<p>“D” just called me and told me she got a B on her chemistry test, but she did not know if that was good because her professor grades on a curve. I’m not sure I understand how it works. If she got a B, wouldn’t the curve have already been factored into that grade?</p>
<p>I would think so. It would mean that he gave the highest scorers an A and then adjusted down from there.</p>
<p>Usually when they get the grade it’s “after the curve”.</p>
<p>For many students (and their parents) who considered B to be a failing grade at HS, college grading is an adjustment…</p>
<p>Lucky for me I’m not one of those parents. I would be ecstatic if she ended up with a B in chemistry…and so would she. :)</p>
<p>At S’ school, in a Chem course that he had been told would be graded on a curve, the individual test grades came back “uncurved.” He knew he did far better than the class average, even tho his actual grade was low for him, but his grades weren’t adjusted (they were numeric). When he got his semester grade, it was an A – so the curve had obviously factored in at the end.</p>
<p>The professor was not a good communicator and so, altho S believed he would benefit from the curve, he was never quite sure how things would turn out until the end.</p>
<p>I have heard of other schools (this is only hearsay), where kids don’t know until the very end of the term whether they are an “A” or a “D” student - eg, have a 62 average, but 62 turns out to be top of the class.</p>
<p>JMMom, your son’s story about Chemistry is what happened last year in my D’s Physics class at her college. The grades for everyone were pretty low on tests and nobody really knew what it would turn out to be until final grade reports came out and it was on a curve. </p>
<p>I guess for the OP, she’d have to make sure the curve was before the test score was made koown or if the curve would be later at the end of the semester. </p>
<p>I agree with another poster, particularly at a very selective college, where students may have been a straight A student in HS, grades take some getting used to. In some college courses, a B is very good! </p>
<p>At my D1’s school, they do not use +'s or -'s so you can have an 89 average and get a B which is another thing to get used to which was not the case in HS (or at least not ours). </p>
<p>At D2’s college, at least in the bulk of her courses in her specialized degree program, the grading scale is 93 and above is an A. So, a 90-92 is a B+ which again is not like our HS where 90-92 would be an A-.</p>
<p>A lot is going to end up on the prof. I’ve had teachers who graded on a strict curve and you never knew exactly where you stood until the end of the semester because he needed all the grades from everyone to determine a class average and so on. It’s frustrating. You could know where you stood relative to the assumed class average but b/c people would move up and down gradewise with each test, you never knew exactly where that was going to fall (someone who did very poorly could study hard and end up with a great grade on the second test). </p>
<p>She should check her syllabus b/c it’s more than likely explained there. If still not clear, she should ask her TA (either lab or discussion/recitation/review/whatever) for an explanation.</p>
<p>OK this is kinda weird. She got her first essay back and wound up with a “B”, which is apparently fantastic for this writing class. So I said to her, “that’s fantastic. You got the same grade on your writing as you did on your first chem test.” She basically said she did not actually get a “B” on her chem test. She looked on-line and saw that she scored where the majority of the class scored. There were only a few above her and some below her. But for the most part, she was right where everyone else was. Sounds to me like the curve won’t be determined until later…</p>
<p>Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and I was an undergrad, the curves were not usually set until the end of the semester, largely because the numerical grades were often tallied, then distributed. If the curve varied from hour exam to hour exam, it’d be hard to know what to do with the grades at the end of the semester.</p>
<p>My first-semester freshman is still quite nervous about only 3 grades going into his semester grade. No question, he’s not in HS anymore.</p>