Yeah, the question was half rhetorical, and was reflective of my American experience. At my own undergraduate university in Australia, the highest letter grade (HD for High Distinction) began at 85. When i asked the question, i was assuming a US university, where A is generally in the 90 percent range, and where grades that high are not uncommon.
Of course, the specific correlation between a percentage and a letter grade is actually less important than how difficult the grade is to get. If School X says that A begins at 80%, and School Y says that A begins at 90%, it doesn’t matter too much, and you can compare between them quite easily as long as you have an idea of how rigorous each school is.
If one-fifth of the students at School X get an A, and three-quarters of the students at School Y get an A, then School X is probably more rigorous, whatever the specific correlation between numbers and letters might be.
I know what the OP is asking. My response is that a professor who did that must have an out-of-control ego, which I think sums up how I’d feel about it pretty well.
I’m a prof, and I state explicitly in the syllabus that in order to pass the class one must take the midterm and final (if the class has either). It’s my class, and I decide what’s necessary to pass it.
I totally agree with academic freedom for each prof to run her class as she sees fit (in accordance with University policy). In fact, different classes often require different policies. It’s the beauty of being at a college compared to teaching at high school!
If it’s in the syllabus given on the first day of class, it’s written in stone.
The professor, unless clearly stated in the syllabus that the final exam must be attended, has absolutely no ground to fail the students.
Think of it like this: the students could very well show up, not answer a single question, and leave within 30 seconds. What recourse does the professor have in that situation and why would a token gesture make any difference? It’s inane in every way.
If there were to be a requirement, I don’t think it should be mere submission. As pointed out it seems rather academic as one could just show up to the exam, write ones name, and get zero. However a passing grade as a requirement seems reasonable, for at least some courses.
I’ve lecturered in HE in one flavour or another for twenty years or so now. It would make a different between the US and UK, as procedures are different between the two academic systems. In the US, I created the syllabus and class policy; I marked and calculated results completely on my own. In the UK, I can create my lecture and seminar schedule, but marking policies and assessment policies (assignments and exams) are set by the department. All assessments are moderated; marks are submitted to the departmental administrators who keep track of them and calculate them. All assessed work is turned in at the faculty office on a very strict schedule, and then released to the lecturers for marking.
Concessions for missed or late work are strictly defined and must be supported with documentation.
If no one shows up for the final, and none of them have concessions, then they all receive 0s.*
Would I chase them around, or try to initiate some system to penalise them? Hell no. They’re adults, and they know the consequences. Also, I don’t take personally student shenanigans; anyone who does isn’t going to last very long in the professional.
Besides, it’s less for me to mark!
*This would have amazing consequences for my final year students, as they sit a two-semester final year module that has a single, final, exam – worth 150% of their mark (75% for one semester, and 75% for the other).
I think professors should have the freedom/flexibility to choose – meaning they could
Make taking the final exam mandatory for completing the course.
Make it count for a large percentage of the final grade but not mandatory (so if someone had a near-100% going into the final and was fine with skipping the exam and getting a C as the course grade, they can do so).
Could drop the lowest exam score – including the final – so if you’re happy with what your grade would be with all the previous exams counted you can skip the final.
Drop the lowest as above, but still require people to take the final.
And so on. They absolutely need to have their policy in the syllabus from the beginning, though.
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However, I’m far more concerned with the fact that* every single student * has a near 100% in the class. A single student or small handful of students doing that well is one thing. The entire damn class? Pretty clear indication I need to do a major overhaul of the course requirements (for future sections, obviously) and increase my expectations of students.
I recall the last day of class before finals week in DC Fundamentals. The instructor asked another student and me to remain after class. Once it was just the 3 of us, he told us that since we had both gotten As on the 2 midterms and gotten As on all the lab assignments, he didn’t see any point in wasting his or our time by making us take a final exam. And congratulations on the A on the course.
The student would pass, for the reasons everyone else has outlined. (I will say, though, that I’ve taught at the college level for thirteen years, and this has never actually happened. The students who fail to turn up for exams, or fail to turn in papers, are almost always the ones who have very marginal grades to begin with.)
My syllabi stated the grading procedure so if a student wanted to skip the final or not turn in any papers because they knew that they would still pass, it wouldn’t bother me. However most students had some interest in their grade point averages and would show up for the test for that reason alone.
Come to think about it, my college had a requirement that students show up for the final class unless given permission by the dean. I think part of it was driven by State and federal funding for some students and their need to attend classes to get those dollars. Also there were some cases where all the students AND the instructor skipped the finals!
