<p>Do any current students have any suggestions for my D? She just finished the fall semester of her freshman year. She was taking Business Econ; doing B/B+ work in all assignments, checking in with prof who said everything was fine, then ends up with a C+. She has emailed him; no response. I do not want to get involved other than suggesting other things she can try (calling him; stopping in after the break and going over the grades again). Any other suggestions? I’d tell her to ask her advisor but D says her English is very limited…</p>
<p>Also – anyone have any luck getting a grade changed after it’s been posted? If so, what is “the window” here? Has it already passed?</p>
<p>Any advice or suggestions are much appreciated. I mean, she may have just done C level work and not realized it, or maybe one test was given a steep curve. It was a real surprise to her.</p>
<p>I don’t know how the actual process works, but I am 99% sure the “window” hasn’t closed yet. I think it does in March.</p>
<p>If your daughter feels she did B/B+ work, she should definitely ask the professor what happened. I feel it’s a good thing you’re not getting too involved in this, but you should definitely make sure your daughter’s open to the possibility that she ended with a C+ because she did that level of work. Also, how she phrases the question is important. If it sounds like she’s accusing the professor for being wrong, then I doubt the professor will change anything.</p>
<p>If it’s consoling at all, I got a C+ in Freshman Bio (but I definitely did not feel I did B/B+ work). Lol, I failed my final because of laziness/cockiness.</p>
<p>Ask her what she made on the final in B-econ. I heard it was kind of easy (as in much easier than the mid-term which I saw, and it was very long and perhaps kind of rough if you weren’t prepped for that exam format). The professor apparently did have a talk with them (I had a frosh friend in the class) about how they were doing in the class after the midterm. However, the prof. was only estimating. In the end, it comes down to the B-school curve, so his guess would have been presumptuous. For example, if your daughter did okay on the midterm (say 70s, low 80s as I heard many people actually did poorly on it), then a 70 something may have been a B grade then. However, performance on quizzes and other assignments come into play, not to mention the final. If the average was in the 60s or 70s for the midterm but jumped to the 80s (or a very high 80) on the final (probably weighted much more) and your daughter only scores in the 70s again, then she gets left behind I guess because I great majority of the class improved and she didn’t meaning that she is unfortunately now in B-/C+ territory, even if her course average is say an 75-80 (If everyone else has between 80-89, she gets screwed in a b-school core course, which affords people in the top 70% or so a B grade of some sort. Numerical average doesn’t matter and grades can be curved up or down from the normal Emory college scale based upon distribution. In really easy b-school classes, such curving down is common). All I can tell you is that I think cutoffs were slightly lowered for that course as my friend with a solid 90 made a solid A (as opposed to the A- he would have got in the college. Honestly, his organic chem class w/soria was harder grading as the final bought his grade down from 98-99 to a 93 and he got an A- like most of the people going into the final with an A. Plenty of such may have also gotten B+)</p>
<p>Aluminum: I think the difference is that you may have actually earned between 77-79 in biology (the only curved prof. I’ve heard of is Eisen, Calabrese, and Shepherd, and that’s because shepherd sucks and the other two are legit tough on certain exams. Biology is much tougher gradewise, as is gen. chem. My friend got an 89.4 and still got a B+. Ouch!! But then I got a 92.4 in cell biology w/Eisen and got A- last semester , but I’m not mad, class was awesome and I highly recommend it . Anyway, More biol and chem. profs. grade straight than elsewhere) whereas her daughter may have earned in the 80s (even if low) and only got a C+, not because she was doing “C+ work”, but because 82 is lower than the 85-87 her peers had, when in reality, all were doing B work. She was at the mercy of a curve not guaranteed to work in her favor (we in the sciences usually are guaranteed a certain grade if we reach a particular cut off and the grade can only go UP depending on the distribution).</p>
<p>Thanks guys. One more if I can: is there an option to re-take the class and if she gets a better grade, replace the C+ with the better grade? If so, who authorizes that – the prof or department head? Do either of you know anyone who has done that?</p>
<p>She has 12 AP credits (3 scores of 4 or 5) so theoretically she could take 3 “new” classes and retake this one…</p>
