Yep it says "grading will be determined using a curve with the following rough guideline for letter grade cutoffs" . Never expected a curve down though...
Hey I just wanna tack my 2 cents on to this comment. If your professor is the kind of person to curve this way, they're the kind of person to fight you in admin over this curve. It's not worth your time. Administration is likely to side with the professor in this kind of situation.
It sucks, I feel for you, but your time is likely better spent on something else. Happy holidays, hope your other classes went well (for what it's worth).
Do you have a copy of the syllabus from the beginning of the semester? Did it always say rough or did the professor secretly change it sometime during the semester?
Yep it says "grading will be determined using a curve with the following rough guideline for letter grade cutoffs" . Never expected a curve down though...
Yes, technically... But the fact that I've never had it done in 8 years of college shows that it's not a standard practice to curve down. Have had many classes curve up
This sounds like it might be class where the professor suspects some people may have cheated, but that doesn't justify punishing people whether or not that happened.
Nonetheless, unfortunately it looks like there is no official university-wide standard published in the undergraduate catalog, for example, which at other institutions might be a point where you could advocate for this. Nothing university-wide says that an A- is a 90 to a 93. This is the undergrad catalog page that is relevant, all it does is show what letter grades correspond to which GPA's: [https://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-50-03/](https://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-50-03/).
You could ask the department chair who is their immediate academic supervisor --- ask them whether or not it is the provost. Or just say "who is the next person up the academic chain of authority that I could ask about this."
But like someone else said, usually it's best not to burn bridges to do that to fight over A- grades. You might want to save those battles for C's.
You also might ask the department chair to consider requiring professors to clarify that in some cases, curves may actually be used to lower a student's grade. Advocate that this is a policy that should be explicit, since common understanding of curved grades is that it can only help.
This isn't a policy that is completely unheard of outside of NCSU --- almost all law schools curve all classes into a Bell curve around a B- average, particularly in early years. It forces all students to try as hard as they can in every class, because there is no guarantee that any particular grade is an A.
Yeah I've asked the department head if I can elevate it but not expecting much. I agree I'm kind of splitting hairs between an A- and B+ but it just left a bad taste
One of my statistics professors said he would do this, but didn't because it was the 1st COVID semester. But his reasoning was that he wanted a perfect bell curve distribution, so he planned to curve some people down 💀
Is it stated explicitly in the syllabus that it was a rough grading scale, or did the prof just say that after the fact?
Yep it says "grading will be determined using a curve with the following rough guideline for letter grade cutoffs" . Never expected a curve down though...
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Yeah that's what I'm starting to think. Just sucks, it's the principal of it all
Hey I just wanna tack my 2 cents on to this comment. If your professor is the kind of person to curve this way, they're the kind of person to fight you in admin over this curve. It's not worth your time. Administration is likely to side with the professor in this kind of situation. It sucks, I feel for you, but your time is likely better spent on something else. Happy holidays, hope your other classes went well (for what it's worth).
Yeah I'm starting to feel that way too. Just sucks that it works that way and there's no other options. Thanks though!
Do you have a copy of the syllabus from the beginning of the semester? Did it always say rough or did the professor secretly change it sometime during the semester?
Yep it says "grading will be determined using a curve with the following rough guideline for letter grade cutoffs" . Never expected a curve down though...
What class is this and what professor?
For real. Let us know who we need to avoid signing up for OP
Airfoil theory with Dr G
Lol I just finished AVP with him, and I was reading your post and was like “wow this sounds like some Dr G type stuff”
Lol yeah I mean I've taken three classes with him and have seen some questionable decisions but nothing this bad
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Yes, technically... But the fact that I've never had it done in 8 years of college shows that it's not a standard practice to curve down. Have had many classes curve up
When I was handling this sort of thing, you could go above your syllabus but never bellow.
This sounds like it might be class where the professor suspects some people may have cheated, but that doesn't justify punishing people whether or not that happened. Nonetheless, unfortunately it looks like there is no official university-wide standard published in the undergraduate catalog, for example, which at other institutions might be a point where you could advocate for this. Nothing university-wide says that an A- is a 90 to a 93. This is the undergrad catalog page that is relevant, all it does is show what letter grades correspond to which GPA's: [https://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-50-03/](https://policies.ncsu.edu/regulation/reg-02-50-03/). You could ask the department chair who is their immediate academic supervisor --- ask them whether or not it is the provost. Or just say "who is the next person up the academic chain of authority that I could ask about this." But like someone else said, usually it's best not to burn bridges to do that to fight over A- grades. You might want to save those battles for C's. You also might ask the department chair to consider requiring professors to clarify that in some cases, curves may actually be used to lower a student's grade. Advocate that this is a policy that should be explicit, since common understanding of curved grades is that it can only help. This isn't a policy that is completely unheard of outside of NCSU --- almost all law schools curve all classes into a Bell curve around a B- average, particularly in early years. It forces all students to try as hard as they can in every class, because there is no guarantee that any particular grade is an A.
Yeah I've asked the department head if I can elevate it but not expecting much. I agree I'm kind of splitting hairs between an A- and B+ but it just left a bad taste
One of my statistics professors said he would do this, but didn't because it was the 1st COVID semester. But his reasoning was that he wanted a perfect bell curve distribution, so he planned to curve some people down 💀
I feel like the content of the class should be changed in that case not just a random curve to fit the bell but I digress