<p>I attended a summer session as a pre-freshman and took a seminar class. I did everything that was expected of me. When it ended there was a 10 day gap before Move In Weekend. During those 10 days the grades came out. It turns out I have an INCOMPLETE next to my class. I emailed the TA AND prof. During Move In Weekend, I called and left her a phone msg b/c I still didn't have a response. I don't get ANY response until the Deans' Welcome that Monday. I found the TA and she said she was waiting for a response from the prof too...I'm still patient at this point. </p>
<p>I get a call around Tuesday. She explained that all the tests were graded (Scantron test) and my test was NOT there. But if I tell her in the email and call that I was--which means the machine might of skipped my test. Prof said she would manually look over every test for mine. She would call me back on Thurs. </p>
<p>I'm still waiting...its nearly SUNDAY. ARHG. I left her another phone msg Saturday around mid day. I am running out of ideas. I know that this was welcome week and classes started on Thurs and Fri, so I understand that she may be busy. </p>
<p>I will personally wait out side her office if she doesn't get back to me by the start of Week 1. I think this is ridiculous. I have friends that say they will speak on my behalf that I did take the test with everyone else. </p>
<p>I am seriously annoyed, I'm gonna find her office hours and hopefully solve this problem. It is not fair that I should not receive my units/credits b/c of an error on her part.</p>
<p>Did anyone ever have something like this happen? If so, what was the story? Any comments/advice is welcome. </p>
<p>The thing is, no one I know ever likes the class and we all agreed that it was stupid. I hate how she's taking SO LONG to answer a simple question.</p>
<p>BTW, the test was our only test and I've gotten near perfects of every assignment except for 2. I doubt she will just "give" me the credits.</p>
<p>Yeah I would simply argue that if they can't find the test, then your professor should just extrapolate your score. They can't really argue this isn't fair, because making you re-take the test isn't fair, either. This is entirely not your fault and you shouldn't have to be punished for it. The liability is on the professor. </p>
<p>Go visit the professor in person. Waiting for an Email response/phone response is just giving them the power to dictate how soon they wish to address the problem. If you go visit, the professor will have to answer your questions right then and there.</p>
<p>That professor is an idiot. I'd go ape**** on a professor if they lost my final. I shouldn't get an Incomplete because of something that's their fault. One time our French teacher lost our quizzes-she gave us all 100's for the quiz. I've had other times when teachers/professors lost assignments and they either discounted them, gave us all 100's, or used your current average for the assignment.</p>
<p>I'd call the professor every day until she does something. If that doesn't work, wait outside her office and demand to speak to her. If she has a class, tell her you'll wait in her office until she's done. If you took the final, there's no reason why you should have to retake it. I'd take this up to the dept. chair, dean and president if I had to (in that order). Make a big stink. Do something, ANYTHING. Sue her if you need to. I think she's just hoping that you'll go away if she ignores you for a while-don't you dare.</p>
<p>Doing nothing or not actively bothering someone about it is going to get you nowhere.</p>
<p>They punch out at 5 PM on Friday... and punch in on Monday morning. Don't even think that they're going to check their voice messages in their office during the weekend. Once it's Friday, you'll just have to wait until Monday to get any answers.</p>
<p>Good luck with everything else tho. But be rational. The prof knows you need those credits and she'll (or both of you will) come up with a reasonable solution to get a fair grade.</p>
<p>So it was the TA who emailed me back today saying, "According to Dr xxxx, she can't find your final." For cryin' out loud she's has a Ph.D but she can't respond to my emails/phone msg's?!?!?!</p>
<p>She is totally ignoring me at this point. I'm seriously mad and want my credits. I've already found her office and am gonna set up an appoint ASAP.</p>
<p>she probably is too busy doing research to be bothered with one measly final exam issue.</p>
<p>The next time you send her an email, put all the previous back and forth in the bottom, like you are replying to them, and copy the department head, so he/she can see what has been going on.</p>
<p>When you meet the professor in person, do not have an antagonizing or aggressive attitude. The professor has been in the wrong for not handling this faster, but you need to come across as nice, and willing to work toward a solution (a solution that is acceptable to YOU, but you can't be like "hi, I'm BrandoIsCool, and I demand an A on my final, b/c you lost it, moron"). So while you are willing to "work toward a solution", you are working toward the result that you want, as long as it is a fair one. The bottom line is, she knows you were in the class, and you have proof, in the form of other people, who know you took the final exam. It is not immediately necessary for this problem to be resolved in 3-5 days, but it should be taken care of sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>First, relax, you have an entire semester to get this resolved. I would follow the above advice about including all previous emails and email the TA one more time asking her how she and Professor X plan to deal with the loss of your exam as regards your final grade. Copy the dept. head. Be nice. Ask for their help. Explain how, through no fault of your own, your exam was misplaced and you need a resolution. Suggest they just give you the grade you had from the midterm (if you had a good midterm grade). Ask when you can expect to hear back from them regarding this issue. Get a specific date. If that date comes and goes, give them one more chance to respond and then start dealing with the dept. head directly. The worse they are at communicating and being on time with email responses, the more credible it becomes that they screwed up and lost your exam, which looks better should you take your case higher up the ladder. Be respectful and polite. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar.</p>
