<p>DS just got home after his first year @ WASHU....loved it and has made awesome grades. The problem: After returning home and checking grades online, he received an incomplete in a class and when he inquired about it his prof said he was missing a mid-term paper. My son made an A- on the paper which had been handed back to him but he threw it away during packing to return home...not thinking he needed to keep it. He has the paper on his computer of course. The prof said the TA must not have recorded the grade. My son has emailed the TA but hasn't heard back yet. What do we do from here; what are the proper steps to take to get to the bottom of this mess? HELP!</p>
<p>He should contact the professor, and send the paper to him. The TA may have graduated and moved on.</p>
<p>He has emailed the paper to the prof. Prof told him to contact the TA who leaves for Bolivia tomorrow!!! We won’t panic quite yet.</p>
<p>a grade appeal is not usually an emergency…every university has different procedures, but i think most often it is around midterm to end of the following semester–as long as you are on it now and begin the process of an appeal by the deadline, everyone should have plenty of time to take necessary actions.</p>
<p>The TA found the missing original paper with the A- on it…yippee!! All is well…thanks for your responses!</p>
<p>I’ll note that profs and TAs don’t necessarily take it as seriously as students and parents – although they should. Your son needs to stay right on top of the procedure. Emailing and cc’ing professor, TA, advisor, and dean would not be over the top IMO. Speaking from experience, you understand. Eventually, in my son’s case, which was a very simple miscalculation, it was not resolved until <em>I</em>queried the dean.</p>
<p>Glad it was resolved, but the take home lesson here, is keep those papers until you are sure the grade has been recorded!</p>
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How did the TA find a paper your son threw away?</p>
<p>TAs very often grade the pares on the computer, and comment using “track changes”. So the TA probably had an electronic copy of the graded paper.</p>
<p>I meant the TA found the proof of the recorded grade/paper not the actual paper…don’t know the details of how all of this is done. But I agree with mathmom…it was a good lesson and will never happen again. All papers will be kept until grades are officially posted and recorded.</p>
<p>Your situation is not uncommon. Everyone needs to keep proof of their work/grades until the final grade is turned in.</p>
<p>Amend the above to until after they are satisfied the grade received is the correct one. Son has also had grade glitches in college, it can take into the next semester to resolve things if everyone has gone on winter break. The good news is that grades can be corrected.</p>
<p>you need to blackmail them and just do whatever it takes to get your son that grade.</p>
<p>Glad this turned out well.</p>
<p>Students should also make sure they always back up their work. I’ve had students lose a semester’s worth of work because of a dead hard drive more times than I can count.</p>
<p>Keep papers and exams for at least a year. Keep syllabuses forever. Papers are important with respect to graduate school (to be able to hand back to the prof when asking for a recommendation, to be able to send a graded copy to the admissions office as requested) and syllabuses come in handy at the craziest times. I had to use the ones I had from freshman year of college during my junior year in order to justify the transfer of credit to my major.</p>
<p>I’m glad it all got sorted out. :)</p>