Although honestly, in college you should hold yourself to a higher standard than passing. What was your grade average?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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RunningBear, good luck with your choice of career and/or education. You're at a fun time of your life. It was for me at least.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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Only in the states (and at universities following the same system elsewhere) is 90+ A, 80-90 B, 70-80 C, etc. Other systems have a much lower percentage system, with 80 or higher being considered quite good, particularly for the sciences and math.
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Actually, the percentage-letter grade scale differs form school to school and class to class in Canada. I've had classes at the same Uni where one prof marks an 80 as an A-, and other where it's a B+. What really matters is your GPA, which is usually on a 4 or 5 point scale. Individual classes usually have a mark out of 4 or 5 assigned as well, depending on scale.
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quote:Originally posted by Wonder Dog: Actually, the percentage-letter grade scale differs form school to school and class to class in Canada. I've had classes at the same Uni where one prof marks an 80 as an A-, and other where it's a B+. What really matters is your GPA, which is usually on a 4 or 5 point scale. Individual classes usually have a mark out of 4 or 5 assigned as well, depending on scale.
We have a 13-point scale at my Uni.
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I passed (with an A) a class where I had about a 60% overall. Admittedly this was a grad class with 2 students, but still.
Posts: 1621 | Registered: Oct 2001
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Well our grades are always the same but they sometimes curve them up or down depending so if your actual mark is a 60 (a C-) and the average in the class is low, they'll curve your mark up to say a 75, thus giving you a B. This mostly applies to test-based classes.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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So here's a good question - why do we value grades at all? I'm a fine arts student, so my ability to gain employment will have more to do with my portfolio and my interviews than my transcripts, I think. And since there's no cross-school grade standard to judge academic performance on... why do we value grades so much?
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Because for those of us who don't study, y'know, liberal arts stuff, grades reflect the product of how smart you are and how hard you worked. Surely it's reasonable to value brains and hard work.
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KoM, Wonder Dog specified Fine Arts, not Liberal Arts.
I think we value grades so much, aside from all the usual answers, because in school- especially high school and undergraduate studies- they are often the only response we get for our hard work. For instance, you spend a week writing an essay and you submit it. When it gets returned, all you have is a grade (and maybe a few comments).
For the poor return of effort, it's not suprising that grades are so valued as the only symbol of what we did.
Of course, sometimes it seems like they assign grades randomly, which takes away any connection between the amount of work you put in and the grade you receive which does result in something similar to what KoM suggested.
In that case, valuing grades is only detrimental to your sanity. Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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KoM - The most communucative indicator of my hard work and brains is my portfolio - an application of the knowledge and skills I gained from hard work in classes. But there doesn't have to be a direct link between the grade assigned to me in class and the quality of my production work (Although there usually is).
I can understand that in other fields, academic measurements might be a better indicator of your knowledge and abilities.
Teshi - your point makes sense. Especially in classes that assign a handful of major papers or tests, the grade is pretty much the only pay-off for effort. (Although I do find a well-written paper valuable in and of itself... )
Classes that seem to offer no connection between effort and grades are frustrating.
Posts: 353 | Registered: Sep 2003
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quote:Teshi - your point makes sense. Especially in classes that assign a handful of major papers or tests, the grade is pretty much the only pay-off for effort. (Although I do find a well-written paper valuable in and of itself... [Big Grin] )
For me, the valuable bit is the research, which makes the actual essay someone extraneous for me.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:Originally posted by dantesparadigm: I didn't think this was worth starting a new topic, and this one is on pretty much the same topic,
So* I just got my SAT results and I got an 800 in critical reading! Also a 700 in math and 710 on writing.
That's Fantastic!
I just got my scores too, though I'm ashamed to post them as they pale in comparison. Any ideas about where you'd like to go?
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I didn't want to do anything too rigorous, because I just can't see myself being happy at an Ivy League or the like. I was thinking about going to Farmington, a nice teaching college farther up Maine, almost certainly on a full-boat, so I can have a nice pool of income available for whatever I do afterwards, maybe high school or as a college professor if I get lucky.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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Those are great scores, dp. And it sounds like you know what you want to do with them, which is even better!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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eekah. Grades like that would have put me on academic probation, so I wouldn't necessarily be celebrating, myself.
But hey, as long as you found the experience rewarding and educational, I guess the grades don't have to matter too much!
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