UW curve grading-- how bad is it?

<p>The big message that comes out of this forum is that competition is fierce getting into CSE/CS/Engineering majors, and the whole experience is made worse by tough curves in pre-req classes. How does this work with classes like math and physics? If the answers are correct then your score is your score. What are the subjective elements involved in grading such courses?</p>

<p>Bump bump Anyone???</p>

<p>From what I’ve noticed, if you don’t come into UW with already strong academics, you will struggle to do well in courses with curved grades. I was near the top of my class in high school and did fine, along with some of my other friends who did well in high school. Friends who barely made it into UW, often struggled, even failing some courses because of the curves. </p>

<p>It really depends on the class, and honestly this happens at most colleges; UW is just extreme because students are fairly intelligent and competitive.</p>

<p>There’s nothing subjective about a curve. Basically, professors want to ensure that the proportions of students who get certain grades remains roughly the same across different instances of the class. This is to protect against fluctuations in the difficulty of the course (it’s not very likely that the hundreds of students taking CSE 142 in Autumn quarter are substantially better/worse than the hundreds in Winter quarter).</p>

<p>The curve allows for cutoffs to be established that change between quarters. Maybe the final in Autumn quarter was very easy and there were a lot of 90s. Given that you want only a few students to get 4.0 (slightly more for 3.9, more for 3.8, … , the most at the average the professor has decided upon [typically in the high 2.x or low 3.x range], then decreasing in frequency), you might set the 4.0 cutoff at 97. The opposite situation could happen in Winter, where the average is really low (the final was just super hard) and no one would pass the 4.0 cutoff that was established for Autumn. Now, the 4.0 cutoff might be 90.</p>

<p>The way this appears to most students in practice is that you just have to look at how far you were from the average. I don’t really know how much statistics you know, but usually they try to make the grades fit an adjusted Bell curve. So if you are 1 or more standard deviations higher than the average, it’s likely you’ll get a high grade.</p>

<p>As far as getting into CSE goes, yeah, that can be tough. You basically need to be near the top of the intro CS classes and also have strong grades in math/physics. If you work hard, though, you can do it.</p>

<p>This works in large classes, where there are over a hundred students. But how do UW profs and TAs grade smaller sections of intro classes? If there are 30 or fewer students, the margin of error could easily cause students to have a higher or lower grade than they would have in a larger class if the small class is strictly graded on a curve.</p>

<p>For example, summer math sections are limited to 35 or 40 students, and sometimes have lower enrollment than this. Likewise for the smaller honors math/science sections. How are such classes graded?</p>

<p>I’m not entirely sure. I agree that a curve probably isn’t the best system for smaller classes. I do know that CSE classes usually peg the average much higher (3.3-3.5), which I think is reasonable given that the caliber of students is likely to be higher (since the major is impacted).</p>

<p>So is this curving for all courses at UW?</p>

<p>I don’t thin Liberal Arts courses curve their grades as there are so many subjective things you really can’t curve them.</p>

<p>Most of the curved classes are very large (100+) pre-req STEM-type classes. When large humanities classes are curved, it is usually to a much higher average (3.5-3.8), and usually only for the biggest, more pre-req style classes. I was never in a class of 30 or less that was on a true curve. </p>

<p>Also, if there’s an exceptional class of 300 geniuses and everyone does great, they aren’t beholden to the curve god. They can pretty much do whatever they want, so if everyone truly earns a great grade, you’ll all get great grades. Good luck with that, though!</p>

<p>Also, I should mention that many people throw around the term curve when it’s really extremely rare to use a true curve to grade. That would mean that no matter what, the same number of people with a 4.0 will get a 0.0, and that’s just not what happens. I think, in general, a “curve” at UW means the average grade will be assigned a gpa in the 3.3-3.6 range, and the professor has some flexibility in determining what standard deviation they are willing to go to for a passing grade.</p>

<p>Rabbitstew, this is exactly what I was getting at in the OP–that with a true curve, and grading objectively, hypothetically everyone could do equally well yet someone would have to end up on the low end of the bell curve. This is often how law school exams are graded during the weeding out of first year, except that grading ends up to have a big subjective element because the exams are essays. In some cases a student has spotted all the issues correctly but maybe the exam is written less artfully than another. So I was asking how this would work in a quantitative exam. But if course your point about not all the students being genius level probably makes my original question less relevant. There will always be those who excel and those who bomb the exam,so the curve kind of naturally occurs.</p>