Petitioning for Your Grades

[Mitsuki]

I suppose this applies mostly for college students, but have you ever petitioned for your grades because your teacher gave you a grade that you thought was not well-deserving? Were you successful or not?

I just had to do it the first time last night. >.> Well actually, I was ready to go and take it to the school today, but I figured I'd e-mail my art instructor first, and fortunately he responded well within 24 hours. That's surprising. It took him almost 3 weeks to give me my final grade.

But anyway, my e-mail to him went something like this:

Hi Mr. Sagen,

My name is...and I just finished taking your class Art 100C, 11:00 AM. I am writing to ask some questions about my final grade, in which I received a B. Now, normally I'm fine with a B but I am just wondering how you were able to come to that conclusion.

Your Grading System is as follows:

4 Examinations - 80 points each
4 Slide Identifications - 20 points each
4 Art Projects - 50 points each
3 Essays - 100 points each
Class Participation - 100 points


I really think I deserved an A in this class as I really worked hard and made sure that I received an A by studying for each tests. So I will break my grades down...


4 Examinations

78 points for Test 1 (I missed 2 out of 80)
71 points for Test 2 (I missed 9 out of 80)
77 points for Test 3 (I missed 3 out of 80)
78 points for Test 4 (I missed 2 out of 80)

Total: 304 points out of 320 points

I don't know what I got for my Final Test, but I am fairly certain that it was also an A.


Slide Identifications

Slide Test 1 - 21 points
Slide Test 2 - 20 points
Slide Test 3 - 20 points
Slide Test 4 - 20 points

As you can see, all perfect scores.


Art Projects:

We only had 2 Art Projects (unless you are also counting the drawing that we all did in class in the beginning of the semester). I received 80 points for my collage (although I really thought it deserved higher since again, that was a lot of hard work putting the pictures together so that the composition looked nice), and for the other art project that we turned in during the last week of class, we all did not know what we got so this category is a little difficult to determine.

Also, we did not have 4 Art Projects, that I am sure of. It was either 2 or 3, which again, I don't know if you counted the drawings but I thought I heard you say in class that you gave us all scores for that, if I'm not mistaken.


3 Essays

We did not have 3 Essays, you only gave us 2, which I'm sure you already know.

Essay 1 - 80 points. Again, I thought I deserved better than 80. You asked for 3 full pages and I met that requirement. What really puzzles me is that you did not even comment on the essay that would let me know as to why I received that low grade.

Essay 2 - 90 points. This is a little better (although this required a lot more research than the first), and I'm content with this. But again, some feedbacks would be really helpful.


Class Participation

I attended every single class and did not miss any days. I participated in class presentation (although we only had one) and so I am assuming I got 100 points for this category? You had 3/4 of the students skipping class on purpose and missing a lot of days...I was not one of them.


Extra Credit:

I did all of your extra credit, which I believe there were two. I went to Coastline Community College and signed the sheet, and also the art gallery at Cypress as well. (That was around 6 PM I think). So that's 20 points extra credit right there.

------------

So I am very confused as to why I received a B. If you can please explain this, that would be most appreciated. I have ALL my papers to show you for proof if necessary. I just want a grade that I actually worked for. I don't believe in teachers just handing out good grades to students, not at all. That wouldn't be fair. However, I have very good and valid reasons for this e-mail, and I just want a grade that is actually well-deserved. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing back from you.

As you can see I was a little irked. B is not a bad grade, but I knew that B was not my grade. I was up until 2 AM freakin' out and getting all my papers and calculating my grades. >.>

And then I just now got a response from him:

Hi. I calculated your scores at 831 which is a B. I then recalculated finding I had made a mistake. Your actual score is 930. That being an A. I will change your grade shortly. Sorry. Jay Sagen

Yay I got my A!

Funny thing is I had a feeling he was going to give me that grade because I know he messes up a lot. What can you really expect from a 60-70 year old man? >.> He's really old and doesn't know what he's talking about sometimes...

 

[blakstang98]

Wow, you challenged the professor to his grading and you were successful! Glad to hear all the effort panned out! I honestly have never heard of this before, nor have I done so myself. I'm guessing for a 100 level Art class, he probably just assumed you'd be fine with that and graded it like so. In that grading system, the nasty part of that is the 100 points for Class Participation. This is the hidden grade that can be flexed in any way, shape or form possible. Translation? If they don't like you for whatever reason, they can dock you from that part, whereas the other grades are hard numbers and can't be manipulated in any way. I mean, how do you define Class Participation? It can be a number of things ranging from raising your hand when questions are asked to attendence to other things (depending on the class). A grade that doesn't have defined numbers, and with the weight of 100 points out of 1000, a 0 there is 10% of your grade or a whole letter grade. Even with the corrected calculation, it turned out to be a 99 point difference, how much you want to bet he gave you a 0 for participation when it ended up being a 99?

