Should I try to argue for 6 points?

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>I came up 6 points short of an A in my calculus class this semester and was wondering if I should email the professor to see if she can bump me to an A. She has a reputation of not being very helpful when it comes to students asking her for stuff but it may be worth a try. Have any of you ever done this? How do think I should ask?</p>

2

<p>Six points…so you got an 84 in the course? If she isn’t like in love with you or something, it seems unlikely, but you never know 'til you ask.</p>

3

<p>Sorry, meant 6 points as in 6 out of the total points for the course which is 600. Specifically I got 494 and the cutoff for an A was 500.</p>

4

<p>Well the first question is what you mean by points. Is it 6 points out of like 1000 points or is it 6 percent? In other words, how many percentage points did you miss by?</p>

<p>Never, ever go and just ask to be bumped up because you were just short of a grade. That reeks of entitlement. Plain and simple, if you do that, almost no professor will acquiesce, or respect you for that matter. Instead you are better off asking if you can do any kind of extra credit assignment to make up the small difference between the A and the B.</p>

5

<p>That sounds solid. “Is there anything I can do to earn 6 extra points?” sounds a lot better than, “uh, can you just give me the points?” </p>

<p>It sounds more reasonable now, and again, it never hurts to ask. </p>

<p>It the future, if you think you are borderline, get a bit of a jump on the problem and make sure your professor knows how hard you are trying before it’s too late.</p>

6

<p>If it legitimately could make a difference, go for it. Don’t resort to complaining that you deserve more partial credit though; that’s not going to get you anywhere. Start with errors in adding points and then check to see if problems are incorrectly graded.</p>

7

<p>I’m confused. If something you had was misgraded by 6 points and those 6 points would bump you to a higher grade, yes. Presumably there’s a regrade process so follow that. If you just wound up 6 points short, no. Tough luck.</p>