Statistically speaking, half of the people you meet are below average. :thumbsup: :lol:

But seriously, I was obsessed with grades as a kid. My dad would lose his mind with bad grades. I knew I was in for a beating if the teacher said "Ben could be doing better."

When I went to university, I was surprised to find that the material was more interesting than the grades I got. I found peace in knowing the subject matter. When I hear you guys talk about not being able to get into grad school if you have one B on your transcripts, I cringe. If that was the case, I don't think I would have even applied.

Teachers and Professors quickly get a reputation on their grading.
"I got an 87% in that class, but Smith was my prof, so it doesn't really matter" or
"You got a 60% in Jones' math class? Holy shit, Isaac Newton couldn't swing a grade like that..."

In high school, the teachers artifically inflated the grades, because they knew that every other teacher was doing the same thing so that their students could get into university. I don't remember many C grades being given out at all (btw, we use the percentile system where I am, and the letter grade thing is weird to me). It was funny to see the kids show up at university with a 90% average (yes, you read that correctly, it was commonplace) out of high school and get back their first assignment in english 110. They would see a 60% on the paper (which is a good grade at that level and experience) and jump off a fucking bridge. "I've never got a 60% in my LIFE!!!" they scream to their friends.
Enter a 4th year student, who quickly looks at the paper, complete with spelling and grammatical errors: "I would have failed you. You got off easy."

Students learn that a 60 in university is like an 85 in high school.

When applying for a job, does the employer look at transcripts where you guys are? I think that the companies only care that you have the letters by your name.

You know what they call a person who graduated last in medical school? Doctor.

In my family, a C has always been a bad grade. I never got the impression it was becuase my parents thought I was a genius, they enforced it simply because of the numbers. I'm not happy with saying "well, I know 70% of the material." Seventy percent? When did I decide that that other 30% wasn't worthy of me knowing? I'm an all-or-nothing kind of person, and it feels like I've arbitrarily decided not to learn something if I get less than 95%+. I won't even turn in a homework assignment unless its 100% complete, because if I do things, I complete them. I absolutely loath the idea of turning things in that are half-assed or half-complete, and that doesn't (or shouldn't) work in the "real world." Luckily for me, I've always been smart enough that my "best" was good enough or represented a complete understanding.

depends on the level of education. up to college level, a c was a bad grade for me. i wouldn't have been punished for it, but i'd have been ashamed. a's were expected, b's were ok if they were few and far between. that was my personal standard. school was not difficult and i didn't have to work that hard. pretty much just show up and i could get an a. i didn't have to study because book learning came easy to me. all my classes were honor and above. the one time i didn't have an honors class (one wasn't offered, they had phased it out) was for freshman english. the teacher took 4 of us and put us in the back of the room--we had a seperate lesson plan and taught ourselves the material. she answered questions and went over things with us while the rest of the class was doing their busy work. this was awesome--really pushed us to do our best and rather than being spoon-fed information we had to learn it on our own. by far, the absolute best class i've ever taken at any level of education.

then came college. i was preoccupied with the social aspect and grades weren't as important to me. my first semester was a wake-up call and i learned my lesson. i had to attend class and i had to do the homework--no more one or the other. granted, i still didn't bother to study but i could still pull off mostly b's with a few a's and the rare c thrown in for good measure. exception to a&p lab which you didn't get credit for but the tests were impossible, i literally memorized the chapter the night before taking the weekly exams in order to get a's and b's--the fail rate for lab was insane and since it was required (but you didn't get credit for it) we lost a lot of students due to that one. granted, i couldn't tell you half of anything from it since i didn't actually "learn" anything, but my grades were good. i was more forgiving of a c simply because i didn't feel that i needed good grades in college like i did in high school. if i felt i knew the material, i was happy regardless of the grade.

as to what i'd expect of my (non-existent) children--depends on the kid. if they were like me, i'd have high expectations and a c would be bad. if they were like my nephew (who really struggles with school) then i'd be ok with it because i'd know it wasn't for lack of effort.

whether or not a C is a good grade depends on the student. School came pretty easy, and got As with little trouble. I know people in classes wiht me that struggled with a C -

I'm not even sure that it's working to a person's potential, or doing the best they can, that i sthe deciding factor, because I know I didn't work to my 'potential' - I could have actually worked harder but the A's came pretty easily;.

C's aren't bad, if the person tried and got C's then it's not a bad grade, if a person just coasted by and got C's -- then it's not a good grade.

For me, a C is good or bad depending on the situation. For instance, I would happily settle for a C in some of the classes I've taken, simply because of the difficulty of the material or tests. For instance, in the English department here, it's well-known that one professor's C is equivalent to another professor's A, simply because he's such a hard professor and he grades hard.

