<p>I have a few questions for current RIT students:</p>
<p>Are RIT students really competitive or more coorperative?</p>
<p>Is there a mandatory curve that all classes are graded on? </p>
<p>Is the grading scale standardized? What I mean by that is, where I am now some professor have +/- grades and some don't. Is it the same way there, professor's prerogative, or is it standardized?</p>
<p>Whether or not students are competitive or cooperative depends more on the individual than anything else. While some programs will draw more competitive students, in general, students will help each other out.</p>
<p>There is no mandatory curve. Some professors will curve if they think its needed, others never will. The best way to know in advance is to ask other students about the specific professor, and their policies.</p>
<p>When grades are recorded by RIT, there are no +/- grades allowed. You only get whole values such as 4,3,2,1 or 0 recorded as your grade for a class. (this may change though, as they have discussed allowing plus/minus grades for some time.)</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. If they change the +/- policy hopefully they will make all professors do it. It turns out to be really unfair when some professors give +/- and others don’t, especially for the same class.</p>
<p>It will definitely be required of all professors. They tend to enforce things like that, as it has a huge impact on how grades can be compared.</p>
<p>The interesting thing is that, statistically, there is not much difference between allowing +/- grades and not allowing them.</p>
<p>I think it doesn’t really matter if it is applied universally, but when it isn’t consistent it can be a real problem. For instance, when I was still a pre-nursing major I had an A&P class with a professor who didn’t give +/- grades. I ended up with an 89% in the class and got a B. Someone in a class with +/- grades would end up with a B+. When applying to a competitive program like nursing that can actually make a difference. Of course, it can cut the other way, too. If I have a 90% I get an A while someone in the other class ended up with an A-. So maybe it evens out?</p>