Asking Professor for a better grade or rounding up?

Student Lounge College Life
1

So I’m currently in a pretty tight situation. I failed the very first assignment in a one-hour class because I misread the deadline and I’m not allowed to lose any points AT ALL in later assignments if I want an A in the class. So far it’s been going all right, and I’ve aced all the assignments. However, the last assignment is a group project and all the members of my team are slackers. My teacher is super strict and even if I try to pull most of the weight for the team, by no means do I have the time or abilities to get the project to 100%.

So anyway, are there any tips and tricks to persuading a professor to give you a higher grade, extra credit, or to round up? If I get a B in this class it’s going to ruin my 4.0…

2

Poor baby. Get all 100%s. Pay attention to deadlines going forward.

3

Rounding up is what a student asks for when the grade is truly borderline, like 89.2 when you need 90. You don’t know what your grade will be. Why do you need a 4.0? Who will really know or care if you graduate with a 3.95 or a 4.0?

4

Double clutch that project and go as hard as possible. If you end up getting say a 95, and your semester grade is like 89.2, you could probably convince the prof to round up.

5

Okay, I don’t NEED a 4.0, but I’m trying to transfer out of this crappy program at this crappy school I’m going to and every little thing that will help me do that counts to me. I’m asking here about bumping grades in anticipation for me not getting full points on the group project because my people skills are horrendous. I’ve recognized that I’m probably going to have to meet the teacher at the end of the year and without preparation, I will most likely have an anxiety attack.

6

So which is it? If it’s the latter, maybe you could meet with the teacher for some strategies on how to manage your team members to maximize your grade. If it’s the former…not much leverage, grade-wise.

7

Bottom line – you didn’t meet the course criteria on the first assignment. You need to take responsibility for that, and move forward to get the best grade you can get given that you blew the first assignment. Don’t blame your teammates, don’t ask your professor for special treatment. Stop looking for a loophole and do the best work you can going forward.

8

bodangles - It’s a little of both. The people in my group don’t take the class too seriously and when they do put effort in, it’s not always the best. I’m not the most confident or convincing person, so persuading my teammates to do better work/trying to help them out hasn’t been working (they just think I like to nag all the time) and asking my no-nonsense teacher will probably not go very well.

intparent - Yes, I realize that I’ve dug my own hole since the beginning of the semester and I now have little chance to get out. It’s just exasperating to lose my straight A’s because of this 1 credit class, which no longer applies to my major.

9

The same prof who failed you for missing the deadline is now supposed to give you extra credit, to get an A, to leave the school? Think about what you’re asking.

If you have straight A’s otherwise, what’s the real issue?

10

You talk about what you WANT, not what you DESERVE.

Bad news: your professor isn’t your fairy godmother. His job is to give the grade you’ve earned, not the one you wish you had earned.

Anyone smart enough to otherwise have straight A’s is smart enough to read the deadline correctly, even in a one credit course that doesn’t apply to his/her major in a crappy program of a crappy school.

11

I’d meet with the professor during office hours now rather than later. They’ll like that you’re being proactive.

Express your concern about getting an A in the class, explain your situation (don’t mention losing a 4.0 or anything like that, but talk about missing the first deadline, needing a 100% on every assignment, group members not pulling their weight), and ask if there are any extra credit opportunities or anything you could do to try and bring up your grade.

Edit: Missing deadlines happens to everyone at least once. Don’t let it happen again and you’ll be set. You have a pretty legitimate concern here, so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise; you can probably finesse an A in this class if you’re proactive from here on out.

12

You’ll have to push your team to the top then get them moving If you need to be the alpha of the group then be it. You’d just have to take the consequence of that first assignment and move forward

13

You’re a big boy/girl, use your words, go and talk with prof ASAP, no tips or tricks, get an answer. Move on.

14

I highly doubt you’ll have any luck convincing your “no-nonsense” professor to arbitrarily give you a better grade, if you aren’t even comfortable asking for advice on how to deal with your group.

You can always ask. I wouldn’t present it like you did here, but perhaps, you could ask if there was an extra credit assignment or something similar to help with your grade. But I think your time might be better spent focusing on your group project. A B vs. an A in a one credit class is not going to make or break you, and it’s not going to sink your GPA (it will have a very small effect on it, and an even smaller and smaller effect as you take more classes). Do your best, and move on with your life. There are so many other things that you could be spending your time on.

