<p>Does a ‘D’ count as Pass or Fail? I assume it would count as a Pass but I just want to make sure.</p>
<p>There are no grades of D. Just A, B, C, No Credit or S/NC (Satisfactory/No Credit-- really Pass/Fail)</p>
<p>So, what’s a C?</p>
<p>60-79%?</p>
<p>Different professors often have different ways of grading. Some grade according to strict numerical cut-offs (which will be made known at the beginning of the semester), while others grade on a curve.</p>
<p>That said, most (science) classes I’ve been in so far will pass you if you have 50%.</p>
<p>The CS class I TAed had cutoffs something like:</p>
<p>88+ = A,
82+ = B,
75+ = C.</p>
<p>The professor graded based on “clumps,” meaning there were three bumps in the grade distribution: anyone falling in the first bump got an A, the second a B, and the third a C (and anyone below that failed). And I will say, the people who failed, but finished the final, put in quite a deal of effort, but typically had one or two missing assignments or labs, and/or weren’t able to figure out solutions to final questions.</p>
<p>The CS class I TAed, on the other hand, followed (more or less) the standard 90-100 = A, 80-89 = B, 70-79 = C, and below a 70 was an NC.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I got an A with an average of about 70 in another CS class (the professor designed the exams to have a mean of 50 with a large standard deviation).</p>
<p>It really does vary by course.</p>
<p>I’ll spare you the full version of this rant, but suffice it to say that I think it’s ridiculous that the typical American high school (and, at some colleges, college) grading curve places all of the allowable variance in the range of 70-100%. A correctly-calibrated exam, in my book, should result in a substantial proportion of grades under 50%, an A cutoff of like 70%, and failure around 35%.</p>