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Re: Anybody ever actually get a grade changed?

Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 12:55 pm
by odoylerulez
puppylaw wrote:
odoylerulez wrote:Yeah, I got a grade changed first semester (D to an A). You're probably not going to get a grade changed very often though for anything except an administrative error/examsoft going bonkers/etc. (And to clarify, mine was because of a mistake.)

Mistakes happen, and probably a lot more often than people think. If you suspect a grade is way off, you should at least get a copy of your exam, if possible, and make sure it was graded correctly. Law school grades are too important to just assume that you deserved a bad grade.

I think it would be worth it to ask to see your score/exam for any exam where you got a C or lower, just in case, even if your grade turns out to be correct 99% of the time. The burden of verifying your grades is miniscule compared to the possible benefit in job opportunities or summer clerkships or whatnot.
What do you actually see when you asked to see your score/ exam? We can go to our registrar to look at our old ones. The ones I went to look at had a couple check marks spread over 20 pages and nothing more.
Here, I think it completely depends on the professor and the exam.

Some professors, you can only get a copy of your actual score and a copy of the exam that you turned in/marked up/whatever.

A couple professors here don't allow ExamSoft, and you have to actually write on the exam. In those classes, you can look at the hard copy of the exam, and professors tally up the points in the columns while grading. Some use checkmarks, some add up the points per page/paragraph/etc. For those, it's pretty easy to tell if there was a mistake. You may actually need to find out how many checkmarks convert to what sort of grade for certain professors. I haven't run into that issue, but it sounds like it could complicate things.

For one of my exams, another student said that it only took like 66 out of 100 checkmarks to get an A+. The curve can be monstrous, so it's not like 90 checkmarks will be an A, 80 checkmarks will be a B, etc.

Re: Anybody ever actually get a grade changed?

Posted: Thu May 23, 2013 1:32 pm
by Mr. Frodo
quakeroats wrote:It happens more than you might expect, particularly if it's a question of failing and you threaten to sue: http://www.swlaw.edu/pdfs/jle/jle604Naim.pdf
Thanks for sharing this. Interesting read.

Re: Anybody ever actually get a grade changed?

Posted: Tue May 28, 2013 8:01 pm
by Younger Abstention
One of my professors screwed up the curve and as a result chose to adjust some grades -- including mine -- upwards weeks after grades came back. If this counts as getting a grade changed, then yes.

Re: Anybody ever actually get a grade changed?

Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2013 7:00 pm
by Dr. Dingleberry, PHD
Shit...I think I need to challenge my grade. I got all As and A-s except one C in a four credit class. Only 2 people in a class of 79 got worse than a C. This is HIGHLY aberrant from the rest of my grades! Plus, this was the class I felt best about. I really hope this is due to a clerical error...

Re: Anybody ever actually get a grade changed?

Posted: Tue Jun 11, 2013 5:17 pm
by Lighthouse28
I just received a grade of a B in a clinic I took, which is not graded on a curve. In past semesters, mostly everyone got As or A-s in this clinic (looked at grade distributions). I really don't understand how I could've gotten a B. The class was taught by two professors. Is it worth emailing them about? I graduated in May, but grades just went up. Kind of pissed. I really think I deserved at least an A-, or at the absolute worst a B+. There was no exam in this clinic. We wrote weekly reflection papers and had weekly discussions in class of our work.