mustang]

I've been on both ends of weird grades in college as the result of the college coming down on the teachers because they were either too easy or too hard.

In a finance class, I received an F because I scored a 10 on the open book final. The reason, I only went out to 4 decimal places but, the teacher wanted 5 even though 4 was adequate up until the final test and he never told us to go to 5 decimal places. The professor told me that the school was upset that so many people were getting A's and B's in his class and he had to have a bigger distribution. He told me to just take the class next semester, not show up and he would give me an A.

Then, in another class (different university).. the first day of class the professor walks in.. says the university was upset that so many people were getting F's and D's in his class so, he said to everyone.. show up to class, participate in discussions and everyone gets an A...

Ahh yes... higher learning at it's finest....

[Fighter of Foo]

I think you are hitting the nail on the head. Grades are important for admissions to schools and garnering the scholarships to pay for those schools. Just see the story that started this for a clear example. Since the end goal of an education is to land a good job (no, that's not the ideal goal, but preparation for employment is the primary reason for education in the United States), and the university you attend can have a big influence (depending on your area of study), coming out of high school with a high GPA can in fact be very important to your future career.

This is OURRRRR Country

[King of New York]

I've been on both ends of weird grades in college as the result of the college coming down on the teachers because they were either too easy or too hard.

In a finance class, I received an F because I scored a 10 on the open book final. The reason, I only went out to 4 decimal places but, the teacher wanted 5 even though 4 was adequate up until the final test and he never told us to go to 5 decimal places. The professor told me that the school was upset that so many people were getting A's and B's in his class and he had to have a bigger distribution. He told me to just take the class next semester, not show up and he would give me an A.

Then, in another class (different university).. the first day of class the professor walks in.. says the university was upset that so many people were getting F's and D's in his class so, he said to everyone.. show up to class, participate in discussions and everyone gets an A...

Ahh yes... higher learning at it's finest....

Yes, that's the insanity of college grading at its finest.

1) If you are doing a good job of teaching, then presumably your students are going to get high grades, but
2) If your students are getting high grades, then you are promoting grade inflation, so you need to start giving lower grades, but
3) College administrators do not want you giving out grades that are low either, because then your retention/graduation rate drops and state legislators get angry, and
4) If your students are getting low grades, that means you are not doing a good job of teaching them, so...

(Return to step one: repeat cycle endlessly)

As for the initial issue: if a professor sandbags someone by changing the grading scale during or after the semester (like a lot of posters here, I got sandbagged once as an undergraduate, and I raised h*ll about it), then the professor deserves to be dinged in some way. No question.

[Ajaxab]

King knows exactly how the game is played. It's sad that one's teaching performance is somehow measured by the grades you give, but in many respects, it's the truth.

[Logan]

King knows exactly how the game is played. It's sad that one's teaching performance is somehow measured by the grades you give, but in many respects, it's the truth.

Also sad that one's intellectual ability is somehow measured by the grades you receive.

[finketr]

As to the initial post, I think all a professor can do is provide two things:

1. Clear definition of how grades will be formed (ie, 90-100 A, 80-89 B, .. or top 20 kids A, next 30 B, ...).
2. Accessible information on how you are doing throughout the course (ie, numerical grade or position in the class).

If he or she does those two things, I don't see how anyone can complain after the fact. So, I guess the question is how did this professor handle these aspects?

I'm recalling the one college class (modern algebrai had that had a curve, if necessary.

The professor stated clearly in the 1st class:

If you get 90% of the points, you will get an A.
If less than X% get an A then the A score will drop to that person's score.
Between x-1 and x-10 is a B. x-11 to x-20 is a C.

But that was an overall scoring strategy. I can't recall if we had tests curved or not at other times...

But this is the problem with a forced rating distribution. THank you, Jack Welch. It requires that eventually your high performers get trapped in a lower classification..

anywya..

later,

[Ajaxab]

Also sad that one's intellectual ability is somehow measured by the grades you receive.

Well said. Such is the system we've created for ourselves.