The 80% = C- and 80% = A (for AP classes) examples I listed were also policies for non-curved situations, as posted by members of this forum when describing their HS. You’ll find different policies for different HSs. I expect most colleges do not have a university policy of a requiring a particular percentage correct to be a particular grade and instead give instructors some flexibility. This fits with university professors generally being given more flexibility about exam and course material than HS teachers have. At some selective colleges, it’s difficult to identify the top students within the class without making exam questions substantially more difficult than typical textbooks, leading to percentage correct having different meanings. That said, yes, a good portion of instructors will choose a simple multiple of 10 grading scale where 70s % correct = C, 80s % correct = B, etc.</p>
<p>If that’s the case, then this is a highly unusual. In most colleges I know of, the threshold for pass grades in a pass/fail situation doesn’t change because the course instructor makes the course pass/fail only. </p>
<p>For example, the instructors for the Creative Writing courses for majors at my LAC which are offered on a pass/fail basis only are bound to follow my LAC’s grading guideline where if a student muster’s a final grade for all work(including participation if applicable) tallying up to a C- or better, the instructor must give him/her a pass grade. At other colleges, that threshold may be as low as a D or even a D-.</p>
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<p>First, colleges aren’t usually like high schools in many ways, including grading expectations/evaluations. </p>
<p>With a few exceptions, most colleges set what the minimum passing letter grade is for a given course. It’s usually anything above an F or in some cases like my undergrad, C- or higher. Also, while Professor’s are given much more latitude in many areas than their HS teacher counterparts, that doesn’t usually extend to insisting that a B s the minimum final grade needed to pass the course. </p>
<p>Sorry, if he/she tried that at my college or every one I know of, that policy won’t survive a student challenge as it runs afoul of college-wide grading policies for undergraduate courses. </p>
<p>Also, with few exceptions, most college Professors curve because students score so low on exams/coursework that if they most/all students would be considered failing if non-curved grading was applied. Like a STEM course I know of where a midterm score of 33% curved to a B- because around half the students had scored percentages in the single digits. </p>
<p>While there are Profs who do curve if students’ raw uncurved exam grades are clustered in the 80%s and 90%s, that’s becoming increasingly less common, especially with increasing trends of students and now parents challenging low/failing grades in such cases.* Challenges which in cases of curving for the mere sake of curving when everyone’s demonstrated high proficiency…deserves to be challenged. </p>
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<li>I.e. In one advanced chem course a friend of an older relative attended at their STEM-centered college in the '70s, the distribution of final exam/work grades tallied up to final averages ranging from a 92% to 98%. This Prof decided a bell-curve must be applied despite the fact everyone demonstrated strong proficiency. As a result, the students scoring a 92% and 93% were given Fs and Ds respectively.</li>
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I think you are missing the point of this course, cobrat. It’s remedial algebra, and apparently the math department has determined that “prepared for a higher level actual college course” means getting at least an 80%. Alternatively, they could pass everyone above a 60% (to satisfy you) and then give the students another math placement test on which they need to score an 80% in order to get into the next course. Those not getting the required score would be reassigned to another remedial section. </p>
<p>OP is arguing that her D should be allowed into the higher level course even if the department has not determined that she is prepared by their criteria. Having the D then fail yet ANOTHER course helps her how? IMHO the mother is not qualified to determine whether her D is prepared for X math course or not.</p>
<p>I wonder if the course is part of a pre-professional program, and requires threshold capability, “weeding-out” all who cannot meet a necessary accuracy level, but only for the requirements of that particular program.</p>
<p>Also, OP, you could ask your daughter to facebook a high school pal who has math capability. A couple of months of tutoring (or over holiday break) by someone who knows your kid’s personality and learning method can reverse years of misdirection due to rote math sophistry. (Finally, a functional use for facebook.)</p>
<p>Some students have challenges which can make lower level math difficult while they can understand higher level math.