When I was in college I was required to take some elective my final semester to meet my graduation requirements. I already had my job so my GPA no longer mattered. I busted my ass for the first half of the semester and got 100% on every assignment until I had 60% of the total outstanding points in the class, and then I stopped. The teacher pulled me aside a week later (attendance was required) and asked if I was OK or need any help since she’d noticed and distinct change in my personality. I explained that I had met the requirements to graduate and I was done with her class except for showing up. She said “OK, just be sure you don’t miss any class”.
For the people who set things as a requirement to pass, like you must take a test or you must turn in a paper, what do you do when people just do terribly? When I was getting my MBA we had a student who never took more then 30 min on a test since he wanted to get home to his family. He would sit down and work on the test until his time was up then he would turn it in and leave. Some of these test would take the second person to finish another hour and a half. What would you do if these hypothetical student were required to take the final showed up wrote their names answered all of the questions with “1” turned it in and left. They’ve met your requirements of taking the test and all that has been accomplished is wasting everyone’s time.
My college had a policy where you only had to take the final exam if your grades from the rest of the course were below X (where X could vary by course); if you took the final, then the grade that counted was the final’s.
But it was established from day one, and listed in every handbook, booklet and handout we ever got from the school.
Other than that, exams were mandatory and any skipped exam meant a 0 in that exam - if it was a partial you’d end up taking the final, if it was the final see you next final (we had to pass every single course, which meant retaking courses or finals as needed; labs had to be retaken in full, academic maters re-tested only).
When I TA’d in the US, I had a student who didn’t turn in his homework. Homework was 5% of the grade. I pointed this out to him about two weeks into the course; he shrugged and said it didn’t matter if he got nil from that part, so long as he aced the rest.
“TA’s evaluation” was another 15%; my evaluation matched exactly what he’d gotten from everything else (homework included), leaving him with a B+. He said “damn” but took it like a man, knowing perfectly well that if he’d bothered do the homework his grade would have been 100%.
At my college the syllabus rules. A typical class of mine states the final is worth 20% and the midterm is worth 10%, so to earn an A grade they have to take both. If someone didn’t show up for the final (it happens) they essentially get dropped two letter grades.
On the other hand, last semester I had a student show up for the final exam. I didn’t recognize him (and he stupidly wrote only his first name on the final exam). He didn’t submit any other work all semester, and only scored 50% on the final (it’s an introductory computer class). He ended up with a score of 10%. At least that was better than the student who sent an email during the final exam, asking for more time to submit his projects while missing both the final and midterm exams. He ended up with 8.5%. Practically everyone else who attended every class and did the in-class assignments ended up with an A.
Nanny bullshit like making you show up for class, or requiring attendance at tests always struck me as something professors with power-trips did. If I didn’t want to show up to class or take tests, I was making a conscious decision to do so, and it wasn’t any of their damn business why- just give me the zero and STFU, was my opinion as a student.
I think I’d feel much the same as a professor, although I admit that I’d be rather merciless to dumbasses who didn’t think their actions through. None of this fuck-around-all-semester and then beg the prof for concessions stuff in December/May with me.
So TL;DR- I’d give them whatever their average was, including the zero on the final.
Where I went to college, grades were done on a curve, so it was quite possible for someone getting an 80 who was a few standard deviations above the mean to be guaranteed an A. We graded that way in the first grad school I went to also. The second was used to a fixed scale, and I totally freaked out my class by giving a test where the class average was way down in C or D level. I had to assure the class that I was not flunking everyone. And one kid was so much better than the rest that I’d have happily given him an A without the final.
As the scenario stands, I agree with everyone else. But I have some real problems with the scenario.
The entire class getting solid As on the work so far is statistically improbable. I can see two reasons. First, the entire class was a bunch of tools. In that case they’d freak at getting a C on their transcript.
The second is that the professor has dumbed down the material so much that anyone with a pulse can get an A. But it’s not fair to give a bunch of easy work and then a hard final.
In either case, failing the class for not taking the final seems wrong.
Everywhere I’ve taught and studied, the lecturer (roughly equivalent to a US professor) sets the syllabus, but is then bound by it. In the UK there are also some University or Department rules that can’t be changed (e.g. lateness penalties). One of the standard inflexible ones is that students must make an earnest attempt at every assessment, or they fail.
I’m fully on board with that. All of my assessment is dual-purpose - formative (educating) and summative (assessing). It doesn’t help anyone to have students experience only part of the education. Particularly since my students are responsible for the safety of planes, power stations, hospitals … :-).
On the other hand, it is bad education and natural justice to change the rules partway through a course. If the syllabus + university rules doesn’t already say the students have to sit the final assessment, I’m not going to change the rule at the last minute.
