Why do Universities and Colleges still use letter grades?

[SBR]

I've never had letter grade. Since about grade 6 I have always been give a % grade. Why do most post secondary schools use letter grades, it essentially rounds peoples marks together. If person A gets an 84 and person B gets an 81 why the hell should they both end up with a A-. It can also screw with averages, if I get a 89 and and two 84s my average should be 85.6 (or an A) however if I were using letter grades my average would be an A- (which works out to an 83). Seems really [censored] stupid to me.

[lippy]

Because everything about academia is based on tradition. Cum laude, etc...

[SUfan5]

Where are you from that an 85 is an A?

[Dave D]

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Where are you from that an 85 is an A?

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah.

Also, umm, because it would be really dumb to try to say that "wow, this essay is really an 84, I don't quite think it's an 85." (Even tho a fair amount of my profs still gave letter grades on essays) Like, 90% of the time you can't really break people down to exact percentage points. Maybe in math/science, and even then, when you get to the higher levels of that it gets subjective in its own way too. Trying to quantify learning/knowledge to that level is just dumb.

No brainer.

What actually is bad, is the schools that don't have minuses/pluses, so everyone gets either an A or a B. That's just going too far.

[RR]

As you advance into higher education you will learn that it makes more sence to place people into groups. A lot of grading is subjective and it makde more sence to have 5 groups (a lot of places just 4) than to have 100 different scores to hand out.

[SBR]

[ QUOTE ]
As you advance into higher education you will learn that it makes more sence to place people into groups. A lot of grading is subjective and it makde more sence to have 5 groups (a lot of places just 4) than to have 100 different scores to hand out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well unless they switch over to letter grades in Grad school (and they don't) this isn't true. I also really don't see the value in have 4 or 5 groups. I mean their is a huge difference between a 90 and a 97. How do you determine who the very best students are?

SUFan5,
85-90 is an A
90+ is an A+
I thought this was fairly standard.

I understand the value for more subjective questions and papers however I don't see why the prof can't just mimic the letter system (i.e. only give out marks in multiples of 5), all the letter system really does is restrict the profs options.

[CrashPat]

[ QUOTE ]
Well unless they switch over to letter grades in Grad school (and they don't) this isn't true. I also really don't see the value in have 4 or 5 groups. I mean their is a huge difference between a 90 and a 97. How do you determine who the very best students are?

SUFan5,
85-90 is an A
90+ is an A+
I thought this was fairly standard.

I understand the value for more subjective questions and papers however I don't see why the prof can't just mimic the letter system (i.e. only give out marks in multiples of 5), all the letter system really does is restrict the profs options.

[/ QUOTE ]

You determine who the best students are through examples of their work, recommendations, and organizations they actively participated in. Breaking them into 30 - 50 groups using a percentile grading system doesn't clarify the situation, I know that I would still initially divide people into 3 or 4 groups anyway.

[benfranklin]

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How do you determine who the very best students are?



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Why do you need to? It's not a game where you need to keep score.

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all the letter system really does is restrict the profs options.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was teaching as a graduate assistant, I never felt constrained by using letter grades. If someone understood the material, they got an "A". If I was grading 2 very good exams, I wouldn't care which was better, and I certainly wouldn't want to have to figure out which was worth a point or two more than the other.

And I would absolutely not want to have to listen to students whining about getting a 93 when they felt that they deserved a 95. What difference does it make?

[ QUOTE ]


Well unless they switch over to letter grades in Grad school (and they don't)

[/ QUOTE ]

When I was in grad school, we got letter grades for our classes and the comprehensive exam were pass/don't pass. And the class grades were usually just A, B, or C. More than a couple of C's and you generally were out of the program.

[Dave D]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
As you advance into higher education you will learn that it makes more sence to place people into groups. A lot of grading is subjective and it makde more sence to have 5 groups (a lot of places just 4) than to have 100 different scores to hand out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well unless they switch over to letter grades in Grad school (and they don't) this isn't true. I also really don't see the value in have 4 or 5 groups. I mean their is a huge difference between a 90 and a 97. How do you determine who the very best students are?

SUFan5,
85-90 is an A
90+ is an A+
I thought this was fairly standard.


[/ QUOTE ]

Definatly not. Standard is the following:

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

Same for Bs, Cs, etc

Again, if you were to start splintering by giving people a 93 at the end of the semester, then employers or whoever WILL start hiring people because someone has A POINT better than someone else. Getting a point better is the definition of subjectivity, so its better to give ranges.

[ QUOTE ]

I understand the value for more subjective questions and papers however I don't see why the prof can't just mimic the letter system (i.e. only give out marks in multiples of 5), all the letter system really does is restrict the profs options.

[/ QUOTE ]

If he mimics the letter system, it's by definition the same thing right?

[Dan.]

lol at A+'s in any post-secondary school.