Plus/Minus Grading system?
 

I was wondering if anyone's school has the plus/minus grading system in place?

Do you feel it works for you?

A lot of students on my campus were against it, but the university passed it anyway, and now they are spending a WHOLE LOT OF MONEY to move to the new system. (Which is odd.. I thought all the schools in Texas had budget cuts? :p )

IT SUCKS

They instituted it here at Nebraska last year. Basically you get punished across the board, particularly here since before hand they had (+)'s given for like an 89% or real borderline cases that ended up as a 3.5 on transcripts...now a B+ is a 3.33.

I got screwed out of scholarships b/c of the damn (-). I needed a 3.5 GPA to keep them, and under any other grading scale I used I had a 3.5, but under the only one that counted I ended with a 3.41. I wouldn't be so opposed to the system if they had accordingly adjusted the scholarship requirements to the B+ average it had always been. The other thing is that there is no bonus for getting an A+.

It also sucks for people who get all A's but one happens to be an A-, so they don't get a 4.0.

That also sucks they are spending $$$ to implement. (what are they having to spend money on though?)

I can't remember exactly what they were spending the money on... I think it might be something about our current 'technology' doesn't support the plus/minus system.

A lot of the students I spoke with were downright upset the university passed it even though the SGA shot it down.

A lot of upper-level classes require a C in order to pass and take the next classes, and many students fear that if they do bad at the beginning of the semester and work really hard to get the C to pass, they might end up with a C- and have to retake the course, which costs more money, and more time before graduation.

I personally don't like the system because of the reasons you stated, and I think they are planning on implementing it in the next Fall term.

Our school started it and I hate it. Now students are coming to our offices in tears, begging for points. This never happened before--I foresee a rise in cheating as well. The pre-med students will be campaigning for every little half point.

I don't use the minuses and checks unless someone has a 99 or 89, etc.--then I give plusses.

:( OK.. i'm super worried about this now

our school uses the +/- system, and I hate it!!

WTF? This must be a geographical thing. Every school I went to from elementary to college used the +/- grading system.

We had the plus/minus system in Minnesota and I didn't mind it. I was pleasantly surprised with pluses more than I was negatively surprised with minuses. I think that most of the professors tended to use the pluses to reward extra work more than they used the minuses to punish slackers.

I do think, however, that there is often very little difference between an A- and a B+ and that it sucks that such a little difference in effort can make such a big difference in your GPA.

Here at Wisconsin we have the A, AB, B, BC, C grading system and I think that's a nice compromise -- it offers an option for borderline cases without so much possibility of lowering your GPA.

Ahhh a mystery solved. This weekend I was on the campus of Arizona State Univ. and saw signs for student goverment election candidates who promised to do away with the plus/minus grading system. My high school aged son asked what's that and I could only guess at what was going on....

Ain't greek chat wonderful for what you learn...

My school just had a serious controversy about it. We're a little wacky anyway...no required classes outside one's major, even though you do need 30 classes to graduate (4 a semester for 4 years is 32). You can drop classes at any time during the semester, and you have until midsemester to add a class. Plus, you can take any class you want pass/fail. So, when some teachers felt like adding plus/minuses to the grading system would halt grade inflation--that they wouldn't feel pressured to give A/B students A's when they probably deserved A minuses or B pluses, heads got mad pissed. Basically, they decided not to do it, which made us all relieved.

Is all of the UT system doing that? :eek:

up here in the Pacific NW ...
 

The "Plus/Minus" grading system is used at UBC (Vancouver, Canada), as well as at many other post-secondary institutions in Canada. Here is the percentage/mark/GPA value breakdown used here:

Percentage (%) // Letter Grade // GPA value
90-100 // A+ // 4.33
85-89 // A // 4.0
80-84 // A- // 3.67
76-79 // B+ // 3.33
72-75 // B // 3.00
68-71 // B- // 2.67
64-67 // C+ // 2.33
60-63 // C // 2.0
55-59 // C- // 1.67
50-54 // D // 1.00 ?? (not sure)
0-49 // F (fail) // 0.00

During elementary & secondary school, this grading system was not used, at least not in my schools -- around here, grading practices can vary from school to school within the same district.

- Jen:)
AGD alumna

Yeah.. me too. My HS had a horribly tough grading scale.. a 92% was (probably still is) a B+.

My university's seemed easy after that. :p

Plus/minus sucks monkey ***. At my first graduate school, I had a 4.0 GPA. Now I have all As, but since two are just As (not A+) and two are A-, my GPA is 3.67.

