Does anybody have any advice on how to get a professor to pass you? I am failing a class right now and have less than a month to do in the semester. I am working really hard in this class and want to do well, but am not getting the grades I need to pass. Does anybody have any experience with this?
Why are you not doing well?
You should not expect a professor to pass you if you are not doing passing work. Go to the professor’s office hours, get tutoring, or attend a group study session. I am sure help is available on your campus, so seek it out.
First examine your syllabus and see how much your final exam and whatever is left to be graded will count toward your grade, and what grades you would need to make on those items to pass the course. If it doesn’t look like it is possible to pass even with perfect scores on remaining graded items, you could meet with your professor and ask how you can still pass the course. Perhaps if you present a compelling reason why you are in this predicament, you may be offered a chance to do extra work to bring up your grade. You may just have to plan to re-take the course later. Typically you can re-take a course in college and have the new grade substituted for the low grade to bring up your overall GPA.
I have spoken with my professor more on multiple occasions. I am usually a B student, so failing a class is mortifying to me. I put in a lot of effort, but the grading scheme is super tough in this class.
Mortifying to earn a poor grade that contrasts with earlier grades is not an issue in grading your current class. You received a syllabus that told you what was needed to pass the class. After reviewing that information, presumably you decided you could fulfill requirements. Thus far you have not, but there is no explanation for your problems. Several months ago you could have changed classes or droppd it. Reducing requirements for the class is not your call now or even the first day of class. The syllabus is like a contract in which the faculty has told you requirements and you agreed by enrolling and remaining in the class.
Faculty do not grant grades that are higher to respond to your needs. Every other student taught by this professor is now empowered to plead their cases for different grades after the class is over. Either changing or retaining grades becomes a challenge if students don’t like the decision the faculty made in each case. I can see the line forming in the deans office! This is not how faculty want their teaching be evaluated by peers or administraton. Violating professional norms is a very bad decision.
Further, faculty are responsible for teaching a class that prepares students for their next academic step. While not personally responsible for students grades at the next level, faculty is responsible for providing students to learn important related information.you
As we say in annual performance reviews:
"We appreciate effort, we VALUE success. "
Your efforts are appreciated, but your grade will reflect the degree to which you are successful in fulfilling the requirements of the class.
You need to change how you study. Here are ideas:
You should understand your professor’s grading requirements and meet them on the remaining assignments.
My issue is that I believe that I have met the grading requirements on aspects of my assignments. I wish to dispute them.
I have some grades that I think were given to me unfairly and the prof. said that they will not reconsider giving me a higher grade on some of my assignments. I do really think that some of my assignments deserve some credit back, but they will not consider it. What should I do?
Talk to your professor. Review the syllabus, the assignment and any rubric to see what they were looking for. Then, in a non-confrontational way, ask if they could walk you through how they graded your work.
It also may depend on your major…if you are a nurse and are getting math wrong, then you may not get partial credit because getting the math wrong could kill a patient.
You may think you are meeting them, and not be. My kid is a TA – she gets this pretty often from students. Sometimes she runs it by the prof to be sure she has graded the assignment correctly. And she has… the student is missing some major concepts according to the professor.
There is usually a formal process for that. You should contact the Dean of Students. You should know it’s a long shot, but perhaps the Dean can mediate.
Good point. When my fellow structural engineering classmates would protest a grade because they made only “small math errors,” I would cringe inside - that’s how structures fail. It was a simple mistake that caused the Hyatt Regency collapse in the mid-80s that killed 114 people. 
Since it Is probably past the drop deadline at your school, the only option at this point is to find help with the remaining coursework and hope that you do well enough on it to make out to a passing grade. If there is an extra credit opportunity then do it but not all professors give extra credit. If you don’t get a passing grade then you can always retake it and only the higher grade(If better than the first) is reflected in your GPA as mentioned in post #3.
Evaluate and be honest with yourself for why you haven’t done well in this class. We all have done things that we are not proud of. I too have had to withdrawl from or haven’t done well in college classes and only half of the time were the reasons sufficient excuses but I took responsibility for my actions, retook the courses, and moved on.
While it is true that a professors teaching style or standards may not match what is right for you, you need to focus on what you can control. If you ever wanna know about a professor before taking a class, then look on ratemyprofessors but don’t make a good professor the primary reason to take a class.
You’ve already disputed your grades with your professor and s/he refused to adjust them. You could appeal using whatever your college’s formal process is, I suppose, but you’re going to need more than “I worked hard,” the grading rubrik is “tough,” and I think my grades are “unfair.” The department chair, who’s usually the next stop in the process, is going to expect concrete evidence.
What type of class is this? Why do you think your assignments were graded unfairly? You seem to have multiple assignments that received poor grades. Are other students also struggling? Have you asked your professor what you can do to improve your performance, or have you just been asking for grade changes?