So true @MaineLonghorn. I don’t want my airliner pilot or next surgeon to miscalculate anything either.
You really have no concept of what a bad grade is! When I went to college in the 70’s, there was a strict bell curve for a number of courses particularly intro courses. Thus, 10% got A’s ( which included A-s), 20% got B’s, 40% got C’s or C plus’s , 20% got D’s and 10% was supposed to get F’s , although a number of professors allowed students ways to get around the F’s . Today, the grading is VERY inflated.
I have taught in college for a number of year.s When I gave out an A-., I considered it to be a very good grade. In fact, if all you get is A- throughout you college career, you will have a 3.7,which is damn good and certainly good enough for just about any grad school.
At a lot of grad schools, students work closely with professors on research and having an attitude of being owed an A grade is likely going to hurt you in your personal relations. Even in undergraduate, where you are going to need professor recommendations, its going to be difficult to get a strong recommendation from an instructor who senses a sense of entitlement. So cool off, relax, and enjoy the short time that you have in college.
@NorthernMom61 made a really good point (that I completely forgot…oops…): the kind of learning expected in college is different than in (most) high schools- and the farther along you are the more true it is. The testing is more likely to take all that you have learned and apply it in new ways. The students who have truly mastered the material can take the problems from the textbook and apply the process of solving it new and different settings. Your recent uptick in marks may (may!) be a sign that your hard work at getting the basics down is paying off and your mastery of the material is now letting you do more complex problem solving. Hope it continues!
I’m an adjunct, and I will tell you that professors don’t like to give bad grades. I give the grade that the student earned. And I’ll repeat what has been said ad nauseam: an A- is not a bad grade and won’t hurt you for grad school.
However, what may hurt you is if when you ask your professors for letters of recommendation, they all remember you as someone who is more interested in the grade received than in the mastery of the material. I’m not saying that is you, and I really hope it isn’t! But your letters of recommendation are very very important for getting into grad school, so it would be good to put lots of effort into making good connections with the best in the field that you can find, and perhaps spend less energy in worrying so much about the difference between A and A-.
@mdcmom Good point! Well, I don’t have to worry about asking this professor for a recommendation. I took my frustration out on her via email.
@MomofM I don’t feel like the professor owe me an A. I got a 92.4 in the class and I more frustrated about the lack of room for error than the professor giving me what I have in the class.
For every instance of error that decreases a grade, it is statistically as likely that errror can erroneously help a grade. How come students never complain about those inaccuracies? And one metaphor that I heard in grad school that made a lot of sense to me about not earning a particular grade, in your case, an "A’, is that if you are trying to catch a bus, it doesn’t matter whether you are 1 minute late or 5 minutes late, you’ve missed the bus. Good luck to you.
@taxguy If anything, I feel that my grades have been deflated. My freshman year in college was very bad (B’s and C’s with one of those C’s being a C-). So with the B’s, I was on getting a 3.0 and a 2.0 or even a 1.7 for the C- for a 5 credit course. I finished up my freshman year with a 2 point something GPA. And the only thing I was doing wrong my freshman year was scoring in the 80s on exams. It took me until my junior year that I have learned how to average in the 90s for the semester. So I’m really working hard to have a GPA when I graduate school to be proud of. If you can’t average well into the 90s on your exams at my school, don’t expect to get an A because pretty much all the classes put a heavy focus on exams. One my classes this semester was 95% of the total grade. Fortunately, it worked in my favor since my highest test averages were in that class.
@MaineLonghorn and @NorthernMom61 Accuracy is important and my profession before going to college was an electrician and I never wired up anything incorrectly. When you take exams with anxiety and a time limit, it is easy to make a mistake. But in the real world when you have time to get it right, you should be good.
@MomofM I like the bus example. To address your first point, a lot of my exams are fill-in-the-blank or multiple choice. For it to be equally likely, the exam will have to be true or false. That is the only situation that I can think of at the top of my head. So I never received any points for accidentally answering a question correctly. ;
Imo, it won’t be your borderline grades that’ll prove to be detrimental, it’ll be this kind of behavior.
Wait, you want “More room for mistakes on tests” but still want an A? Not an A- , but an A, because you want “room for mistakes?”
And this is about a spiteful professor, and not your own tendency to make mistakes on tests?
And “the students in (your) school are very smart”-- it’s “Big Ten school.” But you still expect to make those mistakes and get an A, not an A-???
And you’re a smart kid, and you don’t see the holes in this logic?
Go back and read what you’ve posted in this thread. Every single post talks about the mistakes you make, and how you should get an A. (Well, aside from the one where you took out your frustrations via email… that really, REALLY doesn’t speak well to your maturity level, or your prospects for a good letter. Question: Do you honestly think she won’t share that email with her colleagues???)
I don’t think your grades are a problem. I see a big, glaring, huge lack of maturity being your main issue.
Professors don’t “give out” grades…you earn them.
@bjkmom If you see a student getting frustrated by grades that will negatively affect his chance to accomplish something special to the point that he sent out a healthy email, then, I guess I’m mature. And for more room for error part, if anything, that will make school less stressful since I don’t feel like I have to get a 100 on every exam. This is just my opinion and it doesn’t make me a bad student or immature for feeling that way. If you never accidentally keyed in the wrong number in calculator or bubbled in the wrong oval, then I wish I had that ability. By the same token, it doesn’t mean that I don’t know the materials as well as others. Merry Christmas!
Because they can! Because not everyone get A or A+
@bopper I probably should change that title. I got what earned.
" +bodangles It is a bad grade because I want to go to grad school"
So you think that to get into grad school, you need 100% As? And that A-s will rule you out of grad school?
You do realize that top universities consider more than grades when admitting graduate students? That someone with a 3.7 GPA and a great aptitude for research would be taken over someone with a 4.0 GPA and nothing to show in terms of research?
So:
- pursue every undergraduate opportunity you can in your field
- get summer internships in your field
- contact top researchers to see if they would consider an unpaid intern to help them in the summer
(if you mean medical or similar professional school as opposed to grad school, shadow a practitioner and volunteer at the appropriate place, for as many years as possible including summers and part-time in the school year)
A- vs. A is silly talk.
And that professors get their jollies from giving bad grades means your college must have some pretty sadistic professors.
I have taught classes where no one got an A, but no one failed either. I have taught classes with 50% As and Bs. Other classes where everyone got a C+, C, or C-. When it comes down to it, you had to do more to get an A, and you didn’t. If you don’t know what that was, you have to spend more time contacting the professor and preparing for exams and other work.
@rhandco thanks for the insight
Was kind of reminded of this article: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/jun/10/opinion/op-8654
Since when did A- or even a B become a “bad” grade? Oh, right. When suddenly half the class is getting A’s. But then how do you differentiate between students if the average grade for the class is what is supposed to be the best grade for the most stellar students? At that point, there’s really not much point in even having grades.