Frickin' administration monkeys. :mad:

(edited because I want to give canadajen a shoutout for posting the UBC grading system)

We always had only numbers in high school. (I miss the S, I, & U system of elementary school. Hehehe) At college, you couldn't get an A+, but it started with A, then went down with the minus/no sign/plus system. I didn't mind it because I always got pretty solid A's. :p I think most of the high schools people came from at my college had this same system, because no one ever really mentioned it as a problem or advantage. It just was the way it was.

For those of you who's schools have implemented this:

What was the rationale of administration when they chose this new system?

Our administration didn't give us a rationale :p

Article from January about the +/- system
 

Plus-minus system needs technology
Current system could not handle changes


Lauren Grimm
Intern
January 30, 2003

NT is waiting on new technology to implement a plus-minus grading system.
The university's systems are not up-to-date, so officials are installing new technology, which they plan to have completed in spring 2004.

The installation of the system will cost about $1 million and first year support for the technology will cost $931,762.

Without the update, the proposed grading system cannot be feasibly implemented.

The new student information system will be applied in stages, Dr. David Kesterson, provost and vice president of academic affairs, said.

"We are very, very busy bringing up this new system that could possibly support plus-minus grading if that's what's decided," Dr. Jonelle Harris, associate vice president of student development, said.

The current student information system does not provide the technology necessary for the new grading system.

The student information system includes student records, accounting and financial aid units.

"Our current system is a system we purchased in the 1980s and it's a matter of needing new technology," Harris said.

"We can do more, over time and with new technology, specifically for students."

Once the new student information system is complete, discussion of a possible new plus-minus grading system for students will resume.

The Student Government Association requested the change for the grading system on April 5, 2000 with the intention to help distinguish more clearly the differences in students' academic efforts.

The NT Faculty Senate approved the implementation of the grading system on March 28, 2001 on the grounds that discussions will occur again after the new student information system is put into place.

The provost and the president must again review the possible grading system change at that time. Faculty, staff and students are divided on the issue of a plus-minus grading system, he said.

"I think there are different opinions for the plus-minus system," Harris said.

"I think there is a large group of people that think it reflects student performances better because it's more granular."

NT will be one of the few universities in Texas to use the system if implemented. The majority of Texas universities use a letter grade system, however, but a B+ and a B-, for example, are both recorded as a B and both count as a 3.0.

"Most schools don't use the plus-minus system," said Ben Dearman, assistant registrar.

"However, the plus-minus system is more symbolic of students' performances."

Dearman said University of Texas at Dallas and Texas Tech are two Texas schools currently using a plus-minus system.


*edited to add, the FACULTY SENATE approved the new system..
*also.. isn't ONE MILLION bucks a big price tag?!?! :eek:

Don't fix it if it ain't broke.

It boggles the mind how this could happen amidst budget cuts, etc..

At my husbands college they didn't use the plus/minus system or letter grades. Everything was percentages.

Not entirely sure since I wasn't here when the discussion over the change was made, but part of it was a concern over grade inflation, as well as I read that a lot of Professors, particularly in the more subjective areas of grading wanted to make greater distinctions in quality of work.

In reality the way it's set up, you can find professors who ignore the +/- and use the old system when they report grades...those professors are awesome to find.

They had a plus minus grading system at my school. Sometimes it worked to my advantage, but sometimes not. I just figured every school had plus minus so I never thought about it.

Wow, I've never heard of that... how does that work? or the (+/-) thing for that matter... we simply had A,B,C,D,F ... most profs would break it down on the tens (90,80, 70,60, 50) but sometimes you could find a nice teacher who would slide it down 5 points.

I've also never heard of a GPA going over 4.0... that must get really confusing in transfers..

Basically, an AB is a grade that covers both an A- and a B+. The scale varies from class to class but usually it's something like this:

A 93-100
AB 88-92
B 83-87
BC 78-82
C 70-77
D 60-69
F 0-59

I've never heard of any school other than Wisconsin that uses this system.

GPA-wise it breaks down pretty much like you'd expect:

A 4.0
AB 3.5
B 3.0
BC 2.5
C 2.0

etc.

If it's to show distinction between different levels of quality it's not going to be a valid measure until all or at least the vast majority of schools are doing the same thing. From what I see here there are many systems and the only thing I can see coming from them is making your GPA less competitive in the job market.

Which is why I hate it...Since it's going to hamper me when applying to Med school.

