COLLEGE STUDENTS: +/- System
 

Does anyone here in college attend a university that has a +/- system set up?
For example, I go to Xavier University, and they just started the system this year (I am a sophomore).

For those who are unaware, with the current 4.0 GPA scale, they have added a refinement to the grades in the form of A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+......etc.
A = 4.0
A- = 3.66
B+ = 3.33
B = 3.0
B- = 2.66
C+ = 2.33
C = 2.0
C- = 1.66
D+ = 1.33
D = 1.0
D- = .66
F = 0.0

There has been great debate between students, faculty, and administration at every university that offers this system on its implementation. I oppose this decision as I am a science major (Chemistry) where the classes are significantly harder than other major classes, and while there is no A+, not many people in my discipline would be able to achieve the 98+% anyway to get the 4.33.

This semester, I received all B's, 4 of which were minuses and one plus (one minus and the one plus were in my labs which are only 1 credit but cancel each other out). So instead of a 3.0 for the semester, I only got a 2.82.

I was livid when I saw this and was never happy with the decision to begin with, and I can see that I only stand to be hurt by the system (being "punished" for working your ass off to get an A, or a B, and then not even getting the full grade for that class. Bullshit in my opinion.
Thoughts?

my original high school (freshman year only) did the system your school now has. i ended that year with like a 3.4. then i moved, and the school i finished off HS with had the any A is a 4, any B is a 3, etc, system. you know what i learned? i learned that i didn't need to work that hard. why work extra hard for an A or B+ when an A- or B- gets the same GPA?

my college experience was with the +/- system and i think that's the better system.

I don't have a problem with the system myself. The only thing I took issue with in the beginning was that I didn't know what percentage became what letter grade became which GPA. That, and it's a pisser if you get one percent below the next grade up cutoff point (which I do in a regular basis).

i'm going back a few years, but we dealt with absolute marks in university. Not sure if it is still that way, but our standing was based on a mark out of 100, not a GPA.

Our college does this too. There's no A+, which greatly pisses me off. I also think it's bullshit that a B- is below a 3.0 average. <B>Most</B> college students at my school make a C in every class, because most students are average. I think that students who put in above average effort should get above a 3.0. Below a 3.0 is the "uh oh" line, where employers start to wonder about your performance. I remember that I made 4 Bs and an A freshman year and had like a 3.2. I think it should be higher than that.

I'm more fond of the 10-point scale than anything. 90-100 is A-, A. 80-100 is B-, B, B+. In some of my girlfriend's college classes, it's 93-100 is A-, A. I couldn't deal with that. :)

In the harder science classes at my school, the professors are allowed to widen the 10 point gap. Astronomy was easy, but many students had trouble with it, so my professor made 85-100 the A range, and 70-85 the B range.

B- should be 3.0, end of story. The harder classes need to be either widened for each grade category or the GPA scale needs to be tweaked. I pulled off a B- in both stats 1 and stats 2. I tried my best in both of them, yet I received a below-average score, which is supposed to indicate that I put in a below-average amount of effort. BS!!

no A+??? Hmmmm how did my best friend graduate from engineering with a 4.33????

I never cared about grades, didn't care about them in school, don't care about new hires fresh out of college either. They either have the common sense and knowledge to get the job done or they don't.

As a former teacher, I was glad to have the option of pluses and minuses - there were times when work was just a shade below A-level work but really quite good, and deserving of better than a B, and having the A- option kept me from having to be a hardass and dropping the paper a grade. Really, I don't know why we assign point values to letters instead of just working on a straight numerical scale. If you get a 93, it's a 93, not some letter grade that could represent anything between an 89 and a 94.

My university does use the +/- system, but only for appearance at the moment - it doesn't affect your GPA. Starting next fall, they'll add in the different GPAs like the original poster mentioned - but I'll be gone by then, so it won't matter.

I agree with Lurkette though - I prefer the raw numbers, for the most part. However, in certain classes (i.e.: my computer algorithms class), anything above a 79 is an A, so it goes both ways. In that class, I'd rather have the "A" on my transcript than an 85.

I'm taking two classes at the same university - on two recent papers I got a 90. One prof scored it an A+ the other an A. I have no idea what's going on other than I can never settle for less than a B+ in any course.

My school uses absolute marks also, and that's fine by me.

I really don't give a shit how the grading system works... I just try to do my best.

i'm just unhappy of how my cumulative gpa is calculated. It really gives you the incentive to be liked by the prof, and to whine when you get your marks.

to be honest, i think that the grainier a system, the more fair. regardless of the level of work I did, if my result average was an 87, I should be given an 87.

however, plenty contend that a system too specific creates an unhealthy learning environment, and basically gives too much weight to a single digit.

i think the best solution is the +/- system (although at USC, there was no A+, which was a farce).

sorry, but you deserve that 2.82...

