<p>D thinks her prof miscalculated her grade and wants to email him about it. I told her I would check in with the experts. </p>
<p>Under his grading protocol, the maximum number of base points that could be earned was 200 (the numbers have been changed to protect the innocent), so her normal grade would be calculated as actual base points earned, say 170, divided by 200, for a grade of 85 or B+. Over the course of the semester, prof offered two extra credit assignments, each of which could earn up to 10 points--and D earned the full 20. Prof calculated her grade as 170 base points earned plus 20 extra credit points, a total of 190, divided by 200 base points plus 20 extra credit points, a total of 220--which added virtually nothing to her grade, kept her at a B+, and made the extra credit work a waste of her time. She feels the denominator should not have been changed so she would get the full impact of the extra credits--or else they aren't really extra. Calculated that way, the numerator would have been 190 and the denominator 200, for a grade of 95, or an A. Which way makes sense? I think has a point, but I'm her mom and somewhat mathematically challenged.</p>
<p>If you think she's correct, how could she best argue her point? She's a "principle of the thing" type of kid, so telling he to let it go probably won't wash, plus she's a critical point in assuring an adequate GPA to graduate with honors.</p>
<p>Typically it would be calculated the way you are thinking (170+20/200). However, it depends on how he worded the extra credit statement. That kind of a thing should be clearly spelled out in the syllabus.</p>
<p>I think she should question the prof about it. She shouldn’t argue the point, since it’s the prof’s fiefdom to do what he wants, but she should let him know she doesn’t understand how it was graded, how the extra credit was taken into account and would be able to positively impact the grade, and could he please explain it to her. She could then ask more questions about it as he’s explaining it, including the math in the ratio.</p>
<p>Not all prof’s permit any extra credit and those that do might count it in different ways including not in a straight calculation like this. OTOH maybe the prof doesn’t know his math and expected it’d make more of a difference than it actually does. Doing an example like the one you did makes it pretty clear as to the actual impact.</p>
<p>Hmmm, if it is “extra credit” then usually it is to help your grade. If the professor increases the denominator, then someone who did a marginal job on the extra credit could actually drop their grade.</p>
<p>Perhaps an email posing the question in a non-whiny, non-angry way, just simple confusion and asking for clarity, would work.</p>
Excellent point–thank you! An example of how that could happen would certainly help bolster her position. (Do I understand how someone with a PhD in a subject that must have required at least some statistics classes could be so poor at simple math? No, I do not.)</p>
<p>I’ll emphasize to her that she should come across as more puzzled than confrontational, while still making her best case. Of course, he’s probably off on vacation, and any change to her final grade wouldn’t be done in time to correct her transcript for some early bird grad school apps that have to be fully submitted by 1/15, though of course she could submit a corrected transcript and hope for the best.</p>
<p>Sorry, but I suspect that your daughter misunderstood what is meant by extra credit in this class.</p>
<p>The idea of extra credit as free arbitrary points replacing missed points on other assignments belongs to high school. In my experience, it simply doesn’t happen that way in college. The extra credit assignments being offered here are a way to marginally boost the grade, helping someone get from, let’s say 89.3 to 90.1 or so.</p>
<p>I’m not sure he’s poor at math at all. If anything I’d say he was terrible at math the other way - if he offers 20 free points out of 200, then that’s 10% of the grade that was available for extra credit. Doesn’t sound like a senior college class to me, at all.</p>
<p>And yes, extra credit assignments sometimes decrease your grade, if you do a sufficiently poor job. Why wouldn’t they?</p>
<p>No, MommaJ is right according to the term “Extra Credit”. Did the professor use something like Blackboard to enter the grades? If so, he might have neglected to check the “extra credit?” box. OP, was the extra credit assignment really 10% of the total grade? Or was that just how your example worked out? I agree that 10% is pretty high.</p>
<p>tetrahedr0n extra credit is supposed to be for someone who needs to boost their grade up. A student who had aced everything in the class might very well decide he didn’t need to do it - only to find himself quite surprised to have 200/220 - 91% rather than the expected 100%. It isn’t “extra” if everyone has to do it.</p>
<p>This really depends on the individual Prof. and sometimes on the general grading policies of the department. Profs who grant “free arbitrary points” for extra credit do exist. </p>
<p>However, they tend to be very few and far between at my LAC and mainly in intro to easy intermediate courses. </p>
<p>In the case of the Harvard summer school stats course, it didn’t really affect much as the EC assignment was such a miniscule portion of the final grade and required students to give a 10-15 minute presentation in front of 300+ classmates that few of us took up that EC assignment. </p>
<p>I treated it mainly as a public speaking exercise.</p>
<p>I agree if the professor added the full weight of extra credit to the course grade it would hurt those who did not do well or chose not to do the project. I think it should be used to move a person who is on the cusp between grades to the next highest grade. Personally, I am not fan of extra credit, because it seems to reward you for not doing what you should have done the first time (had you done so, you would not need the extra credit).</p>
<p>^The grading scale is generally up to the professor. An 85 could very well be a B+ depending on the course. </p>
<p>If the professor only added the extra (numerator AND denominator) to those who chose to do the extra credit assignment, it would only add a small amount to the grade unless the EC were quite large. In op’s example, the grade goes from 170/200 = 85% up to 190/220 = 86.4%. That would be fair enough, although might not help all that much. In that case, if the student attempted the EC and got less than the 85% he already had going, it would hurt his grade (eg. {170+16}/220 = 84.5%).</p>
<p>However the professor does it, the denominator needs to be the same for every student, whether they have done the extra credit or not. I am in the camp of how OP’s D is interpreting it. I think the professor just made a mistake.</p>
<p>The denominator could certainly be different for different students. One way to think about it is: the professor is giving students the option of handing in one extra assignment, to be averaged in with all their other grades. If they do well on the extra assignment, it will (slightly) raise the grade. It could also lower the grade slightly, or have no effect, depending on performance. But this seems a totally plausible way of approaching extra credit.
