What's the point of no "A"'s?

[Daisalana 33]

I have had teachers like this before, and I remember some sort of explination a while ago. I'm always a straight A student until I'm in these classes, where the teacher doesn't "Believe In" giving A's. Bunch of BS IMO, especially since we're paying for a degree, going through all their BS of college--yeah, you know it is-- and for some stupid reason they feel the need to mess with GPA's.

Anyway, I have stopped caring since I'm finally about done on my 2nd degree, but another student is really distraught about not getting an A. This teacher has given me a B across the board, and apparently everyone else. The more I think about it, the more it pisses me off. I deserved an A on everything I've done in there, but for 'whatever reason' no one gets an A. What's the point? Anyone remember why some teachers do this?

[Wheetsin 714]

Teachers should use a grading rubric for assignments, and it should include all grade or point levels. Have you been given something like that? If not, or if the teacher has made it clear that they simply do not give "A"s, then I would escalate the issue. GPAs do matter, especially in undergraduate studies. And in gradaute, if it's not a B or higher, you've failed the class.

[BabyNicole 0]

I'm a teacher (middle and high school), and I'd never do that. I think some teachers do b/c in their mind A is perfect, and everyone has room to grow. That the only "reason" I can think of. Going for my master's degree I was a straight A student (graduated 4.0). Let me tell you...if I had a professor like that I'd go straight to the top!

[Daisalana 33]

I've had 3 teachers total do this, I guess the most BS of it all is that I have taken this class with an A, from another college. I had to take it again because they wouldn't allow the transfer. It's the same thing in both places. It's writing papers and crap like that. I was looking over the syllabus, it is laid out how to get an A.. but it's all subjective stuff.

The "A" Paper never strays from its purpose or mistakes its audience. Its subject is focused, significant, interesting, and manageable. It is correctly organized but not mechanical. Each topic paragraph has a controlled idea, solid detail, and smooth transitions. Its sentences are varied in length and structured according to the writer's purpose and emphasis. The word choice is almost uniformly good. Words are chosen for precise denotation, connotation, and tone. Mechanically, the paper is correct except for excusable errors of inadvertence and violations of highly technical rules.

2 of my papers had like one line things written "This is good, but you could elaborate". Well, yeah, I could have. I could have elaborated everything, it's non-sense comments. I could have talked about elephants too if I felt like it.. but it doesn't make it a B paper.

Like I said, I would take it to the top if I wasn't in my last semester, but I feel bad for some of the other people who are getting upset about it.

Oh and Nicole I think you nailed what I was trying to remember. In the past I was told they give B's because everyone can improve. Which is such a stupid thing to say, when you're talking about GPA's.

[Jachut 487]

We have a thing in Victoria (Australia) called Celebrate the C. Basically on the kids school reports, a C means they're right in the range where they should be. Its a good mark. An A or B means they're up to 3 years ahead of where they should be.

But of course, the kids parents are all conditioned by the old A B C D system and every term, there's loads of upset parents because they're A and B students have dropped to Cs. Its been in since 2005 and still causing chaos!

[Wheetsin 714]

yeah that's a screwy philosophy. If everyone can improve, we wouldn't have "A" in our grading scale. I've seen the same thing at work. "If you're a 5, you're cheating the company. The best anyone can be is a 4." ut 5 is formally part of our review system, so all you've done is killed our ambition to fight that much harder to get the 5.... dumbass.

[Pix 4]

I had a professor like that in college, those of us with 4.0 GPA's protested and won our hard earned A's. We thought it was horse pucky that we should be marked down for our hard work. She did change her grading that next year when she realized that it was penalizing those of us who worked our tails off maintaining that GPA.

[Wheetsin 714]

Celebrating Cs is a nice idea - I mean C is "average" and even though no one wants to think of their kids as average, most of them are - at least academically. I don't know if it's the same there, but here in the states Cs are hard to be happy about because most colleges require above a 2.0 for entrance, unless you're focusing on community colleges. And even then, I'm not sure any take students with below 2.0. I think falling below 2.0 is actually grounds for academic suspension in most schools.

Average new admission GPAs are around 3.7. We have standardized testing that also impacts admissions, but there are many, many colleges that will not accept someone with a GPA below a certain limit (when I was looking at colleges it was 2.5 for absolute bare bottom).