So there you go.

Like a lot of the members here, if I got a 'C' in middle school or high school, is was basically "eternal damnation destruction rains from the heavens" from my parents. It wasn't even an option. Bs were cutting it close, my parents expected As no matter what, no matter hard the class. I think it helped out a lot too in the long run. So far my GPA is 3.72 at my university, having made only a few Bs and mostly As, no Cs at all. The opportunity was there to make Cs....but I pulled through and made As because of how bad I felt making a C (aftershocks of my parent's ridicule). I've seen a lot of people (in college especially) make Cs because they just don't care enough and weren't ridiculed by their parents to make As. So I consider Cs to be really bad in almost all situations.

I consider Cs to be average, just getting by, basically plain lazy. I was a C student all through grade school. I spent all my time hanging out with my friends and playing video games. I got shitty SAT scores but somehow got into a good state university due to affirmative action. I was chosen to be part of a program for minority students. I felt that I didn't deserve to get into this particular college being opposed to affirmative action but took it as an opportunity to improve myself and get ahead. So I worked my ass off through college. I maintained a 3.5 GPA. I even transferred to another school after my sophomore year with a scholarship to pursue the field I'm currently working in. So looking back I wish I had worked harder in grade school. Maybe it would opened up more opportunities than I already have now. Who knows. Cs aren't bad but they're not great either.

yeah I thought so too....but I couldnt date yet since I wasnt 16 so it wasnt "as bad" as it could have been.

I was allowed 20 minutes worth of phone calls a day....whether I used it all on one call or more was up to me.

I could go out once a month for 3 hours on something not family related.

Needless to say that was the last grade I got that wasnt an A.

Saw it, loved it, laughed like hell.

I'm certainly with you on everything you said.

As a personal standard, a C is a disaster. I expect to always get A's and B's. I won't hate anyone who has more lax standards, but those standards don't work for me.

In primary/seconday school, yes, because there is a ton of busy work that you can earn points on, and most teachers just check off homework, etc. and you get those points. That makes it easier to get a better grade.

In college, I would say that it's an average grade.

Personally, a C is not my best. As an advanced student, I feel that I should and can strive to get higher grade than that.

Sorry, but i think having a curve that is basically majority of hte class = C and the rest have to be filled, etc, is damning...As in, say 6 people get a C, 3 get B and 3 get D, 1 F and 1 A just seems wrong and arbitrary. It also screws up the average for the other classes, etc. By those standards, yo ureally would have only 5% in upper tier of the class, but you would also demand that 5% would be lowest when the least performing person really didn't deserve it. I've known teachers that started out class by saying there would only be 3 A's in a class and everyone else had to fight for their spot on the rest of the chart. It was harsh, arbitrary, and unrealistic and somehow, we ended up with 6 people getting A's..thankfully...

That said, in grad school, a C would almost automatically bar you from graduating..no do-overs, no retakes, nothing, just bam, you got a C, you're going to hell, basically. We weren't competitive with each other for the higher grades, we were just doing the best we could. Fortunately, there was only one C and one D given in my class, both dropped out by next semester..

As I high school student I really wish the points were spread out waaaaaay more. It's stupid, because as others have probably said millions of times, it's dumb having everyone crammed up and making A's look like the average. It should be spread out a LOT more.

That will never happen though :( Just speaking from experience.

Just because the grade was marked at 80% doesn't mean that he's performed better than 80% of the students. I wish, but not the case :(

Heh, and an 80% here is a C+ ..... man, that's NOT fun.

btw, what were the point values for grades mentioned? everything before college broke down as : 0-69=F, 70-76=D, 77-84=C, 85-92=B, 93+=A

College was/is: 0-59=F, 60-69=D, 70-79=C, 80-90=B, 91+=A. Grades have always been a percentage of correct answers given, ie, 15 of 20 questions correct=75=D in highschool, C in college. Essay tests were graded based on the proff's assessment of the student's mastery of the subject given.

Pretty much, grades were given w/out much concern for how 'other' students did in the classroom. pretty cut and dry, really, so i'm not sure where a lot of the "only so many people in this class will get an A" comes from.

I gotta agree, I've never settled for average. I've gotten like, two C's in 4 years of college, and I almost want to retake the classes just to get those C's off my record. I used to be satisfied with B's but I can't stand to see them anymore. I don't consider a C to be an indication that I've mastered the material at all.

You weren't a science major obviously :lol:

In humanities type classes what you state is true, but most science classes (for science majors) are based on the concept of competitive grading. For all the whines about it, I don't have a problem with this sort of system (provided the class size isn't to small).

