Do colleges give out A+'s?

College Admissions
#1

<p>Do colleges give out A+'s? If not, why don't they give them out?
And how does the Grading Curve concept work in College?</p>

#2

<p>Some do. </p>

<p>Its
A 4.0
A- 3.7
B+ 3.3
B 3.0
B- 2.7
C+ 2.3
C 2.0
and so on</p>

#3

<p>Which colleges give out A+'s?</p>

#4

<p>I go to Penn(Wharton) and while an A+ is a real grade, it is weighted equally with an A(both are worth 4.0). As a result, many professors do not give out A+ grades. The only exception is probably science, engineering, and Wharton classes where there are preset curves that end up giving the top few percent of students an A+ by default.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, Cornell actually counts an A+ as a 4.3 and other colleges surely have different policies.</p>

<p>For the most part, though, college students want to get an A. The A+ is more of a feature of high school.</p>

#5

<p>Hmmm, I wished that Colleges had A+'s....
Why do colleges have curves? What is the function of the curve?</p>

#6

<p>A curve ensures that top students get top grades and the worst students get low grades. It also standardizes whatever test the professor creates. </p>

<p>In high school, sometimes the teacher makes a test and the average is low so "no one got an A." Or one Math teacher gives mostly A's while another teacher(teaching the same course in the same school) gives mostly B's and C's. High school grades are therefore often poor sources of information about a student's performance. Curves used in college add meaning to the grades. Students are graded relative to one another rather than being graded relative to some arbitrary standard of how much the prof thinks they should know.</p>

#7

<p>Dartmouth gives out A*'s, which allow professors to elaborate (hence the asterisk) on truly exceptional students on the transcript.</p>

#8

<p>A fair number do. Most count A+ and A equally as a 4.0, but some count an A+ as a 4.3 for GPA calculations. </p>

<p>If you are interested in law school, you might want to keep in mind that LSAC calculates GPAs with an A+ counting for more than a 4.0, regardless of how your particular school calculates GPA. This gives students of schools that award the A+ somewhat of an advantage.</p>

#9

<p>As mentioned earlier Cornell gives A+s ... back when I was there I knew someone who had a 4.17 cumlative GPA!</p>

#10

<p>Ohhh Thanks Woodrow. That cleared it up for me.
@Quibbler, I'm in interested in Medical School, but I heard those classes are graded on a Pass/Fail scheme.
And if an A+ and an A both equal a 4.0, an A+ is sort of useless. Unless your GPA can get higher through an A+.</p>