Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion What percentage equals an A ??

It's based on the belief that showing up and regurgitating what you've been taught is the best that you can do. It's pretty common in these systems to get 100% for an essay. In these systems where the top grade needs close to perfect scores there is usually a very different grade distribution. There's also a correlation with extra credit, so the stated percentage is often not actually the true percentage.

In my extensive experience an A is not nearly as valuable in the places where you have to get 94% as it is in places where you have to get 75%.

why is there no E?

Anyway I remember in Australia they used to (20 years ago....)
have:
Very low achievement 0 - 30%
low achievement 30 - 50%
pass 50 - 70%
High achievement 70 - 85%
Very high achievement 85 - 100%

I was the proud owner of several VLA scores for calculus. My parents just about threw a party when I got a Low achievement one semester. Funny because now I'm learning calculus for fun

Our independent school in VA:

A+ 98-100
A 93-97
A- 90-92

B+ 87-89
B 83-86
B- 80-82

C+ 77-79
C 73-76
C- 70-72

F Below 70

At my high school (private, Canadian) and all the Canadian universities I've attended, 80%+ was an A.

In my high school graduating class of ~100, only the top 5 students had averages above 90.

To be in the top 1% of the faculty of arts and science as a whole in my undergrad didn't require a 90%+ average. The lower cut-off was around 85% for top 1%, depending on the year.

In the grad schools I attended, a 3.7 GPA (A-) was the approximate minimum threshold for the top 10% of the program.

Mine in NZ were much like that. National exams were often scaled to a bell curve with at 50% mean. I have never met anyone who got 10O% except in something like a lab quiz and multi choice is not commonly used although there may be a section that has it.

Oh we had A+, A, A-, B+,B, B-, C+, D.

Primary schools don't have grades and I am not sure high schools do now as the new system works in ways I don't undestand.

One of the big problems converting my DDs school marks to something understood in the US is that 90% at her school is rare. The best mark in a subject might be in the low 80's. Alternatively she topped a subject one year with 97% and still didn't get an A. The school marking system is unknowable and seemingly quite random. In one year she got a mark in the 50s for Physical Ed and Health despite nearly topping the Health component and having a medical exemption for the physical stuff. Horrible teacher. If you ask questions you get a shrug of the shoulders and a bad reputation!

The true percentage may also be obscured by grade replacement practices as discussed in this old post.

Even crazier at my kids high school, the teacher decides what level is considered an "A." So her biology teacher sets the bar at 92% and up, while her social studies teacher sets it at 90% and up. It's noted on her schedule.

Knute, at least it's noted.

In higher ed, it (IME) isn't standardized at all, nor does it have to be explicitly stated in a lot of institutions-- that is, the faculty member can decide. In fact, if s/he doesn't note it in writing at the start of the term, it can change.

(Yes, I find such tactics fairly deplorable, myself.)

I was a big fan of Moomin's first described practice, and from there, using a straight 90/80/70 percentage-based metric with my own classes. The only part that they found confusing was that I did it on an assignment basis rather than a term-long, cumulative one. So the top score on any one assignment became 100% for that assignment. I let the chips fall where they would with respect to the larger summation of student scores, however.

Generally speaking, this worked to the advantage of students, and I also told them that if they all earned A's, I'd be happy with that. Usually, grades followed a normal distribution anyway, for whatever that is worth. I tracked my stats pretty carefully, and I taught the same service courses a lot, so I had a fair amount of data.

I found that it actively encouraged a positive learning community within a class, and fostered healthy (rather than unhealthy) competition, and it tended to make students much more accepting of their own mistakes since I was telling them at the outset that I wasn't perfect either, and didn't expect to be (because this kind of grading scheme automatically ditches bad questions, since the 'top scorer' probably won't get them right either).

I feel that it is sad that more instructors don't use such a scale, myself. I've never taught a class that someone didn't earn an A in, after all. What was funny was that generally it was not just one student who earned the top marks on assessed items-- it was often a rotating cast of the top 4-6 students in a class of 35 or 40.



DD's high school used a 98 A+, 91 A- scale, and so on.

Our school (high school) uses
A+ 98-100
A 93-97
A- 90-92
B+ 87-89
B 83-86
B- 80-82
C+ 77-79
C 73-76
C- 70-72
D+ 67-69
D 65-66
F <65

Teachers do not enter letter grades, only % grades. The system generates the letter grades. Qualitatively, a C is supposed to mean meeting basic standards, B is proficient, and A is advanced. D basically means you received credit for the course.

And, of course, it's all converted to a 4.0 scale for transcript purposes.

I like HK's system. I had one o-chem prof who graded on a weighted curve, which was good on the midterm for which the class mean was in the lower teens. (I'm proud to say I did just manage to beat the curve!)