I agree. If a kid is a D student and gets a C, it's time for celebration and praise. The school where my son goes gives 2 grades for each subject - one for result and one for application/effort. I don't care much about the result. I do care if he hasn't applied himself.

(climbs on soapbox...)The education system is fundamentally flawed in my view. We (society) stream and praise kids according to their results in maths, english, etc, as if academic results are the mark of success. But I don't think they are. Do you really care if your neighbour graduated suma cum laude when he's an inconsiderate @$*&^? What's important in my view is not whether someone gets straight As in everything, but how they contribute and relate to others. Whether it's the thoughtful neighbour who brings your garbage bin in for you, or the person who lets you go before them in the supermarket because you've got 2 items to buy and they've got 20, to the person who dedicates their life helping the disadvantaged, etc. It doesn't take graduating head of your class to do things that make the world a better and more enjoyable place to live.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying academic achievement is unimportant. It is important, but it's not the most important thing in life. I've lived long enough now to realise that discipline and application are more important than talent, and that the brightest ain't necessarily going to be the best. Personally, I think effort should be praised more than results, and that's what I do with my son. You can have great talent and get nowhere if you do nothing with it. But you can really go places with a little talent and lots of work. That's why I praise my son when he gets great marks for effort, and I encourage him to try harder when he doesn't. Of course I realise you get your geniuses when you combine both talent and hard work!

But too many people put too much pressure on their kids to get results, say at maths or whatever, and make them feel it's the end of the world or, worse; that they're losers, when they don't. So if you do that I would encourage you to thing about this...probably 95 percent of jobs don't require maths any more difficult than fractions and percentages - (ie mid-primary school maths). So why make such a fuss about great maths results?

Actually, ustwo, from my dealings with the sciences, poli-sci, comp sci, bio, etc, the grading was just as i stated. The only class i remember having that was based on competitive grading was a photography class.

ah vell

My friend going to a school in france said that he needs to get a 100 out of 200 to graduate and that its dam hard and that only 40-50% of the students make it.

Even in my own experiance grades were to easy to get until i reached Calc. based physics and Calculus 3.

The fact that you put poli-sci in as a science tells me you weren't taking the classes meant for science majors.

Trust me we do things differently.

for that, ustwo, i'm incredibly happy :)


what did you take that was so competitive, if i may ask?

Well for starters my biology 110 class, which is the main core class for pre-med freshman, had about 600 students in it, all graded on a curve. By default some students would fail.

After that EVERY class I had in sciences were graded on a curve like that, physics, chemistry, bio-chem, micro-bio, etc. The classes got smaller and smaller as you moved up due to attrition and specialization, but the curve remained. The only class I took which didn't have a curve was a 500 level genetics class, which was a very small class.

I look around and see stupid people.

Wherever I go.

It annoys me that people so stupid exist.

Then I realize that I am being graded on a curve.

And I thank them for making me look so damn good..... :)

This was something that I learned over the course of time in high school. The American public high school education has become ridiculously easy. I put in hardly any effort, and was able to make an "A" in every class that I took.

Okay, so I may be naturally smarter and, more importantly, more logical than the average bear - but there's nothing that any 'average' kid couldn't succeed in. Basically, to get an A, all one has to do is remember a mediocre amount of information and be able to bullshit a half decent essay.

By my senior year, I realized that I could do practically nothing and get away with it. Between reputation and reasoning sense, I was easily able to ace every class. Those that recieved C's or lower simply weren't trying (the only exception was a photography class - you either had it or you didn't. But then again, the mechanics were a big part of the grade, and anyone can learn mechanics through practice).

Anyway, I would have to postulate that, in America, a "B" is average. Anything below is really poor work. Remember, in high school, most grades are participation and homework completeness. As long as you work, recieving high marks is not difficult.

Fast foward that to college - that can go either way, depending on your major. I majored in Econ, which is mainly a theoretical social science which you either are taking because A) you love it and live to study or B) You're Business Ad. and need it for your major. A's and C's are common.

However, if you're a Bio or Engineering person, a C is about top in your class. If you're an Ed major, you'll be kicked out with less than a 3.5. Go figure.

i'm a total perfectionist. i don't even like taking A-'s, and that's a personality flaw, not a sign of excellence.

i think it really depends on the culture of the school. where i went, it was mostly rubric grading, not curves, and grade inflation was generous if not absurd. As one of the better students there, i expected to get at least 3 A's a term, the last grade usually being outside my major, and up for debate. I think the lowest i got was a B- in Econ.

