# letter grades **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020 "2003-07-03T13:46:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Alex\_VA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f475e1/32.png) [@Alex\_VA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alex_VA)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/1 "2003-07-03T13:46:51Z")
Why is there no E in the letter grades for school? Just wondering… ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/2 "2003-07-03T15:06:27Z")
One reason may be the attempt at avoiding confusion. At one time, many school systems used not the A,B,C, etc. system, but an E,G,S,U system. This evaluated children on a scale that ran from Excellent (E) to Unsatisfactory (U). These value judgements were fine for a while, and I won’t go into the politics of grading systems, but suffice it to say, there’s been a shift to A,B,C, D, and F grading. Some systems used to use E’s in that system, but apparently that wasn’t S for some people and was seen as confusing. If a student got an E, did that mean failing, or did it mean Excellent? Not the kind of thing that would create mass confusion in most people, but enough so that most school systems dropped the E in favor of the more conventional F. But, lad, this shouldn’t be a concern to you unless you don’t do your homework. xo C. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/3 "2003-07-03T15:14:15Z")
Where? There are here (uk). My guess is everyone likes F=Fail, and A,B… being the top downwards, so if you have 4 passing grades, you have ABCDF? ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/4 "2003-07-03T15:28:12Z")
I attended one public school many years ago which had “E” as the lowest grade in its scheme. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/5 "2003-07-03T15:58:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Alex VA \* > \*\*Why is there no E in the letter grades for school? Just wondering… \*\* Some schools do use E for a failing grade–my high school in Illinois back in the 1980s, for example. This has been discussed recently, BTW, in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=159558), for one. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2003, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/letter-grades/186020/6 "2003-07-03T16:48:50Z")
It’s really easy for the wily student to change an F to an E on his report card. 🙂