After Grades - What did we learn? Forum

[apper123]

wee class rank is up

first semester is now complete

After all your posts about grades I was expecting you to post your rank. It must not have been a single digit or else you would have posted it, I'm guessing.

it's a single digit

[Cavalier]

Congrats!

[apper123]

ty i wish you UVA guys would get your grades. im starting to feel bad for you (kind of, you do still go to UVA) reading this thread every day

[vanwinkle]

wee class rank is up

first semester is now complete

After all your posts about grades I was expecting you to post your rank. It must not have been a single digit or else you would have posted it, I'm guessing.

it's a single digit

Dude, congrats. Keep it up and you'll be transferring to far better places before too long.

[Lawl Shcool]

wee class rank is up

first semester is now complete

Congrats, I'm still waiting on this.

[chadwick218]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

[dt15]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

Protest and fight like hell... assuming you have nothing to lose.

[Aeroplane]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

That seems really wrong. You should ask the registrar's office what the policy is, not the professor who may just not want to deal with it. We probably go to different schools, but I was told by one of my profs that, while disputing grades is generally not entertained, clerical errors (computation, data entry, etc) are the major exception to that rule.

Edit: I have no experience disputing grades (I haven't even gotten any). He was just talking about the topic generally.

[vanwinkle]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

That seems really wrong. You should ask the registrar's office what the policy is, not the professor who may just not want to deal with it. We probably go to different schools, but I was told by one of my profs that, while disputing grades is generally not entertained, clerical errors (computation, data entry, etc) are the major exception to that rule.

Absolutely. A clear grading error like this should be appealable. Talk to the dean's office if you have to. Fight this as hard as you can, you shouldn't have to take it.

[sophie316]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

You should check your schools policy on this. My school specifically says that the ONLY reason grades can be changed after the fact is because of a computational error.

[Cavalier]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

That's crazy. You need to get that grade changed. Have you gone to the Dean about this? If that doesn't work, I would take it to the administration of your university. They probably don't care as much about preserving the sacredness of the curve as the law school professors do, and will want you to receive the grade you earned.

Giving you a higher grade would presumably mess up the curve, but I think the fairest solution would be to simply not fix it. A couple students will get lucky as a result. Oh well. Better than to deny you the grade you earned, and better than to retroactively lower their grades (especially if they already applied to jobs).

[chadwick218]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

I met with the Registrar's Office today and have a meeting with the Dean of Students tomorrow. The response that I have pretty much received is "so what, professors have discretion." As much as I agree with that statement, if such discretion is based on large part on a quantitative tabulation and if such tabulation is incorrect, then I feel as though recourse is appropriate.

[chadwick218]

Also, having previously gone through business school, I am still amazed as to how secretive professors in law school treat grading and how much sheer mystery is involved ... nevertheless, I knew this going in!

[Aeroplane]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

I met with the Registrar's Office today and have a meeting with the Dean of Students tomorrow. The response that I have pretty much received is "so what, professors have discretion." As much as I agree with that statement, if such discretion is based on large part on a quantitative tabulation and if such tabulation is incorrect, then I feel as though recourse is appropriate.

+1. He wasn't using "discretion" to give you a lower grade. If he'd lowered it for, say, poor participation in class, that would be discretion. He used his discretion, properly, to devise a grading system and then, unintentionally, erred in basic arithmetic. AFAIK "discretion" implies awareness & deliberate decision-making.

[prezidentv8]

Yeah that's fucked up, I'd fight like hell.

[mac.empress]

Yeah that's fucked up, I'd fight like hell.

+1

[Aeroplane]

I wonder how broadly their logic of "discretion" = "grades can't be changed post-submission" would be applied in practice? What if a professor made the same type of computation error, but to a larger degree where the difference was b/w an A- and a C? Or swapped grades accidentally for two people with the same common last name? Or accidentally entered the entire section's grades one row off and somehow didn't catch it so that everyone was given the grade of the person preceding/following them in the alphabet? I can't imagine any administration letting the last one go, so presumably it's not an absolute principle.

[TTT-LS]

.

[rbgrocio]

wee class rank is up

first semester is now complete

We do not get ranked until the end of Spring Semester... =(

[apper123]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

Wow. I've actually heard of this happening, and of the grade being corrected. But that was in a spring elective, perhaps uncurved. Talk to Dean Lupo immediately.

I feel like in this situation they should make a rare exception to a curve and give the correct grade to the wronged person. However, it would be super terrible to readjust the curve and drop people way after the fact. Can schools do this and keep their integrity?

[Cavalier]

So after meeting with a professor today, I learned that a mistake was made in tallying up the total # of points on my exam and although the correct tabulation would have resulted with me receiving a higher grade, since grades have been submitted, I have no recourse. I'm not whining, but I have a very hard time agreeing with this!

Wow. I've actually heard of this happening, and of the grade being corrected. But that was in a spring elective, perhaps uncurved. Talk to Dean Lupo immediately.

I feel like in this situation they should make a rare exception to a curve and give the correct grade to the wronged person. However, it would be super terrible to readjust the curve and drop people way after the fact. Can schools do this and keep their integrity?

I don't think there is any other proper solution but to award the proper grade and let the screwed-up curve stand. It's unfair to someone to be left with a lower grade just because of a mathematical error, but it's also unfair for someone to have their GPA retroactively lowered due to the same error. However, the harm to the rest of the student body from letting the irregular curve stand will be trivial (unless it will cause the person who would be adversely affected to grade on to law review).

[mallard]

That's fucked up and must be fought. Seriously, there's something wrong if that stands at a law school.

[apper123]

I'd honestly go past the law school dean and the whole way to the university president if that were me. (This assumes the law school dean was unhelpful).

[chadwick218]

I'd honestly go past the law school dean and the whole way to the university president if that were me. (This assumes the law school dean was unhelpful).

The problem is that no academic institution cares about students on an individual basis ... at the margin, an individual student is of zero value. Responses are typically only provoked by negative publicity or threat of litigation.

[mallard]

But it's not as though you have no evidence, and changing the grade takes pretty much zero effort, right?