>>> Also, on the concept of 'effort'...the most important indicator is not effort, it's results...that's the only way that you can (well) achieve results <<<

It matters a lot when you're in school and right after school and becomes less important as time goes on. In my AP classes in high school (way back when), it was actually 5 for an A, 4 for a B, 3 for a C and so on, since the classes were supposed to be harder. My mom actually moved me to a school where it wasn't so grainy in order to keep my GPA up for college applications.

I have this same problem, although it isn't as bad as it used to be. If I scored anything below an A, I usually freak out or start having heart palpitations of some sort.

My school has a +/- system as well, but no A+. My GPA would be vastly improved if we DID have A+ marks. I think it's unfair to use +/- elsewhere but not have an A+.

We have the same system described by soccerchamp76 at my college [Kalamazoo College].

I ended up with a 2.3 GPA this quarter, because of the grading scale [I received a B-, C+, and C].
The whole grading system doesn't bother me too much and I really do not like learning for the sake of getting the highest grade; so I try not to put too much stock into my grades.
Granted, I've had a few opportunities [extra scholarships, car insurance discount] limited to me because my high school GPA was only 2.8; but I was still able to get in a relatively competitive college because they saw me beyond my grades. Plus, for my current scholarship [from the college] right now, I only have to keep above a 2.0. :)

As Cyn said, I'm banking on the fact that I'll still be able to succeed later on without worrying about grades too much.

However, each teacher interprets the grading system differents for their class. One distinct example I recall was from high school, where we had the +/- system. One Bio teacher, Mr. P, was very difficult, and most kids recieved a C. However, the other one, Mr. C, most kids received an A or B, in the course, since he was much lenient in grading and didn't go into as in depth of the material as Mr. P. When everything is said and done, I got a B+ in mr. c's class and for biology, that's what is on my transcript. Had Mr. P been my teacher, I probably would have received a C or C-. I didn't want to take the subsequent honors chem. course, but had I did, I would have gotten in. But for Mr. P's kids, most kids wouldn't be able to get in with a B+ qualifier. I noticed that the honors chem class was skewed with Mr. C's kids, although a lot of them probably didn't deserve to be in the class.
The above example with honors courses may not best reflect college academia, but in the end, it's about the transcript. And on the transcript, any factor of professor's grading methodology isn't mentioned.

catcha on the flipside,
keyshawn

Hmm, my university doesn't even give letter grades. It's all based on the 4.0 system. And each class has it's own scale, depending on the professor. Like my physiology course, you only needed like a 85% for a 4.0, but in my labor economics I think you needed a 93%. I think the "standard" scale here is:
91%+=4.0
86-90%=3.5
81-85%=3.0
76-80%=2.5
71-75%=2.0
61-70%=1.0
<61%=0.0

I've always liked it. You can get 4's fairly easy with some work, but if you're not careful your grade drops quick.

My school, Colorado State University-Pueblo, did a half assed, chicken shit implementation of +/- grading my last semester there in fall '03. They allowed each individual teacher to choose whether or not to implement it. Of the five classes I took that semester I would have had a B+ in four classes and a B- in one. Of course the four classes I would have had a plus in were classes my teachers did not implement it. The one class I got a B- in was naturally the one the teacher chose to implement it in, so I ended up with less than a 3.0 semester. I'm not opposed to +/- grading, I think there is too big of a gap between an 89 percent B that just missed being an A, and a 70 percent C that just missed being a D to only have one point separating them, but it has to be fairly implemented across the school, not just an option.

Okay, this is the same issue that came up in the thread about "C is a bad mark, blah blah". No, 3.0 is not average. 3.0 is above average. Average is somewhere around 2.5. I'm guessing your B- translated into a 2.7, which is still above average (if only slightly). Since the Cs are meant to denote averageness, I see no problem with the marks you got.

If you're really concerned with your GPA as far as jobs are concerned, just don't put your GPA on your resume.

At my University, they do not use a +/- system. I just graduated a week ago, and looking back, my grades "worked themselves out" as to where my cumulative GPA was not hurt by the absence of a +/- system. For example, I received several B+'s and was disappointed at the time that they each only counted as a 3.0. However, I also earned several A-'s and received a 4.0 for each of those.

In theory, I think a +/- system is more fair, but I understand how those with difficult, science related majors are at a disadvantage in comparison to the general student population.

At the University where I'll be teaching starting in January, grading uses the +/- system, but with no A+ and with no D-.

As an instructor, I much prefer to have +/- available to me to allow for finer gradations between and among performance levels. That student just barely making the cutoff for the A range at 92 shouldn't, IMO, be getting the same grade as the student with the 98. Likewise, it makes those borderline cases a little easier; the student scoring a 91 and just barely missing the A isn't getting dinked a full grade point because of that.

Gilda

At our university the marking works as follows:

90%+ A+
80%+ A
70%+ A-
60%+ B - refined as 60-63, 64-65, 67-69
50%+ C - refined as 50-53, 54-55, 57-59
40%+ D
< 40% fails
<20% fail with distinction (H)

The 40-70% is fairly linearly marked, the bottom section is fairly logarithmic and the 70+ is exponential, from our marking guides:

80%+ Student shows knowledge well beyond the level of the course and applies that knowledge correctly to the situation.

