<p>Does UR limit the number of A's and B's a professor can give out in a certain class? Just asking because I know some colleges do this but others don't</p>
<p>My D hasn’t mentioned this–and she’s a TA and grader for the math dept. </p>
<p>She does say that some profs don’t believe in/use curves–but that a personal preference by the professor and not a department or college-wide policy.</p>
<p>I do believe a college-wide initiative on proportioning grades is illegal and that no sensible university has a policy like this. If all of the students happen to work hard enough and all do well enough to deserve an A, then all will get an A (and v.v.). </p>
<p>At UR, most of the upper level biology courses are not curved; that is, the professor will tell you at the beginning of the semester that a 92+ equals an A, 89-91 equals an A-, etc. Whatever range everyone falls in - that’s what they get; if all get above a 91, all get an A. </p>
<p>For many of the intro courses (Gen Chem, Orgo, Gen Bio), grades will be curved to the performance of the rest of the class. </p>
<p>I cannot speak wrt other departments.</p>
<p>Actually, jersh, there are schools that do limit the numbers of A’s and B’s–all in the name of curbing grade inflation.</p>
<p>I’ve heard of a couple, but I’m reluctant to name them in public.</p>
<p>Princeton limits the number of A’s in classes (roughly 35%). It’s a way to prevent grade inflation (which some schools such as Harvard have received criticism for).</p>
<p>Nothing like that goes on at Rochester in the Biology/Neuroscience/BCS/Psych departments. Not sure about other dpts.</p>
<p>UR doesn’t do this to my knowledge. maybe some professors do, but none have that i’ve taken (i’ve taken classes in math/computer science/russian/polisci). the only time they apply a curve is to benefit people (in some classes an 85 could be an A, but they’ll never have 95+ is an A and anything below isn’t). and as a math TA you don’t really have any control or even knowledge over the letter grades (although you might get an e-mail after the exams are graded and then find out what the curve is… but you have no influence on it). you just grade the problems and add up points.</p>
<p>It depends on the professor and department. Each department has different grading curves set up and some stress them more than others. As mentioned above, classes vary drastically on they graded both within a department and across a department. For example the progression for Computer Science 170 series was something like this:
CS 171: A 90+ (but nearly 90% of the class got an A or A-)
CS 172: A: 85+ (this time around 35% got an A)
CS 173: A: 80+ (10% of the class and class average was about 65%)</p>