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Grade Inflation & Curving

A = 4.00 points;
A- = 3.67 points
B+ = 3.33 points;
B = 3.00 points;
B- = 2.67 points
C+ = 2.33 points;
C = 2.00 points;
C- = 1.67
D+ = 1.33 points;
D = 1.00 point;
F = 0 points.

According to the school website.
 
^ law schools are different than many other graduate programs. In most PhD programs, your course grades wouldn't be curved; you'd be exected to be getting As in those courses as a matter of course.

If you're applying from a graduate program overseas, just make sure your university, and perhaps yourself, explains the grading policy fully.
 
It's apparently different at my undergrad program - different classes are graded on different scales AND different curves.

I'm currently in a two-year honors biology program, and we are held to a strict:
A: 90-100
B: 80-90
C: 70-80
D: 60-70
F: 0-59

And ABs and BCs are given at instructor discretion.

In most of my other honors level courses, the course is curved on each exam (if the highest score is a 50, that's an A) because the tests are written to be extremely challenging and really push the edge of your knowledge, or the course is curved on a historical curve because the material is so equivalent, but you will always get fluctuations because of the fact that the tests have different questions every year (i have a class current that ends up giving an A for roughly 86%-90% and above depending on that year's curve). There is also usually an altered scale of some sort that pegs percentages not at the standard 90/80/70/60 points for A/B/C/D based on how/whether tests or final grades are curved. The average tends to be a B, with a fair number of As and Cs given. Student performance is usually quite high, so I don't believe there is inflation going on, and I have had a professor decide to simply give out more low grades than usual because student performance was quite low compared to normal.

Most non-honors courses stick to the same scale as the two-year program, and there is usually no curving.

GPA is:
A=4.0
AB=3.5
B=3.0
BC=2.5
C=2.0
D=1.0
F=0

Most degree programs require a 2.5 to graduate, and the honors program requires a 3.3 (which I don't understand because we already have to take exceedingly more difficult classes... /whining because I have a 3.2 because of a fucked up situation lol).
 
At my University we don't curve at all. But what happens is that each department, or sometimes even each class has its own set cutoffs for each letter grade. In some classes I've had an A cutoff be 78, for others 80, and for some 85. An A+ cutoff is either 90% as in sciences, or 94 or 95% in other faculties. The problem here is that we don't work on a 4.0 system so to apply to other schools for grad school or professional programs we have to convert, that's where we get screwed. Straight A's will get you a 3.8 (an A is worth 3.8/4) so you'd need straight A+'s for a 4.0 record, which means getting straight 94%'s in my faculty.

A+=4.5
A=4.0
B+=3.5
B=3.0
C+=2.5
C=2.0
D=1.0
F=0
 
^^
That sucks.

From conversations I've had with faculty members at my uni I think there needs to be more global standarisation of grades to sort out equivalence, particularly with regards to getting into graduate study. I know of someone who completed a masters course in Germany, and then was told it was only worth an honours level undergrad degree by universities in the UK (despite a much higher level of theoretical sophistication and an more in depth knowledge of the literature).
 
satricion said:
^^
That sucks.

From conversations I've had with faculty members at my uni I think there needs to be more global standarisation of grades to sort out equivalence, particularly with regards to getting into graduate study. I know of someone who completed a masters course in Germany, and then was told it was only worth an honours level undergrad degree by universities in the UK (despite a much higher level of theoretical sophistication and an more in depth knowledge of the literature).
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why so many grad programs usually put a large weighting on standardized entrance exams, it helps even the playing field.
 
Curves and the reason (or supposed reasons) given for them are very interesting to me. Similar RnR I'm pretty sure a lot of the class gets around somewhere roughly around 50-70% of the possible points per exam but obviously most people don't get a C-F grade. Our program's grading definitely differs in other aspects but in that one I can relate.
 
The only curving I've had professors do for classes was to curve so that the average grade in the class was a middle C
 
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