<p>DD is away at school. At mid-terms she had decent grades B's and C's. Tonight I found out that she has an F in one class and probably two. One of her classes is supposed to be a pass/fail but the teaching assistant is requiring them to get a 80% (a B!) to pass. Anything below an 80% is an F! Dd has a 78% so that will also be an F. She went to her academic advisor to ask about why a pass/fail class requires a B and wouldn't it be better to take a C then an F and the advisor told her the class doesn't "mean anything" and will only affect her GPA.</p>
<p>Due to her having two F's she will likely be on academic probation next semester. I'm not sure how to proceed from here but I feel like they aren't being fair with the pass/fail as the website clearly states that anything that isn't an F should be a P but no one will help her. The stress of trying to "pass" Math is causing her grades in her other classes to slip.</p>
<p>Advice? Do we pull her out next semester and put her in a different school closer to home? Give her one semester? We are full pay and we can't afford the tuition for F's. Would appreciate some suggestions. Thanks for reading this.</p>
<p>Many students get over their heads freshman year. Take too many credits, underestimate time needed for studying, or don’t research the prof and get a doozy.</p>
<p>Has she met with her profs and identified what she needs to pass the course?
Has she been able to identify why she is struggling?</p>
<p>Schools should have a learning center with tutors who can help get her back on track.
It’s still early, I wouldn’t pull her out and bring her home unless she isn’t able to come up with a plan of action and she is unwilling to meet with her profs.</p>
<p>First, my advice would be for HER to fight the pass/fail battle. Not you - her. At which point did she learn about the B? Did the TA disclose this at the beginning of the class? Was there a professor attached to the course, and if so, what does she/he say? Did your daughter go to the department chair? What is the department policy on pass/fail courses? Where was the course listed as pass/fail, and was there a definition of it? These issues need to be looked into before anyone can truly say whether or not your daughter is being treated unfairly. </p>
<p>Being on academic probation isn’t the end of the world, and I personally wouldn’t pull a child out of school because of it. It can happen anywhere, and many freshmen get off to a rough start and bounce back as they adjust to the tougher load/higher standards. (And sometimes an F is better than a D because in some cases it allows you to retake the class.) I understand your frustration, though, and would encourage you vent here, rather than to her school (or to her!) That could make the entire situation even worse.</p>
<p>I’d recommend looking at the college’s grading policies and the course’s syllabus in question to see what’s the actual story for yourself. </p>
<p>Something’s not adding up here as unless this is an unusual school or Profs/TAs given unusually wide grading latitude, any grade above a F or in some cases, a D+* would be a pass under pass/fail policies of most colleges. If one needs a B or better to pass, that sounds really off. </p>
<p>Either that, or there’s something your D’s not telling you or is confused about somewhere. </p>
<ul>
<li>My LAC’s pass/fail policies required a minimum of a C- for a pass grade when I attended.</li>
</ul>
<p>That’s fine, but the Passing criteria should be in the course syllabus. If it is then she had fair warning. If not, the next step is for her to visit the class professor.</p>
<p>Even then, I’d check the college’s overall grading policies as the higher passing criterion set by the individual course instructor may actually run afoul of the college policies which every undergraduate course instructor must abide. </p>
<p>If a Prof. at my LAC or every other college I know of tried making a B the minimum passing grade for an undergrad course…even if stated on the syllabus, it won’t stand up to student challenge as that higher minimum passing grade would be contrary to overall college grading policies clearly stated in the college guidebooks. </p>
<p>In my LAC’s case, if the final grade tallies up to a C- or higher, the Professor must give a pass grade in a pass/fail situation.</p>
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<p>In the college’s guidebook, look in the section regarding grades and S/F grading criteria to see what’s the minimum passing grades to get an S. </p>
<p>If it is at the complete discretion of the instructor, that’s the end of it…though I find that highly unusual. In most colleges, there’s a minimum for a pass, credit, or S/satisfactory grade set by overall college undergraduate grading policies.</p>
I may be missing something, but why does 80% correspond to a B? In classes I’ve taken, the B threshold varied significantly from class, sometimes from test to test. For example, I recall one midterm where a grade of 30% was in the B range. The questions on the test were far more challenging than any in the textbook, and few were able to complete the full test before time ran out. I haven’t heard of the B threshold being high enough to make 78% failing before, but whether it is unreasonable or not would depend on how challenging the questions were and/or the overall grade distribution of the class. </p>
<p>If it were me, I’d focus on why the grades were low in multiple classes (not just the one with the unique grading curve) and what can be done to improve them. This might include things like taking a reduced schedule, using available tutor resources on campus, working with TAs in office hours, spending more time studying, etc. I’d also look into options for repeating a course and/or withdrawing to prevent a failing grade from appearing on the transcript.</p>
<p>Would a class that isn’t taken for graduation credit be calculated into your college GPA?