My primary undergraduate college was not a "good college." I believe our requirements were 2.5 and minimum of 18 or 20 on the ACT. So to get in to that mediocre school, a straight C wouldn't have cut it except for some type of exception which would probably have included a student being admitted on academic probation.

The kicker is -- with our economy and market, with the exception of trade schools and the like, bachelor's degrees are really more of a bare minimum anymore, instead of the great qualifier they used to be. More and more employers expect graduate+ degrees.

[Daisalana 33]

Celebrating C's was dependent on the person around here.

I was in the accelerated classes and straight A student, and then in high school in the AP & CP classes with straight A's. If I brought home a C, I would have faced hell. My brother & sister on the other hand.. a C was an improvement and certainly celebrated. I use to secretly debate failing some classes just so there would be some excitement when I did well!!

Seems like from the people I knew, their families were that way. C's were awesome for some people and hell for others, depending on what you presented in the past.

College was another ball game, I wanted the A's for my transcript. Now that I have a permanent career, and only see me changing jobs if CD & DVD's become obsolete (and I don't see it happening anytime soon, despite online downloading). So the degrees are just for fun (uh), or to make my parents happy since their other 2 kids didn't even finish high school.

[kity 2]

Hey Laura~

I am sorry this is happening. I teach middle school and in a Master degree program. Being a professional student myself, I'd be pissed.

IMO, this is your degree. If you are not happy, talk to a higher up. I totally agree about the rubric. All assignments should have a rubric. In graduate school, I, as the professor, must highlight on the rubric the grade (A, B, C etc) and then write a brief summary w/ feedback.

Is this a graduate degree you are earning? If you are not happy, let someone know.

[plain 12]

Yeah, an A is considered "excellent", not "perfect". I think some professors do the "nobody gets an A" thing because of an inflated sense of intellectualism, ie, the students are nowhere near the instructor's idea of an excellent paper.

[Daisalana 33]

Yeah, they're douchebags and shouldn't be teachers.. just my thoughts.

[Pix 4]

Yeah, an A is considered "excellent", not "perfect". I think some professors do the "nobody gets an A" thing because of an inflated sense of intellectualism, ie, the students are nowhere near the instructor's idea of an excellent paper.

That just reminded me of something, my brother had a HS AP English Lit class and they were told to write a story on your own personal hero (remember that word personal). He wrote about John Lennon and the teacher failed him cause according to the teacher Lennon didn't qualify as a hero. Now of course he protested. It was brought to the other English lit teacher, the school counselor and the principle. They all agreed that it was another A paper for my brother (he is a bloody genius the freak) the teacher still refused to raise his grade!! The principle AND the counselor had to force there hands and change his grade them self!!!!

I had this same teacher in my AP English Lit class, same assignment ( you would have thought he learned his lesson) almost failed me cause I wrote about my 'Uncle' (he is really my cousin) and how he charged on in life dealing with all of his demons. He chose not to fail me though, infact on the paper it said (my mom still has this) "A under protest" ROFL I died laughing when I got it back. :thumbup: I still get the giggles when I think about that particular grade.

[Daisalana 33]

The teacher responded to people asking why no A's.. here's the response:

First of all, at the risk of exposing your grades to the whole class, I'm not sure why you think you are a poor writer when you are earning a grade higher than a C in here so far! That signifies you are doing well, above average in fact. That being said, I hear you want to attain an A, so you just need to keep working on it. Follow the advice I gave you on your last paper and look at the essay grading rubric in the syllabus because it illustrates how I grade papers, and it will tell you what an "A" paper looks like so you can shoot for that!

It's not impossible to meet the expectations for an A paper! You just have to use the techniques you learn here and work on improving each paper and learning from the last paper. That is what writing is all about. The problem, however, is that writing isn't like math---you can't just learn the concepts and apply them right away because writing takes practice. I might know where to put my fingers to produce a certain note on my fiddle, but I cannot make the notes sound good without a whole lot of practice.

One last thing....I read an interesting quotation in the paper yesterday: focus on what you can do, not what you can't. You and your classmates are here to learn to be better writers, and though you may get frustrated, the learning is what is important, and you all are learning. All you can do is your best, so keep at it.

mmhm.

[BabyNicole 0]

The teacher responded to people asking why no A's.. here's the response:

mmhm.

That sounds like a "let me scramble for reasons to justify my decision before I get approached by the Dean" answer.