For instance, my eyes don’t track correctly, and I can make mistakes in calculations with paper and pencil, with column of numbers whereas I can perform higher level math if given plenty of time to double check ( or a calculator)</p>
<p>Given that the math class is remedial, Id assume that this student struggled with math in K-12. For those students, taking a course during the summer without any other distractions can be beneficial, even if some of it seems to repeat material covered previously. Its pretty difficult to jump ahead, if basic concepts aren’t understood.</p>
<p>Some universities/colleges require a math placement test, while others will allow registering for classes suggested by the high school transcript.
I wonder how she was placed into this class and what level math she took in high school.
Is this class a repeat of a high school course?</p>
<p>Even lower level courses can seem to move faster than a similar course in high school, and if something wasn’t fully understood, its not hard to see how a student can get into trouble down the road ( especially if math is taught as poorly in Indiana as it is in Washingtons k-12 schools).</p>
<p>If she was passing the class at mid terms, there still seems time to bring her grades up, unless she just quit going to class and doing her assignments.
While some freshmen don’t like to ask for help, they might as well utilize the available resources. Besides going to her prof, her school has a math tutoring center and she should have been able to find a study group to reinforce the work in the classroom.</p>
<p>If she isn’t able to show her mastery of the material, she shouldn’t be able to go on to the next class. It doesn’t really matter what the grade is in that circumstance, because she isn’t ready to go on. * That* is where attention must be paid, whether or not a pass/fail class should be graded on a curve or not, is just a distraction from the real issue.</p>
<p>The advisor sounds like a dolt, I hope she can switch to one who is more helpful.</p>
<p>You are COMPLETELY wrong! My daughter took this class at the SUGGESTION of her advisor so that she could strengthen her skills in Algebra. She tested into the regular algebra class from the college’s placement exams but she talked to her advisor about her struggles and he made the suggestion to try this low pressure class first. Math has always been incredibly hard for her and we paid for tutors throughout her high school career to help her get C’s. She got a C- in High School PreCalculus. She is NOT going into an occupation that requires math at all, so she only needs the minimum requirements met. She is not being weeded out- it is prep for the basic math modeling class required of every student.
She has gone to the learning center many times throughout this quarter, but she is not a good test taker and is sitting at a 78% for the quarter. I did not appreciate the accusatory tone in your post. Not every student is good in Math, and she is doing her best. This class is NOT required to get into the regular math class, it was for extra practice only.
Having raised my daughter and provided for her well being I think I am well equipped to know what she is capable of. We have already decided that she is going to take the required math class at the local community college over the summer and transfer the credit in. I am not asking for them to make any special exceptions for her, just trying to figure out why a class that is supposed to be a P/F is not being graded as such. Since I am the one paying the bill I have every right to ask the question.</p>
<p>That everyone is capable of reductive categorical thought processing, but not everyone enjoys, trusts or comprehends the particular symbology by which to process it, according to a culturally parochialized standardization.</p>
<p>Getting Cs in high school math courses, including pre-calc isn’t usually considered a demonstration of adequate proficiency in the subject, even if it is passing. Unless she came from an academically rigorous public/private high school, college-level courses…sometimes even remedial ones do tend to proceed at a faster pace than their HS counterparts. </p>
<p>Out of curiosity, does her college have a policy of using a student’s math SAT to determine placement of freshmen students in a math course? </p>
<p>I’m curious as if she struggled to get a C- in pre-calculus, most colleges I know of would mandate taking a remedial course either repeating pre-calc or sometimes even lower-level math courses. </p>
<p>Heck, I knew of some students who did well in their admittedly academically average/mediocre HS’s Calc courses who were mandated to take remedial math due to their lowish math SAT, reputation of the HS’s math instruction if applicable, etc. </p>
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<p>I’d check with your D to see if the credit is what matters versus demonstrated proficiency and check with the math department that community college course is approved for transfer credit before taking it. </p>
<p>Depending on the department’s policies, they may feel the course doesn’t match the standards of equivalent courses offered by their department in which case, credit won’t be granted and she would have wasted a summer. </p>