<p>Your professor and TA are handling the situation badly - there is no dispute about that. They should have contacted you immediately as soon as they realized your final grade was missing and they couldn't find your test.</p>
<p>I'm a TA and I lost a student's final once. I know he took the final because he forgot his calculator and borrowed mine, then we exchanged the test for the calculator. But during grading... I don't know what happened to it. In a large class (500 people), the TA's just split up and grade a certain page of problems, then once all the pages are graded, the tests are re-sorted into piles for different sections.. then the TA's pick up their sections & enter in the grades. But when I was entering grades... one test was missing. I went back into the room we were grading in, then searched through multiple different stacks with no luck. I contacted the head TA and the professor and the student and his graded ended up being the average of his midterm grades (student thought it was fair.. he later told me that he thinks that helped his grade because he didn't think he did so hot on the final).</p>
<p>At very least, the professor gave you an incomplete. They can change the grade later, the incomplete is temporary until they resolve the problem. If the professor was a real *****, you would have ended up with an F from a 0% on your final. You should show up in their office and try to work out a solution.</p>
<p>I disagree with the people saying go to a lawyer - def. if you were going to get an F, but Pearlinthemist made a good point by saying that an "I" leaves sufficient time to deal with the problem.
Wait aggressively outside the prof's office and talk to her in person, and try to handle it one on one between you and her.</p>
<p>Only if that does not work...THEN go to the department.</p>
<p>Alright, I scheduled an appointment that was supposed to be yesterday but she was out. (not surprised) It turns out she was off campus doing something. Anyway, I talked to another one of her TA's that happened to be in the adjacent room. </p>
<p>She and the Prof both expressed some kind of interest in helping to resolve the problem. The thing is--my prof has been very bad at returning my calls and emails. The appointment that was supposed to be on Thursday-she told me she was free on two days of this week and Thurs was one of them. I assumed that since she didn't say she couldn't go that the appointment was to still go on...I talked to the TA who left a msg. FINALLY, today I opened my email and got her response that the appointment would be next week. </p>
<p>The TA also said I may have to take some "watered down" version of the final which she said would be "easier", since that was the only test in the class. ARGH What BS! </p>
<p>I wish she would handle this situation quickly and effectively. I know that she teaches and works in the school's resource center but to not respond to an appointment (b/c she is "busy") is RIDICULOUS. All it takes is 30 seconds for the email. </p>
<p>I was going to go to the Ombudsman's Office today had she not emailed me back. Should I still go ? I really don't care that she lost my exam, I'm more annoyed about how she is in responding to my calls/emails. And why does she have to "drag" out this situation ? The sooner she resolves it the sooner she can get back to what she's doing. </p>
<p>~thanks for the responses to everyone who took the time to reply.</p>
<p>Were you confident that you did very well on the exam? If not, I would go for the watered-down version. ;) </p>
<p>Also, still be polite to your prof. Give her the benefit of the doubt. Honey attracts more than vinegar, even if you do have the moral high ground.</p>
<p>I was taking calculus as the last course needed for my BA before going to grad school (I had taken a semester off and still needed to make up one course, and for some insane reason I decided that every educated person ought to have studied calculus, so I signed up for it at Harvard Extension. I had already fulfilled my science requirement, I might add. Oh well.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I had a B+ going into the final. I took it and flew off to another state for a couple months. When I came back, no grade. I contacted the prof, who said he couldn't find my final. He said that I could retake it, but that it would be UNFAIR to allow me more than 1 day to study for it--after a gap of like 2 months!!! So after 24 hours of frantic review, I go in and take the final again. A couple of weeks pass. No grade. I go to the extension school office and say I MUST have a grade so that I can take a transcript to my college and get a BA because I am starting grad school NEXT WEEK. They tell me that the prof says he has lost my final AGAIN!! I tell them to tell the professor that I need at least a C to get credit. He calls in a grade: C. Bear in mind that I was getting a B+ when all this started. The ES people let me know that they think this stinks, but they put it on my transcript and off I go.</p>
<p>I've been screwed over by teachers and professors in many ways, but this remains one of the worst. (One of the reasons why I continue to think that anonymous standardized tests have their place in admissions, rather than just grades.)</p>
<p>Even if he hadn't actually lost my second final, even if I did really badly on it and he was trying to give me a break, this was a situation HE had created by losing the first one and then not allowing me a reasonable amount of time to prepare for the retake. One day after a gap of months? And I was getting a B+? He should of at the very least given me a B.</p>
<p>Talk about getting screwed over like none other. If they lost your final not once, but TWICE, they should have at the least given you what you had going into the final which was the B+.</p>