<p>One of my sons at a State U has just noticed a new grading policy in his engineering college. A c- is now considered failing and the class will not count toward graduation or earn any credit. The class must be retaken.</p>
<p>I found that interesting.</p>
<p>Son has a 3.48 so it didn't hit him but a few friends were groaning. It is a bit of a shock to him to see how GPA's drop for many engineering students. Son says there are a lot of major changes among his friends as he works his way through his sophomore year. They say Engineering GPA's pick up after the first two years when you complete most of the required maths, and physics classes. </p>
<p>My other son at a very selective large private Univ is reporting similar situations with many students struggling despite most of them coming in with 3.8 or higher GPA's from High school. He has a 3.2 and struggled a bit more but has now finished his math requirements.</p>
<p>I told them any GPA above 3.2 in electrical/computer engineering is very solid and nothing to worry about. I think EE is considered one of the tougher engineerings as well.</p>
<p>^^ I'd amend that to "anything above a 3.0 GPA in engineering is solid and nothing to worry about". Those companies that hire engineering students and have a GPA cutoff, which btw is a practice I disagree with, usually cutoff at 3.0. By doing so they eliminate more than half of the potential candidates from many scools. </p>
<p>I think this purposeful grade deflation hurts a lot of engineering students unnecessarily and think they should change their grading paradigm.</p>
<p>At my DDs University of CA campus a C- would count for credit in a course, but would not allow one to advance to the next course in the series. For example, on three quarters of OChem kids were dropping like flies with the C- must retake, but for graduation requirements a C- or even a D in a class allows one to check the box that the class took care of that breadth area. Not that any one would want to pursue that, but it was just interesting. Many kids did not make it straight through the Ochem series and probably dropped their science major.</p>
<p>AT PSU Engineering the program states certain courses must be passed by a C or better to graduate with an Engineering degree. A C is a 2.0 so a c- would be below this and I assume would not be counted.</p>
<p>In general the attrition rate for engineering majors is pretty brutal (50%) everywhere. If you google attrition rates you will see that a number of programs are available to try and keep students in. Then again I want the person building my bridge to know his/her stuff well enough so that it doesn't fall down.</p>
<p>"In general the attrition rate for engineering majors is pretty brutal everywhere."</p>
<p>That's the bottom line.</p>
<p>One of my sisters took calc and she really didn't understand what she was doing or the material but she got by with a passing grade. It was of no consequence for her major but it is in engineering. Should someone with a C- pass to the next course in the sequence? Many students don't like other students in the class that aren't prepared as they can take up valuable class time with questions that they should have learned in the prereqs.</p>
<p>A lot of students get washed out in their Freshman year which is a better place to switch to a different major. One guy I know just couldn't get through a mathematical statistics course even though he got through calc and physics in a CS program. He switched over to CIS and he's a lot happier now.</p>
<p>At Swarthmore, grades below "C" earn no credits and averages below "C" don't qualify for being accepted as a major or graduation. As far as I know, that has always been the policy.</p>
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Those companies that hire engineering students and have a GPA cutoff, which btw is a practice I disagree with, usually cutoff at 3.0. By doing so they eliminate more than half of the potential candidates from many scools.
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<p>Everybody has their own requirements. I'd be interested to hear why you disagree with it..</p>
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I'd be interested to hear why you disagree with it..
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I disagree with it because by doing so they're excluding many excellent candidates.
- They may be excluding candidates whose GPAs are somewhat lower because they went to one college that had more stringent grading versus another that didn't
- in some cases are restricting engineering candidates at the same GPA level as the humanities majors which makes no sense since the engineering GPAs are typically a half point or more lower than the humanities at the same college
- didn't have prior background in the subject (ex: computer science) but are fully up to speed and on-par after a year or so but by then their GPA suffered somewhat
- aren't a transfer student and hence had to go through the GPA-busting weeder courses the CC transfer didn't go through
- had to work to support themselves in college and hence their GPA suffered a bit
- took a difficult minor at the same time hence the GPA suffered somewhat
- have great interpersonal skills versus someone with a higher GPA who may be almost non-functional in the area of interpersonal skills but were great at holing up in their room doing nothing but studying for tests
- etc.</p>
<p>Of course, a company can do whatever they want but by having strict GPA cutoffs they're comparing apples and oranges and hence losing excellent candidates. It's just not too bright of a process on the part of the company IMO.</p>
<p>Interesteddad--that's not true for all courses at Swarthmore--for underclassmen a straight D or higher is a passing grade (but below the average required for graduation). It's only for juniors and seniors that a straight C is required.</p>
<p>Isn't this the case for most majors at most schools? Students must receive a C or better in a course related to their major? I've never heard anything different. They get the 3/4 credits but they are not applied to their major requirements, so they have to retake the class.</p>
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Interesteddad--that's not true for all courses at Swarthmore--for underclassmen a straight D or higher is a passing grade (but below the average required for graduation). It's only for juniors and seniors that a straight C is required.
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<p>I believe you are correct. A "C-" or "D" is a passing grade for freshmen and sophmores, BUT...what happens when you try to get accepted as a major? I think that, for all intents and purposes, if you've racked up multple Ds as a first or second year student, you are going to quickly reach a fork in the road where pursuing a degree at Swarthmore will be an insurmountable climb. In other words, if you've been making Ds and one more D will capsize your boat, do you slog it out or look to transfer?</p>
<p>I think you could survive a courtesy "D" in one semester of calculus, but if you are earning multiple Ds, you're sunk.</p>
<p>This is quite different from some of Swarthmore's less rigorous competitors where you can cruise along counting D's towards graduation, no sweat.</p>
<p>As far as I know a 'C-' is always a failing grade for courses in ones major... this certainly isn't anything new. </p>
<p>I certainly wouldn't want to see a university giving out degrees in a subject to students who got less than a C in the material required for that degree...</p>
<p>I'm not sure I would like an engineer with a C average designing bridges, turbomachinery, bearings, cars, airplanes, tanks, buildings, alarms, computers -- or anything else for which my life depended on it. </p>
<p>Almost all engineering involves teamwork, of course, and not every team member has to be a creative genius. But if I were hiring a young engineer I wouldn't be looking for someone who just got by in the program, who had not completely mastered engineering principles, or who got the correct answer only most of the time.</p>
<p>Back when I was an UG (when Cambridge MA was still a marsh), most science and engineering course grades were based on mid-term and final test scores only. No pluses or minuses. Most scores were graded on a curve -- with 60% of the class getting C. No make ups. No extra credit.</p>
<p>I mention this only to illustrate that grading systems vary widely from college to college, and within a college from program to program. I don't believe a single measurement can be applied to all students. JMHO.</p>
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...most science and engineering course grades were based on mid-term and final test scores only... Most scores were graded on a curve -- with 60% of the class getting C.
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<p>I see that as a problem, too, especially when students get beyond the entry level math, science, and engineering courses and 50% of students have already been weeded out. That C average student may be far more proficient than indicated by their GPA, but their grades have been deflated by the grading curve that has been applied to an already selective group of students.</p>