<p>Her angst is mainly about qualifying for the undergraduate B-school. The Emory website says you’re supposed to get B+ in the pre-reqs. Not sure how much that is set in stone…</p>
<p>And bernie – I will ask her what she got on the final. That’s a good tip.</p>
<p>The grade will not be replaced but averaged with the new grade. Both will show up. If it has the B+ requirement, I guess she should retake. She could also do the regular econ. which is not graded on a distribution and is pretty easy to get a B+ in (kind of weird they have this requirement. 80% get admitted to BBA. So all these people got B+s in ALL their pre-reqs. Indicates how easy they are or how many of them are using the AP credit to avoid taking them. And I’m sure many took regular econ). Anyway, I think you just sign up for the course again, you need not notify anyone.</p>
<p>^thank you – very helpful. If you don’t mind my asking, how did you do it? Talk to prof, go over your grades you’d received during the course? Or did you offer to redo any coursework? I bet it’s different for different classes/professors but any tips you can give would be appreciated.</p>
<p>Ok well let me give you a bit of background information:
I had a solid A in my sociology class and we had to turn in our final project and paper via email by a certain deadline. I drafted my email, hit sent and then went off to bed only to wake up the following morning and see the email had never sent, my email hadn’t gone through. I tried to explain myself to my professor but unfortunately my project was late and she had to give me 50% for both the project and the paper. She posted my final grade as a B-, a devastating grade for someone who had earned over a 100% in the class. I continued to email her saying I could show her a screen cap of when I drafted the email, proving that it was before the deadline but she wouldn’t accept it. Finally, a few months later I was playing around on my computer and I realized I could take a screen shot of the properties of each document, proving that the last time I had edited either of them was well before the deadline. She finally accepted that proof and changed my grade to an A-.
For me, it was just a matter of proving that I had finished the assignments on time, not necessarily fighting a grade I didn’t think I deserved so I can’t offer much help in that department unfortunately. I would just say that persistence pays off because I sent this professor plenty of emails, apologizing for being a nuisance but I really just wanted to prove myself “innocent” so to speak and to get the grade that I had rightfully earned in the class.</p>
<p>^that is actually really helpful, because that happened to her in another class – she turned in assignments (via email) by the deadline, but somehow they didn’t get sent. I’ll suggest she can try taking a screen shot of properties to prove she got it in on time. </p>
<p>I guess there’s no option to email assignments via gmail or outlook? I wonder if this happens often…</p>
<p>Occam’s razor says your daughter isn’t the scholar she’s claiming to be…I’m sorry to say that, but it’s true. </p>
<p>No, this isn’t that common. It happens maybe once in a college career to very few students. That your daughter would have not one, but two valid disputes in a single semester would be…statistically unlikely. And that’s being kind.</p>
<p>Edit: Even situations like Melanie’s are largely up to the professor’s discretion as well. If they are feeling generous they may make exceptions for students in that sort of situation, but it is the students responsibility to ensure that their assignments are submitted on time, not the professor’s to account for potential technical problems. I would not approach the situation as if the professor has some obligation to fix a grade for a paper that was not received by the deadline.</p>
<p>You should note that not even the president of Emory has the authority to change a grade without the permission of the professor. Be very humble and approach the situation the right way.</p>
<p>Believe me, I get it. I’m pretty sure she has approached one prof with “thank you so much for letting me ask you about this” kind of tone instead of an entitled attitude. And if the grades don’t get changed, she has learned something.</p>
, but I’m not mad, class was awesome and I highly recommend it . Anyway, More biol and chem. profs. grade straight than elsewhere) whereas her daughter may have earned in the 80s (even if low) and only got a C+, not because she was doing “C+ work”, but because 82 is lower than the 85-87 her peers had, when in reality, all were doing B work. She was at the mercy of a curve not guaranteed to work in her favor (we in the sciences usually are guaranteed a certain grade if we reach a particular cut off and the grade can only go UP depending on the distribution).</p>