If math is a struggle for her, perhaps she should take a lighter load with those qtrs & set up a tutor&/or study group in advance.</p>
<p>That’s true if the classes/tests are curved. However, in non-curved cases, the OP is close but not on the mark regarding the 80% = B. </p>
<p>Despite that, most colleges offering pass/fail type grading options would set passing at anything above an F or in cases like my undergrad when I attended, a C- as any grade below that was automatically considered failing then. </p>
<p>In non-curved cases, the letter to percentages went something like:</p>
<p>A: 95% or greater</p>
<p>A-: 91% till 94%</p>
<p>B+: 88% till 90%</p>
<p>B: 85% till 87%</p>
<p>B-: 81% till 84%</p>
<p>C+: 78% - 80%</p>
<p>C: 75% - 77%</p>
<p>C-: 71% - 74% </p>
<p>D+: 68% - 70%</p>
<p>D: 65% - 67%</p>
<p>D-: 61% - 64%</p>
<p>F: Anything below D-</p>
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<p>If the OP is asking about this semester, the deadline for withdrawing…even with a W may have already passed considering this period would be around finals time for most universities.</p>
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<p>Unless my impression is mistaken, the OP was asking about a student taking a course graded on a pass/fail type basis. </p>
<p>Usually in such grading situations, the student gets college credits applicable towards graduation requirements if he/she receives a pass grade. However, grades gained in a pass/fail type situation usually aren’t factored into GPA calculations.</p>
Setting a multiple of 10% to be 1 letter grade divides easily with a base 10 number system, so I can see why this would be a common selection. However, it is by no means universal. Some HSs choose an 80% to be as low as C- or as high as an A (for AP classes). The colleges that I attended all gave professors the flexibility to choose what criteria equaled what grade (when applicable) instead of having a fixed policy. This setup makes sense to me since questions will not be equally difficult in all exams for all classes, so different criteria is expected to show mastery of the material. In the majority of my classes, a fixed percent wasn’t applicable. For example, if I have an an electrical engineering final consisting of 3 long and complex questions, taking about 20 minutes each to complete, it doesn’t make sense for the university to require 80% correct = B-/C+.</p>
<p>.* Credit may not be applied toward a degree in the College of Arts and Sciences; the School of Education; the School of Health, Physical Education, and Recreation; the Kelley School of Business; or the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. I Sem., II Sem., SS.*</p>
<p>The table I set above is if there are non-curved situations or after a given exam curve has already been applied (i.e. In one STEM class I knew of, a pre-curved midterm score of 33% curved to be a B- because over half the class ended up having pre-curved scores in the single percentage digits).</p>
<p>Also, for the purposes of determining final grades, one does need to check to see whether there is a minimum for a pass grade in a pass/fail type situation is as set by university/college policies* or not. And if the former, what that minimum actually happens to be. </p>
<p>I have yet to find a college where setting higher grade thresholds for a pass/fail type grading situation was left completely up to the undergraduate-level course instructor. </p>
<ul>
<li>Every college handbook I’ve had or reviewed has set it either as any grade above an F or in cases like my LAC when I attended, C- or better.</li>
</ul>
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<p>As for credits, while one usually cannot get major/minor or depending on school, distribution/core credits for courses taken in a pass/fail context, the credits can be applied towards graduation as would an elective. Most colleges also place strict limits on how many courses can be taken in a pass/fail situation. </p>
<p>However, this can be a YMMV situation as certain colleges, notably my own LAC at the time I attended and Brown allow students the possibility of graduating by taking all courses…including major ones on a pass/fail basis. </p>
<p>Not to mention some critical courses at my LAC like a few in creative writing are only offered on a pass/fail basis by Prof or departmental policy. </p>
<p>Also, from the same university as that handbook:</p>
<p>Want to take an interesting, unfamiliar, or challenging course but are worried how it might affect your GPA? Many degree programs will allow you to take a class as “pass/fail.” If you receive a grade of D or above, you will receive credit hours for the course and a grade of P on your academic record, but your grade will not affect your GPA. (Of course, if you receive an F, your GPA will be adversely affected.)</p>
<p>October, my S2 failed four classes (got D’s in the other two) in his first semester of college. He was on Academic Probation for Spring sem. He got in touch with his advisor as soon as the fall sem. grades came out. She advised immediate retakes of the failed classes in the spring sem.</p>
<p>His state u. allows students to retake up to three failed classes for replacement grades. The improved " retake" grades took the place of the failing grades in his gpa calculation and he was off academic probation at the end of spring semester. </p>
<p>He got his act together after that horrible first semester and made 3.0 or better for the next six semesters and graduated on time in 2012. He’s now out on his own doing very well at his job and the bad first sem. is all but forgotten.</p>
<p>Several “friends” suggested that we should pull him out of college after the first botched semester. S2 really liked his school and wanted to go back. We decided to give him another semester to turn it around. I’m so glad we did. After getting though the spring sem. and off probation, his self confidence really went up and he learned “how to do college”.<br>
Look on your D’s college website and see if they offer grade replacement classes.
Good luck to you and your D.</p>
I think your bigger concern should be why your D is failing basic algebra. It doesn’t get much easier than this and the idea that she is “trying” so hard she is stressing and affecting her other grades but is still failing is just silly. Obviously, if this course is a preparation for following on courses, then they expect a level equivalent to 80% in order to declare the student “prepared”. Do you want her to move on to a yet more difficult course if she can’t add x + x?</p>
<p>I agree that a B shouldn’t be required for a pass. But 80% isn’t necessarily a B. Some classes have lots of easy questions, so you need a high % to get a certain grade, and others have harder questions, you need a low % to get a certain grade. There’s no intrinsic meaning attached to those percentage numbers.</p>
<p>In cases where the course is designated S/F (rather than it being a student option to take a normally-letter-graded course that way), there may not be any letter grade equivalents to the S grade, since no students in the course will be getting letter grades. In other words, the instructor can make any threshold for an S that s/he wants.</p>
<p>This is different from the case of a student option, where the passing grade is stated by school policy to be given when the student would otherwise get a letter grade in a specific range (usually C- or higher or D- or higher for undergraduates).</p>