Grade-grubbing

i<3YaoMing · 04-21-2008, 08:17 PM

In high school, it seems rather normal for kids to go up to a teacher and complain about a test or a paper.

How common is grade-grubbing in College? How do professors generally react to such an activity?

TheKid4740 · 04-21-2008, 08:21 PM

A lot of my professors allow for a request of a regrade. I've never felt compelled to try it though. Usually it is more for clear grading errors (not adding up the points correctly).

CaseSpartan10 · 04-21-2008, 08:53 PM

Tends to be pretty pointless, except for situations like that mentioned above.

RacinReaver · 04-21-2008, 08:54 PM

The amount of grade grubbing really depends on each person. I knew people that would complain about every grade they got if it wasn't a perfect. Other people never even look at their graded assignments.

I think professors are fine with it as long as you're reasonable about it.

ginnyvere · 04-21-2008, 10:26 PM

I never saw the point in regrades (which, to me, have always been explained as the professor looking at the answers again to see if they want to give back any points). I mean, is it really only useful at schools where TAs grade tests and things like that? Other than that, how likely is it that a professor is going to look at something he/she has already graded and give it more points than the first time?

4321234 · 04-21-2008, 10:30 PM

i'd only do it if it's clearly their mistake. otherwise, i won't bother.

boysx3 · 04-21-2008, 10:37 PM

My son had one professor who was always willing to reread a paper. However, he made it clear that any regrade was final....and that the grade could go up or down. He always requested a clean copy so he would not be swayed by his previous grade.

BCEagle91 · 04-21-2008, 11:22 PM

It might be useful when TAs are used for grading and they don't do a very good job. Otherwise, I'd take a look at Rate Your Students to see how professors think about it.

cowgirlatheart · 04-22-2008, 01:32 AM

I don't like the term "grade-grubbing", but when I think something is off, I will go to my profs or TAs. Why not?

I've done this twice so far...

1) Intro Economics. My TA could barely speak english, so I went to see him regarding the "definition" section of our exam. I had a few terms that I had learned straight from the text, and they were marked wrong. They were fixed.

2) Upper-Level Political Science (International Violence). I'm a good student (I mean, most of us on CC are), so it was a shock when I got a C on my short paper this term, which was my worst ever grade on a paper (by over 10 percent!!). It was even more of a shock because I had gone to my professor's office hours prior to writing my paper and discussed my thesis with him. He said it was a good idea and that he was really looking forward to reading the paper. I went to his office hours with my paper and asked him to look over it because I wanted to know what I did wrong. There were maybe three words written on it - not a good indication of why I got the grade I did. He took one look at it and said "oh, I'm sorry, the TA marked this paper and I never read it". It was one of those classes where you don't have a TA in class, but they help with the grading if the professor has a large workload. I gave him my paper to look over and he changed my grade to an A-.

Moral of the story: it is definetly worth going to your professors if you think something is really wrong.

apumic · 04-22-2008, 04:11 AM

Be careful about it. If it is clear that a mistake was made, by all means, ask about it; however, you don't want to establish yourself as one of "those students." It won't help you in getting recommendations from faculty, etc.

student14x · 04-22-2008, 08:58 AM

It worked once when I had an A- changed to a A( this was the course grade btw). But it was due to a small error on the professors' part( mistake on my final).

beanieboo · 04-22-2008, 06:06 PM

my roommate handed in a spanish activity packet and got it back with a B on the top. she had handed in two previously and had done the same quality work on all and got A-'s on the first two. she went up to the professor who looked at all of them and realized the disparity and changed the grade to an A-. only do it if you really KNOW that something is wrong.

i think its BS that my econ TA gave me 1/5 points for this short answer on my last exam but am i going to go argue for two extra points (because i know i was not completely right)? no, casue in the end it doesnt matter and just makes me look bad to her.

nontraditional · 04-22-2008, 07:20 PM

If there's some objective reason the grade is wrong -- such as arithmetic -- feel free to go ask.

If you don't know why you got the grade you did, you can go ask for clarification to help you on future assignments, but I would make it very clear that you are asking for clarification, not challenging the grade. Maybe when going through it with you the instructor will decide you didn't get a fair grade, but if you just show up with "I want a better grade" it's not going to go over well.

tnguyen08 · 04-22-2008, 11:14 PM

^^

So then i can talk to a prof about a paper if i get a bad grade on it? Like see what I can improve / what i did wrong as long as i'm not out to get a better grade?

Also, is it too much to email a prof if I was going to be, say, absent for class?
(I had this question in mind, but didn't want to make another thred :-/)

OKgirl · 04-22-2008, 11:46 PM

Quote:

Also, is it too much to email a prof if I was going to be, say, absent for class?

All of my teachers have told us to email them if we will be absent for tests (otherwise it is 20% off), but I've been in pretty small classes so far so it might be different in very large classes. I'd imagine it would be a good thing to do in all classes (you rather be safe than sorry).