After Submitting Grades, Can Profs See Who Got What? Forum

[LogosEther]

The answer might be obvious to some people, but I really don't know. So let's say I get an A- in a class. Obviously the professor doesn't know who it is when he's grading the exam, but can they find out who got which grades afterwards? I assume the answer's yes, but anyone know for sure?

What about top school administrators? Like... Can the dean say "I'm going to look at everyone who got an A in Contracts, just because I'm curious."

[dakatz]

I'm pretty sure that Professors discuss exams with students all the time to tell them what they did wrong and how they can improve. It would seem pretty difficult to do so if they didn't know which exam was yours.

[flcath]

At my school the profs can't see your grades; in fact, if you want to talk to them about an exam you have to tell them your ID number.

Obviously, the fact that they (profs and administrators) really don't care will be the primary thing that ensures your privacy, regardless of what formal system your LS has adopted.

[A'nold]

I would totally care if I was a professor. I'd love to get the surprise from seeing the quiet kid in the back or the guy that never seems to know the facts of the case get A's and the gunners get owned, for example.

[sophie316]

At my school they can but I don't think professors generally bother unless you go and see them to go over your exam.

[flcath]

I would totally care if I was a professor. I'd love to get the surprise from seeing the quiet kid in the back or the guy that never seems to know the facts of the case get A's and the gunners get owned, for example.

I don't think profs would be thrilled at either of those things... though I guess it depends on how annoying the gunner is.

[A'nold]

I would totally care if I was a professor. I'd love to get the surprise from seeing the quiet kid in the back or the guy that never seems to know the facts of the case get A's and the gunners get owned, for example.

I don't think profs would be thrilled at either of those things... though I guess it depends on how annoying the gunner is.

I'm a very curious person and my "root for the underdog" bent would probably lead me to look.

[random5483]

Good question. No idea.

[Haribo]

At a lot of schools, professors can bump people up or down at the margins depending on participation. For this to work I'd imagine they see the names with exam scores attached before turning in grades, although I could be wrong.

[MrAnon]

Professors can, but they don't. Teaching is the lowest priority they have and they have taught thousands of students. They are not eager to get any more involved than the school forces them to be with grading. Once those grades are in they are not going to go back to the registrars office to ask how people did. They can tell when you approach them by how you did and they can save face by saying the following: "Oh, right, I saw your grade. I was [fill in one] pleased / surprised / disappointed-because-I-thought-you-had-a-better-grasp-of-the-material." At T1 schools they know that nobody failed so no worrying about that.

They don't see the grades before bumps. They simply tell the registrar to raise Johnny's grade, whatever it may turn out to be, by half a point, or lower Suzy's. They do that when they turn in the grades.

[filmbuff]

They need to go to the trouble of looking it up via the administration end of things to match exam # w/name. One of my profs. actually announced last week that she is going to do that and wants to know how everyone did, but then claims that it won't "change" the way she thinks about anyone in the class. Well, then why bother in the first place? Annoying.

[dakatz]

At a lot of schools, professors can bump people up or down at the margins depending on participation. For this to work I'd imagine they see the names with exam scores attached before turning in grades, although I could be wrong.

Not necessarily. Why couldn't they just write down a plus or minus and submit it to the registrar, essentially saying "whatever grade this student gets, mark it up one (or knock it down one), regardless of what the grade actually is". They don't need to know any specific grade.

[Renzo]

At a lot of schools, professors can bump people up or down at the margins depending on participation. For this to work I'd imagine they see the names with exam scores attached before turning in grades, although I could be wrong.

At my school, profs can do this, but they do it by submitting a list of students whose grades should be bumped up or down, then the registrar makes the adjustment, not the prof. Once it's all done, the prof gets to see the grades, but not until after they are official, so they can't eff around with the blindness of the blind grading process.

Edit to add: although this is the process, since there is a mandatory curve it would be a huge headache (if you adjust one grade, you might have to adjust them all to fit the curve), leading to the conventional wisdom that profs might threaten to bump grades but never really do it.

[Richie Tenenbaum]

At a lot of schools, professors can bump people up or down at the margins depending on participation. For this to work I'd imagine they see the names with exam scores attached before turning in grades, although I could be wrong.

At my school, profs can do this, but they do it by submitting a list of students whose grades should be bumped up or down, then the registrar makes the adjustment, not the prof. Once it's all done, the prof gets to see the grades, but not until after they are official, so they can't eff around with the blindness of the blind grading process.

Edit to add: although this is the process, since there is a mandatory curve it would be a huge headache (if you adjust one grade, you might have to adjust them all to fit the curve), leading to the conventional wisdom that profs might threaten to bump grades but never really do it.

