<p>For a class that gives out A/A- to 35% of the class where do I stand if I did exactly average on a midterm that is worth 40% of the grade. Mean was 82.67% and SD was 15.79%</p>
<p>It depends on your department. For engineering, the average GPA is 2.7, so if you score the average, then you scored a 2.7, or a B-.</p>
<p>when it comes to exams with means above ~65-70%, the distributions aren’t really Gaussian. my best guess in your case would be that the <em>median</em> score was slightly above your mean of 82.67% (since there are bound to be slackers in any class who lower the mean drastically).</p>
<p>A “normal” SD is ~68%; of which ~ 34% (half of that) is above the mean but still within one SD. Thus, 16% scored higher (and lower) than one SD (50% of total less 34% – one SD). In your example, with a mean of 83% and an a SD of 16%, that means that it was an easy test in that 16% scored 99%+.</p>