I just had my final wth her today. The final was impossible, and get this, the highest score in the entire freaking class is a 76/100!!! This is an above average students group of about 35 students, none of whom are simply slacking off. When we adddress the teacher on this, she refuses to even entertain the idea of a curve for some unknow reason. I needed a 75.6 on the final to get an A in the class. I got a 73 (as far as I know about 2nd in the entire class). This gets me about a 79.6% in the class overall, .4%/2.6 points short of an B- instead of a C+.
God damnit. This year in Latin 2, she will not award a SINGLE A+/A/A- to the entire class, and approximately 2 to 3 B’s. All the rest will be C/D/F. WTF? How can she do this?
What is her problem?
Does she hate us?
Is she a sadist?
Is she using us to write her second doctorial theisis on how to unfairly piss people off?
How can she not even consider applying a curve to the class, or at least to the final.
Sounds like my Soviet History prof who lets her T.A. mark the exams… i think there should be a study into the idea that because one has a Phd they can instantly teach. Luckily the baby boomer profs are starting to die off, too bad for you though. Drop the class or give it your best shot, the prof has tenure and can’t be touched. life aint fair.
Ugh. I HATE curves. No, no teacher should ever try to grade on a curve. It’s just not right.
HOWEVER…it sounds as if she’s failing to teach you guys anything, if no one is getting above a C. I don’t think that everyone should have an A, and I respect teachers who are tough but fair, but that doesn’t sound like anyone is learning.
It does sound like unfair grading if no one is making anything better than a C or B- in that class.
Use the chain of command. That teacher has to report to someone; a department or supervisor head. Find out who it is and complain to them. If you don’t get any satisfaction there, find out who THEY report to and go to them. Repeat as necessary or 'til you get a decent explaination of why this is happening.
Thanks Guinistasia, I’m going to my dean tomorrow, I guess I should try the Foreign Language department as well.
I’ll report back, but it will be hard, finals are still going on tomorrow and yet again on Thursday. Hopefully, I can get a grade change to a B-.
I’m not giving up diplomatic relations with my Latin teacher either, perhaps I can work out some sort of deal. It is still not fair for people that are just a little bit worse off, but I hope I can convince her to somehow enter a B-.
Failing that, perhaps it would work to try and recount all my grades, find any mistakes, grading errors, etc.
I’m going to be a wet blanket and say that your teacher doesn’t have any obligation to grade on a curve. If you answered 73 percent of the questions correctly, there is nothing unusual about receiving a grade of 73.
The only thing I would suggest, if you really believe that her teaching methods are faulty and thus resulted in overall lower grades for your class, is to compare your test with other students. Did you all get the same questions or sections incorrect? This might indicate that she was unclear while teaching those particular concepts, or that those sections of the test were confusing and poorly worded. This is something specific that you could bring to the attention of a department head.
How many students in the class? If the teacher truly graded on the curve, in a class of 100, only a few would get an A, a few more a B, most a C, about the same number of Ds as Bs, and the same As as Bs. I’m not sure of the exact percentages, but that’s the way the Bell Curve works. Be happy. I had a prof once who would lower grades to make them fit the curve.
Likely your teacher is reacting to the current trend in dealing with grade inflation. The big problem is that we’re getting kids in college with 4.0 averages who don’t deserve them because teachers are taking the highest score in the class–say it’s a 50–and making that an A. Therefore, if the entire class is mouth-breathing, snot-licking, smegma-chewing, monkey-fucking morons who can’t wipe themselves clean without the assistance of a trained professional, there are still 25 to 50 idiots with As on their transcripts. We don’t like that on the university level. We get a class of 25 and only 3 or 4 can write. So, there’s a backlash to re-place grades where they belong. Remember: A=excellent; B=good; C=average; etc. A C is becoming average again. A B is becoming something to be proud of again.
Here’s the grain of salt: I grew up in the era where if one didn’t make an A, one was a loser. But I’m also teaching the college frosh who have HS 4.0 averages who can’t write a decent sentence to save their lives.
I go to a high school with an average unweighted GPA of about 2.7 (0=F,1=D,2=C,3=B,4=A), so it is as guilty of grade inflation of any other. The only problem is, when the admissions office of your college looks at my transcript and notice this grade distribution, they think that a C+ is close to the 50th percentile rather the the 90th, which it apperantly is based upon my rank within this specific class. The colleges do not bother to look at the distribution for each teacher, department, course, or class.
This sucks.
This is why I think that Dr. Rothberg should bother to consider how a specific grade reflets our relative performance.
It would be great if we could all snap our fingers and go back to an average GPA of 2.0, but I hope that you can understand why I am angry about this specific class, particularly considering that she would not even curve the final in which there were no A’s when there probably should have been at least 1 or 2, no B’s when there should have been 6/7 B’s, 12 C’s, 6/7 B’s, and 1/2 F’s. Both the final and class grades were too low to fit this curve, which you must admit, is harsher than all of the grade distributions for all high schools.
Because of this, I think that I probably deserve at least a B. An A under the grade distributions which colleges believe that I am being graded under.
I hope that you agree, at least with the B assesment. If you don’t, feel free to make yourself clear.
Where does this rate on your clarity/articulation grade scale for your college students in timed writing (Hey, I’m not proof writing and rewriting a SDMB post ).
You’re absolutely right: it sucks being on the cusp. You’re part of a generation in which some teachers are still inflating grades and some are trying to get them back. Believe me–I put up with grade appeals every semester from students who think that mere physical presence counts as a C. I also have students who think that their best and hardest work isn’t worth the A they got. As far as deserving a B, unless the test was faulty (and when I was a secondary ed major, we took a class on grading and testing), if you got 73% of the questions right, you earned a 73. Them’s the breaks, folks. If it was a fair test (and I’m not saying it was), then that’s what you got. But what you’re asking for is not “curving,” but rather “raising,” a process by which the highest grade is set as 100% and everyone else gets brought up by the rising tide. This is the grade version of voodoo economics. If the teacher taught and/or assigned every aspect of the test, and the highest grade was an 80, then…well…But if the test was faulty, then however many questions were bad should be given to the students.
As to your point about the universities…trust me, they’re aware of which schools are inflating and which aren’t. If you don’t feel comfortable with that, include in a note or mention in your admissions essay that you think that your school is passing out As like a parade Shriner on crack. Honestly, your essay is worth far more than any transcript or standardized test scores anyhow. Admissions is a weird process that involves subjective judgement.
Don’t let it get you down. It sounds to me like you’d do fine.
Timed writing? Hun, you’re more articulate than most of my Frosh. You get the only A earned in my last set of finals. Use your language skills to your advantage, and don’t sweat a C here or there. I had a 2.6 undergrad average, and I’m in a top 50 Ph.D. program. Your skills are more important than some teacher/prof’s grade book.
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