In one of our classes our professor was fairly open with the process. He has a curve range where he has to be in when submitting grades, so he grades all the tests blindly to the low range of the set curve and then he goes back and adjusts grades for those he felt deserved a bump until he reaches the high range limit of the set curve. Other professors' syllabi contain the wording that they reserve the right to raise a grade a 1/3 of a level for students who they feel greatly underperformed on the final compared to their class participation.

[soaponarope]

At a lot of schools, professors can bump people up or down at the margins depending on participation. For this to work I'd imagine they see the names with exam scores attached before turning in grades, although I could be wrong.

Not necessarily. Why couldn't they just write down a plus or minus and submit it to the registrar, essentially saying "whatever grade this student gets, mark it up one (or knock it down one), regardless of what the grade actually is". They don't need to know any specific grade.

Yea... but, what about the curve? If they turned in a bunch of blind "+ and -" it may consequently bump up a bunch of C's to B's/B's to A's... and throw the curve off.

[bgdddymtty]

Yea... but, what about the curve? If they turned in a bunch of blind "+ and -" it may consequently bump up a bunch of C's to B's/B's to A's... and throw the curve off.

Only if the number of pluses and minuses were unequal. Otherwise, it doesn't matter which grades they affected; the course mean would remain the same.

Of course, if the university requires each grade to be given to a certain percentage of the class, it could get tricky, but most schools that do this give a fairly wide range for each grade.

[Renzo]

Only if the number of pluses and minuses were unequal. Otherwise, it doesn't matter which grades they affected; the course mean would remain the same.

Of course, if the university requires each grade to be given to a certain percentage of the class, it could get tricky, but most schools that do this give a fairly wide range for each grade.

This isn't true. What if the prof thinks 5 students were really good in class, and five were really bad. She bumps up the five good, who got A, A-, A-, A-, B+, and bumps down the 5, who got B, B, B, B-, B-. Assuming the prof met the required curve before, now you have three extra As, and extra A+, and you have two extra C's; this would throw almost any class off the required curve, which means one or two "A's" will need to be bumped down to make room for the bump-ups, and some C's are going to have to likewise be bumped up to make room at the bottom.

This is why professor threats to take into account class participation are almost always empty threats. I had one prof say that he manages this by designating some exams as "borderline" while he grades them, and then sends a list to the registrar of students who deserve a bump, and if those students happen to have written "borderline" exams, they get the bump. I don't need to tell you how unlikely this is to actually matter in a class 80+ students.

[Cavalier]

At UVA professors can see who got what after submitting grades. While some don't care, most will probably look to see who got the top grades.

[LogosEther]

Only if the number of pluses and minuses were unequal. Otherwise, it doesn't matter which grades they affected; the course mean would remain the same.

Of course, if the university requires each grade to be given to a certain percentage of the class, it could get tricky, but most schools that do this give a fairly wide range for each grade.

This isn't true. What if the prof thinks 5 students were really good in class, and five were really bad. She bumps up the five good, who got A, A-, A-, A-, B+, and bumps down the 5, who got B, B, B, B-, B-. Assuming the prof met the required curve before, now you have three extra As, and extra A+, and you have two extra C's; this would throw almost any class off the required curve, which means one or two "A's" will need to be bumped down to make room for the bump-ups, and some C's are going to have to likewise be bumped up to make room at the bottom.

This is why professor threats to take into account class participation are almost always empty threats. I had one prof say that he manages this by designating some exams as "borderline" while he grades them, and then sends a list to the registrar of students who deserve a bump, and if those students happen to have written "borderline" exams, they get the bump. I don't need to tell you how unlikely this is to actually matter in a class 80+ students.

This is true, if the curve is also defined by number of A's, B's, etc. (if standard deviation is mandated by the school). Some schools just enforce a median grade or an average, in which case the changes wouldn't throw off the curve. And then again, the changes would throw off the curve if the grades' GPA weight isn't equally spaced (some schools have A = 4, A- = 3.7, B+ = 3.3, etc.). So, short answer, it depends on the school.

[globallawyer]

Apparently my torts and civ pro professors got together and compared my section's grades (and yet civ pro still isn't posted ). One of my professors said that they get a list after they post grades.

[missinglink]

Apparently my torts and civ pro professors got together and compared my section's grades (and yet civ pro still isn't posted ). One of my professors said that they get a list after they post grades.

If my professors did that, they would both probably not even remember, or know who I was. Our Civpro prof never really had a system for calling people, so I was never "on-call." I was on call once in Contracts, and that was my only moment of class participation. I'd be shocked if they even recognized me.

[MBZags]

I think professors here submit the grades blindly and can then request a list of names/grades if they want to factor in participation and change someone's grade. Since this could basically defeat the purpose of blind grading, I doubt grades are changed often, if at all.