Wow, C at the top is really harsh. I guess our profs are more generous here. I just got a bachelors in mechanical engineering and needless to say quite a few engineering friends graduated with a 3.7-3.8 GPA.

Throughout our time in college, Cs werent too good. For tough freshmen courses like differential equations, Cs put you in the 50-60 percentile. By the time we started junior courses, Cs put you in the lower 10-25 percentile because a lot of the people you did better than during those freshmen courses have dropped out. In order to take junior courses, people had to have a minimum of 2.5 GPA for your freshmen and sophomore courses. On our system, A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, F=0.

As far as grading goes, I noticed that curving was quite common. If a set quota of As and Bs was not met at the end of the term, a curve was applied until the quota was met. If As and Bs were far exceeded the quota, no action was taken and everyone got what they earned.

The strict curve where the students are graded against a defined set of standards is probably the most fair, because the reward to receive the best grade is available to all and likewise the failure in the worst grade. However, from the standpoint of promoting society, I can see how the bell curve produces better results. As a country, just because one generation of students happened to be of above average aptitude doesn't mean we should let them slide and perform at a lower capacity. The bell curve forces a small percentage to still push themselves to their peek potential which will hopefully lead to the innovations that carry us into the next era.

I'll admit that I was one of those kids that took advantage of the strict curve and just coasted with little effort.

As others have pointed out, grades say as much about the teacher and school policy as it does the student. Some A's are very easy, some C's are very hard.

As I understand it, today grade inflation is so rampant that probably high grades just separate the normal students from the failures. I would think that standardized tests may be a better way of determinating scholastic ability and knowledge.

I got my ass kicked for C's..

As a parent now, as long as I know that my kid did the BEST they could I'm ok with a C...but we would hire a afterschool tutor to help.

As I went through various levels of education, I found that grades really don't mean all that much (unless we're talking about math). To keep it short and sweet - I think a C should be replaced with "you could do better, you know".

If you just take C as average, then C is ok.
If you consider that average is "ok", then it's at least "not bad".
If you want to go through life striving to be "average", then C might be ok for you.
If you are smart enough to get A's and B's, but fail to apply yourself and get a C, that is bad.
If you consider that you will fall behind all the A and B people if you ever want to get into post-graduate studies, then C IS "bad".

Bottom line: I think C is bad because "average" benefits no one. If everyone always settled for average, we'd still be in the bronze age.

C's here are 60-69%, and thus not a very good mark. If they were 70-79%, I could see them as being OK.

I, personally, would consider a B (70-79%) a decent mark, and an A (80+) an excellent one, and that's something that I've applied to myself throughout high school and university (though we always go by percentage grades). C's are for classes I hate, and even then I'm disappointed in myself.

Another "got my ass kicked for a B+" here. And I'm thankful for it. I didn't become a doctor or a lawyer or a .com zillionare but I did learn to bust my ass and do my best. There's a practical benefit too, with scholarships that I earned from being an A student in HS and kept by making As in college, I was able to dramatically reduce the cost of going. My student loan bill was "only" 10k when I graduated but could have been 4x or 5x that. I've known several people who either couldn't get a scholarship or lost it, and ended up with a 50k loan tab by the time they were done. Can you imagine having that debt staring you down while you're looking for your first real job? Scary.

So yeah, whether you agree with it or not, grades matter.

I loved my 1st algorithms class where the test averages were between 30 -40. I was getting B's on some tests with a 38%.

I totally agree with this point. It is a case of able/unable and willing/unwilling. A C may be an A to the individual. However, in the world a C may not be good enought for whatever someone is trying to do. At that point, they need to find a role that works with the C.

In a perfect world, an average grade of C would be just an average grade of C. If the grades were based on reproducable criteria and the tests standardized, then a C on a test would be a C on that test on that day. unfortunately, higher education looks for higher marks and parental expectations are all over the place. I don't think there is an answer as to whether a C is a good mark.

To me it always depended on what class the C was in. I've never been a "math guy". I have always struggled with math (thankfully calculators are allowed in the real world lol). So for me a C in a mat class was just fine. I knew full well that I just wasn't strong in that area.
A C in a history class however was horrible. I usually got A's or B's, and a C meant that I was totally slacking off.

Speaking from my own experience, yes, a C is a horrible grade. My parents didn't rain damnation on me or anything, but the expectations were made quite clear. By the time I got into college, I expected nothing less for myself. My "average" grade was an A. I remember I got a B one time (in a painting class, of all things) and I was so upset I quit school for a year. I hate to think what would have happened if I had got a C. I probably would have figured I was useless as a human being, moved out of town, and got a job at a carwash.