15

Oh PLEASE don’t ask for extra credit.

No macaroni art, no collages, no word searches. You’re not 6.

You receive credit in high school and college for correctly completing the assignments and getting them in at or before the deadline. It’s as simple as that. Failure to do so bring down your grade.

16

@bjkmom I’ve had college classes that offered extra credit (it was actually fairly common in psychology classes because they wanted to encourage students to participate in research projects on campus), so you don’t need to act like extra credit is so outrageous in a college course. The difference, of course, is that the extra credit is offered to all students in the class. I’ve known at least one professor that offered extra credit (to the entire class) because enough students came to them asking for it. I’ve also known professors that have changed the grading scheme part-way through the course–letting students use the final for 100% of their grade, instead of midterm+final, for example, because enough students asked for it. It happens. Some people like to act like college is this insane, cutthroat place where you sink or swim on your own, and that’s really not always the case.

Do I think OP should ask? No, not really. I don’t think there’s much of a reason to, but if they’re going to sit around debating how to do it, they might as well just ask so they can get it over with and move on with their life.

17

I think the OP should go to her professor and ask for strategies to do the best possible in the clas.
Also she can talk to the professor about what has been happening on the group project and how to get the team moving forward. Before that, i would have a meeting with your group and have everyone give a read out on where they are. The OP should take charge of the project management. With group input, make a schedule.

18

First, OP, I think you shouldn’t stress out about getting a 4.0. There’s not a whole lot of difference between a 3.9 and a 4.0 when it comes to transferring.

Second, most professors are really annoyed when you go to them asking for extra credit or to round up. It’s true that some professors do offer extra credit, but they usually do it a priori, and often something relevant to the class (like the research projects). However, many more professors would be sympathetic to a request if you explain (AHEAD of time) that you’re asking because your group members are slackers and you’re afraid your group project grade is going to be lower than your potential. Although professors do love to assign these group projects, they do understand that group projects often mean an overachiever is stuck in a group with people without his work ethic.

Yes, professors do sometimes change the grading scheme partway through the class and do often round up. However, when it’s been done in my experience, it’s because the professor has noticed a class-wide pattern in the grades (e.g., the midterm grades were really low because the professor included a unit she forgot to teach or didn’t teach well, so she gives people the option to drop the grade and only count the final). A professor is unlikely to change the scheme so that one student with a B can get an A.

One class I TAed for, the professor had a concept he called Mercy. If the student was borderline close to the next level of a grade, and the student had exhibited top-level behaviors (excellent attendance, asking questions, coming to office hours) the professor would bump their grade to the next level. (It was actually labeled “MERCY” in the spreadsheet, lmao!). Another class I co-taught, a student earned a B-, and the professor asked me to bump it to a B because she wanted everyone to get a B or higher in the class. (And even the B- was “mercy” on MY part - I really wanted to give her a C.) However, asking professors for this kind of bump seems to irritate them rather than get what you want. (One of the reasons is that college students tend to brag about this stuff. If they cave to you because you ask, and you tell 10 of your friends, then they all ask when they get borderline grades. You get a reputation as the professor who adjusts grades if someone just asks nicely. And it rolls down the hill. And what’s borderline? 89.2 is certainly close to a 90, if that’s an A, but what about that kid who gets an 88.9? If you bump him too, then the one who has an 88.2 is going to try it too.)

If you approach the professor, I would make it less about asking for special consideration and more about expressing concern about your group project. Then you can slip in there that you have a 4.0 you’d like to maintain (casually, not making it the focus). See how the professor reacts. Personally, if I had an otherwise excellent student who made one mistake and who was super close to an A, and told me they had a 4.0, and it was their super slacker group mates that were keeping them away from the A (and I had reason to believe they were telling the truth based upon those slackers’ performance in the class), I’d maybe try to help them out with some mercy if they were close enough to make it feasible. (I tend to think of that as one point or less away from an A. 89.1 okay; 88.5, no dice.) However, I wouldn’t tell them I was doing it. I’d say “I’ll take that into consideration for the final grades.”