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by pohart 6589 days ago
I always thought this was an issue at my school. Fail the students who need to fail. Supposedly we had a rule that no more than 25% of a class should fail. I was in classes where more than that deserved to fail.

I also seriously considered dropping out when I received a D+ in a class that I felt deserved a solid F. I rarely went to class, I did none of the homework, and consequently received 3% of the total available test points.

I was also in the top half of that class. I considered dropping out because I felt my degree would be worthless if the standards were so low. Instead I started working hard and found that getting A's and B's was still appropriately difficult, even if getting a D+ was not.
1 comments
jimbokun 6589 days ago
My mental models for grades today: B is the median. A is above average. C means you showed up and handed things in, but didn't really "get it".

So, on this scale, D and F aren't really distinguishable. Either pretty much mean you didn't make an effort.

I've been taking CS graduate classes part time with (who I consider to be) pretty smart people, so I am happy with an A and satisfied with a B. If I try and still get a C, I'll know that I didn't really belong in that class, at least without more preparatory work.

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pohart 6589 days ago
My professor's view was also that D and F were pretty much the same also, you can't get very many Ds and stay in school. D is kind of like a "high fail." I believe we were limited in the number of Ds on our transcript for graduation, although I don't remember anymore.
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a-priori 6589 days ago
I've always called those "pity passes", as in you really failed, but the prof took pity on you and bumped up your 45% to 50%.

I know that at my school I need an average of 60% to graduate with an honours degree (not that that matters, because I need a 70% average for Co-op).

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yummyfajitas 6588 days ago
Only one problem (at many places): D is no longer an acceptable grade for required classes. Where I teach (a top US university), neither is C-.

Of course, we don't want to require people to take the class again. So C is the new F.

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