90%+ Student shows knowledge far beyond the level of the course, likely involving individual research, and applies that knowledge correctly.

The highest mark I have seen from anyone is an 89%...

hahahahh :lol:

Like many others my university doesn't have an A+ the highest point-wise you can get is a 4.0 unless you take graduate courses there you can get an A+ or higher than 4.0. The way they grade in my school is by multiplying the amount of credits the course is worth by the equivalent point conversion of your letter grade. and dividing by the amount of credits you take.
A 4.0
A- 3.7
B+ 3.3
B 3.0
B- 2.7 etc.
For example you have a class that is worth 3 credits and you get a B, and you have another class that is 4 credits and you get an A , so ((3 * 3.3)+(4*4)) and divide by 7, and you get your GPA as 3.7. Anyway I don't mind it, I’ve always had a similar +- system even in high school.
I think that the material you learn in a course would have to be standardized before you could use the percentage such as 88 or 94 etc. as a grade. The letter grades are a way to equalize, a number grade would be too specific, the same general class in a university differs from section to section in easiness and grading .

How about giving decimal grades instead of letter grades? At my university, I feel like i'm getting ripped off in grade. 93-100 is A, which is 4.0, 90-92 is A-, 3.7 and so on. On some of the class, i got 89%, which is a freaking B+, 3.3. Some University gives decimal grade, in my case, I would get a 3.6 instead of 3.3, what an asshole grading system.

I've had the +/- system since high school, so I'm used to it enough that it doesn't bother me at UCSD.

I'd like to point something out to those who are complaining about no A+ in this system. Including an A+ would but like turning the grades up to 11.

If you assign a value of 4.3 to the A+, that changes the perfect GPA from a 4.0 to a 4.3 and as a result devalues each of the lower grades.

Gilda

NIGEL: No, you’ve seen enough of that one. This is a top to a, you know, what we use on stage, but it’s very...very special because if you can see...
MARTY: Yeah...
NIGEL: ...the numbers all go to eleven. Look...right across the board.
MARTY: Ahh...oh, I see....
NIGEL: Eleven...eleven...eleven....
MARTY: ..and most of these amps go up to ten....
NIGEL: Exactly.
MARTY: Does that mean it’s...louder? Is it any louder?
NIGEL: Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it? It’s not ten. You see, most...most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You’re on ten here...all the way up...all the way up...

4 B's and 1 A means that your average is a little better than a B, so a 3.2 is showing exactly that.

Who is the all-mighty person who is going to decide which classes are "harder" than others? Some people might ace stats but have major problems writing an English paper.

As a teacher, it drives me crazy when someone says that a B- is below average. NO IT'S NOT!! It's above average, by definition. I do not think that grades are necessarily a measure of the amount of effort, either. Sometimes, though, if the effort is there, I will upgrade a student's marks BECAUSE of the effort. Is that fair to everyone in the class?

Bottom line... you choose your school. If a +/- system doesn't work for you, you have the option of going to another institution. ;)

YES. I hate it when my freshman roommate would bitch about how much harder his Bio classes were than my history classes. We spent the same about of time both in and out of class.

He thought that he ought to be getting better grades than me b/c he was a bio major and i was a history major.

At my university, professors may opt to use the +/- system, or not. But, the university itself does not recognize a GPA higher than 4.0. Seems strange to me that the system is optional . . .?

I've heard good arguments both for and against the +/- system. IMOE, last semester I worked my butt off in Brief Calculus to try for an A. Ended up earning 88 in the class, just short of an A. This professor does not use +/-, so I ended up with a B, plain ol' B. Then this semester, I was working for an A in a class and earned an A-. I would have much rather gotten a plain ol' A.

In many years of college, B is the lowest grade I've earned. I figured, I'm there because I want to be, so I might as well do my very best.

Then again, there's the saying that "C's earn degrees." In the real working world, how much difference does GPA really make? It may be used as a weeding-out factor when there are tons of applicants for a small number of positions. However, I've met plenty of people who do not do well in school, and they are much smarter than people with stellar GPA's. I know, a little off-topic, but I felt it was worth mentioning.

I'd love to see the system gone. Since I have been at SDSU I have never had one + all minuses or straight grades...it has really fucked my gpa up

Not exactly. I'm sure other people are in the same boat with me in that I cannot afford to go another school due to the cost of college but that's a topic for another thread.

I personally can deal with a +/- system even though I don't much care for it. Like Lurkette said above it does give teachers more flexibility in assigning grades. I don't think my GPA(a 2.9 cumlative right now) will prevent me from getting a job at all.

I think the really important point about this matter is that, for better or worse, most schools DO use a +/- system, so if Xavier has just implemented it this year, then I think they're a little behind.

As for being pissed off about it because instead of having a 3.0 you have a 2.X, I'm sorry to say it, but, them's the breaks. With this 'new' system (to you) Xavier is actually now more on par with the rest of the country (perhaps continent?), so if you're only getting a 2.X now, it's a more accurate representation of how well you're doing compared to most other students in the country.