<p>Also, if her college’s math department has a policy of only granting such credit or allowing a student into a higher-level course after passing a departmental math placement exam for a higher-level course and she fails that, that credit may not be granted or even if granted, won’t mean very much at the end as she won’t be allowed into higher-level math courses, including the mandatory mathematical modeling course mentioned earlier.</p>
The point I’ve been making is there is no university rule that requires a specific percentage correct to correspond to a B, so it is not clear that the professor’s minimum percentage for passing is equivalent to a B. If students who took the class for a grade were given a C for a particular percentage, and students who took the class S/F received a F for same percentage, then that would be a different story and it would be easy to see the pass threshold was not where it should be. However, it’s a S/F course, so there is no B threshold to compare to among students who took the class for a grade. </p>
<p>Looking at the grade distribution of past years, there seems to be notably different final grades for different instructors. For example, the fail rate averages ~5% for courses Manack taught and ~24% for courses Tager taught.</p>
Then contest the fail grade. As the one paying the bill, you should have the right to determine what constitutes passing or not passing. Since she’ll be transferring in a math grade, I’m sure they won’t care.</p>
<p>I took a remedial algebra class as a college freshman. There was no grade or hour credit for the class We went to the class, worked through modules in the workbook independently and then took a test. We had to get a certain percentage of correct answers to move on to the next unit. I don’t recall what the percentage was but I’m thinking it was more than 60%. If we didn’t score well enough to move to the next chapter we had to retest until we did. We had to finish the workbook w/ a certain percentage correct on each test to receive a Pass grade that allowed us to move on to the “for credit” college algebra class. It appears that the pass/fail status of the class was not totally understood by the student.</p>
<p>Most colleges that I know of have their own advisory or mandatory math placement exams for incoming students who do not present other evidence (e.g. completion of college math courses) indicating placement in calculus or higher.</p>
<p>Octoberdana ~ so sorry for our pain. Does this school post their Undergraduate Catalog online? Most publics do. It sounds like you know quite a bit re the courses which is very good. Always good for the parents to read/study the catalog. It’s freshmen year, I would: Allow your daughter to repeat any class below a C. I would go-to-the-mat for her re: the P/F. I would not pressure her to change/or discontinue college as long as you have studied the online Undergraduate Catalog and believe she can be successful at the school. “Successful” meaning, not failing out of college.</p>
<p>Freshman year is a time of adjustment for most students and many do not achieve even close to what they are capable of that first semester. Too much is going on socially and emotionally and sometimes things need to be sorted out on the academic front.</p>
<p>So Math is not her thing and she encountered some difficulties in that class for whatever reason. IMO thoughts of pulling her out are premature. Figure out the best way to get her through the requirements for Math and proceed to design her schedule going forward around her strengths. The whole P/F thing on the surface does seem very unfair to me, but you are probably wasting your time arguing with the department on this one. The most likely scenario is that your D misunderstood the rules governing the P/F option for a core subject like Math.</p>
<p>Is this your daughter’s report of a verbal exchange with the advisor? It seems possible that she misunderstood or took the remark out of context?</p>
<p>I am not a parent, but I had a rocky first semester, too… in some ways a rocky first year. I failed math the first semester, and second semester I withdrew from Spanish 102 (after easily passing 101 first semester) because I was going to fail if I stayed. I retook the math class with tutors and replaced the failing grade with a B. I also took a remedial Spanish course to bolster my 101 skills and retook 102 and replaced the W with an A. I finished my second year of college with a 3.7 GPA.</p>
<p>I think your strategy moving forward needs to depend on why your child actually got these grades, what she thinks of the situation, and what both of you think of her ability to pull out of this hole. I knew exactly what I did wrong and what steps to take to fix it, so pulling me out would have been a real shame-- I’d just made some rookie mistakes and had learned my lesson. But if I had been clueless about what went wrong or was blaming anybody but myself, or I had no clue how to move forward and repair the damage, I wouldn’t have belonged in school. Which one is your D?</p>
<p>I was at the top of my class throughout K-12. I tanked my freshman year in college, though. I figured it out & got my act together after that. But … my parents did not get involved in any way. It was my problem to own and work through. I think that if the young adult asks the parent for advice, the parent should offer advice. But the young adult must take responsibility and work through it herself. That is part of growing up, and we parents have to learn when to step back. College is a good time to do this.</p>