Anyways, enough of my long explaination, awesome to see you got an A! I had never heard of this because, well engineers know how to calculate, as well all grades were based on numbers, so no non-definitive grades. Once you get fully into your major (if you haven't already), you won't experience these kinds of lapses in grading. Best of luck with what you have left in school (if you have anything left )!

 

[Marquis of Granby]

I've never had to do it myself, generally I get the grade I deserve and accept it, but I never have expectations about grades. I think for the majority of the people the amount of work they put in to any particular subject/class will be reflected in their grade; personally I think it's rude to question the judgement of a teacher/lecturer but obviously in your case he DID make a mistake. I don't really know you, but if your teacher hadn't made a mistake you'd look arrogant and big headed, hopefully that's an understandable observation, although when it comes down to it it doesn't really matter how you look to other people I suppose...if you don't ask you don't get.

I dunno about the system over there but our grades and whatnot are checked several times before we actually get them so HOPEFULLY situations like this never occur. Anyway, congratulations on your A.

 

[Mitsuki]

Lol yes I was aware that I looked arrogant there, but I was positive that B was not my grade. That's why I also said in my last statement that I had a valid reason for my e-mail. I wouldn't do it if I wasn't sure. But yeah, petitioning for your grades can sometimes lead to abuse by some students, I suppose. But if you have all your papers and proof and you bring it up to the school, most cases are that you'd probably be successful.

I think what happened was that he still made the total points out of 1,000 points as noted in his Grade System, but the fact that he did not give us 4 Art Projects and 3 Essays is probably what threw the whole grading system off because he might have included those points as well in the final grading.

So in all honesty...I don't know where he pulled that 831 and 930 numbers...because it shouldn't be worth THAT much. I estimated it and it should be around 800-900 I think as the max points, but no higher than that. It's definitely NOT 1,000 because he did not make us do 3 essays and 4 Art Projects. But oh well. Like I said, the guy's a little lost...

And I do understand your point about Class Participation, blakstang. That's such a broad category. We didn't even do anything in class nor did he ask anyone questions...so I don't know how he's determining this as well.

 

[blakstang98]

So in all honesty...I don't know where he pulled that 831 and 930 numbers...because it shouldn't be worth THAT much. I estimated it and it should be around 800-900 I think as the max points, but no higher than that. It's definitely NOT 1,000 because he did not make us do 3 essays and 4 Art Projects. But oh well. Like I said, the guy's a little lost...

With this, I'm sure theres a very good chance that he screwed up just about everyones grades, essentially docking them an entire letter grade. That must suck for the ones that got a D, now they just failed the class because he didn't consider the fact that the grade has to be scaled to reflect the missing essay and projects.

 

[Mitsuki]

Yes exactly my thoughts. =/ But if they were keeping track of their grades and really wanted them changed, they'd do the same thing that I did.

I mean I feel bad that I had to confront him about my grade in such a manner, but thing is, my GPA went down from 4.0 to 3.3 when I got that B this semester and I'm not gonna have it. I'm on my way to the nursing program (although that's still a mile away) and that's my grade, my GPA, and my career he's screwing, even if he did it unintentionally. In the long run it doesn't affect him - it affects me, and if I have to look arrogant and snobbish about it, then so be it. >.> But I don't think I handled it all too bad. =/ I made sure I was polite but still got my point across.

Anyway when I take my science classes, I really have to shoot for A's because the nursing program is very competitive and I really have to watch my GPA. Hopefully my instructors would know what they're doing...

It just irks me that he's pulling numbers out of his ass. And besides, how in the world did he miscalculate 99 points? And okay, even if I did get a B, it would have been a POINT away from an A...not a freakin' B- ! 831 is almost a C! That's wayyyy too low. So this just proves that he clearly did not have the right numbers and when he received my e-mail, he knew he might have gotten in trouble if I had brought it up to the school.

 

[Gingerbread Lesbian]

99 is quite a lot of marks so how do you just not add them? It's basically missing out a whole essay XD I'm glad you got your A though, even if I don't have a clue what any of it means
I don't think you can petition against your grade here, basically if you want it higher then you'll get essays and stuff back with what to include or to change. But the exam boards mark our essays, not the teachers, not that I have coursework in my subjects, but still.

Glad you got your A though!

 

[blakstang98]

Your petition to him was certainly polite, you definitely handled the whole situation very assertively. But yeah, with a fear of you taking the petition to a higher authority, your challenge to him made him grade it correctly.

Especially for a Nursing major, Art 100C is not a major aspect of it, which is probably the reason he figured he could get away with grading you that way, because you wouldn't care. Most, including myself certainly wouldn't care unless it had a major impact on GPA because it doesn't have any impact on the major field.

As far as science goes, I'm sure there are a few science geeks on these forums, myself included, that would be happy to help with science and math issues.