<p>What do you think of a math teacher who decides not to round a final grade of 89.913 to a 90, thus giving the student a B plus in the class instead of an A minus? Is it expecting too much for a grade to be rounded less than one-tenth of a point, or is this just the way it is with most teachers? Our school unfortunately has no policy on this so it is left up to the discretion of the teacher and yes, the student did ask and was told by the teacher that "you get what you get." (I'm only mentioning the subject area because it seems particularly ironic.)</p>
<p>Depends on what constitutes an -A. With some teachers I’ve had in HS and college, an -A was a minimum of a 91-92 so a 90 was still B+ territory. </p>
<p>Not me, friend’s son. No opinions here mean anything but people still like to seek them. Perhaps it may make a difference in deciding how to approach such situations in the future. I find your “move on!” comment unnecessary in this case and am quite surprised to see an inflammatory comment coming from someone with 21,000 posts!</p>
<p>This has happened to my kids a few times. Frustrating, but if it is up to the teacher, the teacher can decide not to round. (I am a teacher myself. I think it is sort of mean. I would round up if it were my student.) However, maybe there were other factors that the teacher considered like attendance, participation, interest in class/attitude. Maybe there was some other reason the student might not have really deserved the A. When it happensto my own kids I tell them: Tough luck-- And let this be a lesson to you–that every point on every assignment counts. Collect all the points you can early in the semester. Those 2 or 3 points you lost on an easy quiz you didn’t prepare for during the first week might just wreck your grade in the end.</p>
<p>You asked for opinions (what do you think) and stated thanks for any input. Or did you only want input that would fuel a fight NOT worth pursuing? </p>
<p>All of us have dealt with some frustrations with classes, papers, and grading. And learned that is often best to let it go and move on! It is often not worth the aggravation. You reported a contact with a stubborn teacher, and it did not help. Thus, the suggestion to … move on. If you think that such words are inflammatory, so be it. I think you might see, in the future, that letting trivial details go is really a positive suggestion. </p>
<p>And especially, if it something happening to a child of a friend! </p>
<p>My son’s teachers do not round up, because the school uses a 10-point scale (90 to 100 is an A). But they tell the kids up front when they go over the course material. Is it costly? It can be. My son had at least three classes where he had better than an 89, but not a 90, so he got B’s. But, he would say, he knew the teacher’s policy before the class started, so he had no right to complain.</p>
<p>A lot of school round their grades to the second decimal, so 89.913 would be 89.91. My kid’s college gives out letter grades for each course, but the GPA is calculated to the second decimal. If the GPA is 3.75, they are not allowed to put down 3.8 as the GPA.</p>
<p>I had the same thought as oldfort. Grades may be calculated to the first or second decimal place. If so, 89.91 rounded to the first place is still 89.9 , which is still not 90. It’s very very closer but not an A-</p>
<p>In my son’s school that would actually be a straight B. If rounding is to the teacher’s discretion, then my guess is the student didn’t show enough concern about the course until the final grade came in. Of course, some teachers are completely inflexible and doesn’t cut even the hardest workers some slack. You’d have to talk to other parents at the school to find out which it is. </p>
<p>Many colleges do this too. For a scholarship my daughter was applying for, the rule is NO rounding, up or down. If a 3.5 is required for the level of scholarship, a 3.499999 will not be rounded to 3.5</p>
<p>There has to be a line somewhere, and this teacher decided no rounding up. It’s no different than if the rounding rule was ‘89.5 and above becomes an A, but 89.4999’ remains a B. The kid with the 89.5 will be happy, the one with an 89.4999 will be sad.</p>
<p>For college courses, the first thing to check for class grading policy is the course syllabus. Many times the professor will have a conflicting grading policy in the syllabus or some kind of error or loophole that student can use to his advantage and use to persuade professor to bump grade up. That’s what I’ve done. You’re actually helping professor so he can make changes to his future syllabi to eliminate grading confusion and eliminate gray areas.</p>
<p>I know it’s college, but my oldest’s whole program has a “no rounding” policy. For my own classes, rounding is at my discretion. And there may be several reasons why a teacher wouldn’t do it. Might be a general policy, might be student specific. The grade was a B+. That is what the student earned. End of story.</p>