(Or maybe I’m wrong and the prof made a calculation error :). The only way to find out is to talk to the professor.)</p>
<p>I would politely email him with the calculation and ask if perhaps he made a clerical error in the calculation.</p>
<p>She should make it clear that she’s not questioning his judgement, just his arithmetic. Most people when faced with that are less likely to get defensive. Most people would correct it with an apology if it was indeed wrong.</p>
<p>It’s very possible the prof didn’t do the arithmetic himself at all - he may have had a grader or grad student do it and the prof might have just taken the results without checking the basic math. When your D contacts the prof she should keep this in mind when she composes the email so she can be even less accusatory to the prof and not personalize the math against/about him - i.e. “I’m wondering if someone may have made a math error in calculating the grade…” rather than “I’m wondering if you may have made a math error in calculating the grade…”.</p>
<p>As noted in my original post “the numbers have been changed to protect the innocent.” I used numbers which I thought would best clarify the issue. But there were in fact two extra credit assignments for which my D received grades of 100%. Per the prof’s method of calculation, her perfect grades on these assignments could not and did not budge her final grade, so the entire effort was a waste of time. He managed to take the “extra” out of “extra credit”. I understand there can be varying ways to calculate how much impact extra credit work should have, but his method seems quite senseless to me.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the suggestions about how to delicately approach this.</p>
<p>In that case in her shoes, I think I would say to the professor that she calculated the grade she would have gotten without doing the credit to be a B+, and that she still received a B+ despite having gotten perfect grades on two extra credit assignments. Could he possibly check if her grade was calculated correctly? It’s possible that it was, but that his system means that extra credit is virtually useless and it might shame him into doing something about it. </p>
<p>I had a case in college where I got a C+ on the midterm, realized that I needed to study differently for the final on which I got an A, I also got three A’s on papers. I was a bit surprised to end up with a B, and asked the TA about it. He said, it had been very close, but that was how it calculated out. However, when I actually received my report card, someone had clearly thought better of the grading system, because they gave me an A-.</p>
<p>The prof should have been clearer about the policy, but I think what he’s doing is fair. It doesn’t matter that the extra credit didn’t help the OP’s daughter’s final grade; if the cutoff for an A- was an 89, and extra credit brought the grade from an 85 to an 87, she still gets the B+.</p>
<p>Generally, college extra credit assignments aren’t intended to allow students to bring a grade from a B+ to an A, but to make the difference in borderline cases. A high B+ would probably become an A-, but a “solid” B+ won’t. Most reasonable professors will also stipulate that they won’t count the extra credit if it brings down your final grade.</p>
<p>Think about it another way: under the plan you’re proposing, a student could do an abysmal job on an extra credit assignment, be awarded 5/20 points, and still have her overall class grade helped by it. Does that sound like a sensible system?</p>
<p>^Actually, it does. It kind of depends on what the assignment was and how much the student hoped to gain on it. In my course, if an extra credit assignment of 10 physics problems was offered and some students opted to do 5 of them, I would still give them extra credit to the extent of the work they did do.</p>
<p>There’s a certain amount of subjectivity involved that can’t be avoided. I teach a number of graduate-level courses and students try to negotiate grades with me all the time. Without commenting on the merit of the case, I can tell you she will likely not prevail. This is one of dozens (if not hundreds) of grades the professor will dole out and he/she won’t be willing to spend any time focusing on any particular one.</p>