Thanks!! :D ... Lucky (or unlucky!) for me, my undergrad program within Human Kinetics had (and still has) an average of 82%!! Ouch! Definitely affected my class standing with such a high average in such a small class(read: about 25 or so grads/year). My standing ~ we just won't go there! ;)

Oh yeah! ~ Off the topic, I wanted to add two more quick things:

1) a VERY belated welcome to GC from a fellow Canuck! and
2) CONGRATULATIONS on your Alpha Phi membership! FYI: Alpha Phi, Gamma Phi Beta & AGD are all part of the illustrious Syracuse Triad!! YAY US!! :D

Fraternally,

Jen
AGD alumna - DZ chapter '97
UBC

Marquette, like the UW, uses A, AB, B, BC, C, etc. I love it. I got screwed so many times at Plattevile where I was .2% away from an A. Most scholarship students have to maintain a B (3.0) average.

Undergrad: no pluses/minuses. Just ABC/No Credit (like a fail, but it doesn't show up on your transcript). My undergrad didn't calculate GPA.

Grad: Pass Fail: HP/P/LP/F. Most colleges of fine arts/architecture do it this way.

I really wouldn't worry about how to calculate your GPA when applying to graduate schools. I know I had to calculate it differently for each school I was applying to, based on number of credits and which courses they were.

although all i know is the plus/minus system, now that i know different, I HATE IT!

B minuses ruined my GPA and my rank! (both were crappy)

to think, i allllllmost went to a school with no grades (Hampshire College)

University of South Florida-Tampa
 

I know that I have heard plenty of my classmates complain about our plus/minus system. I think we've had it since 2000, which is the year I started college, so by now I'm used to it. The only time it really frustrates me is when I get an A-, this causes you to lose .33 of a GPA point per credit hour. Basically, for a three credit class, you lose .99 of a GPA point total. This really sucks, because in my book, and A is an A and should not cost you an entire GPA point, which can really make or break some students.

Most of my professors have found ways around this...for example some (God bless 'em) refuse to use the minus grades at all...so you only have regular or pluses. Or my personal favorite, they base everything on points, then assign a letter grade based on how many points you've earned over the semester. This tends to work in the students' favor.

Some time around my junior year, my school implemented plus/minus grades. They did a phase-in whereby the pluses and minuses only showed up on your internal transcript, and your GPA was calculated based on the letter grade without the modifier. It wasn't too bad - you felt good about the + grades, but not so bad about the - grades because the external transcript would only show a plain B or whatever.

The faculty had also discussed an A/AB/B/BC/etc grading system.

Most students had wanted to keep the plain A/B/C/D/F system.

The other thing they changed was that your entire freshman year used to be pass/no record, now it's just first semester. (Get a C or above and you pass; get a D or F and there's no record that you even took the course. This meant you didn't have a GPA until the middle of sophomore year - or, now, the end of freshman year. During recruitment, we used the number of "pass" credits to determine who had sufficient grades to receive a bid.)

at Towson we use the plus/minus system, but it is not manditory. some departments require the use of it, but some leave it up to the individual professors. many professors don't use the C- (becuase in your major and some core reqs. you need a 2.0 to pass). i think the + are good ;) but im not such a fan of the -. I have actually had many professors do that.... it's kinda nice, but then they're less likely to curve. :p

HATE IT!

UCF switched to the +/- system my junior year. It really kills you to get an A-. I probably would've graduated with a much higher GPA had they not used and minuses.
I think there's a school in Florida (maybe UF?) that uses a plus-only system. That would be awesome!

Hate it!!!!:mad:

An A is an A. I don't see how they can justify taking that away from you. To get knocked down for an A- is ridiculous.

This happened to me in quite a few classes. :mad:

It must be, I have never been to a school that did not use +/-. I thought everyone used it.

-wendi

The Junior college that I attended didn't use Plus Minus.. but my current UNniversity does and it DOES piss me off to lose the points for a B-. I mean I believe that there are shades of grey, and let's be honest... someone who doeesn't earn enough points to get that straight b or b plus probably does deserve some points lost.... but I think they should make it so the scale either doesn't penalize AS much for a "- ",grade or starts at say 3.0 points for a b- and then rewards for straight bs at like 3.3 and b pluses at like 3.5 or something. Because a B is a B and, but when I'm earining what I believe should be the points awarded for a C (2.92 I THINK at my school) for a B- it PISSES ME OFF. Plus I'm sure grad schools look at the system used for calculating GPA... but it makes you less competetive when applying because people coming from a school with another system will automatically have a higher GPA. :(

Ditto to Dionysus and others - every school I've ever gone to used the +/- system. Except perhaps in elementary school where it was s/u (satisfactory/unsatisfactory!) In high school I got one A- (in stupid health class), and that gave me a 3.99999999... instead of a straight 4.0, so I was salutatorian instead of valedictorian :)

Sarah

I know it kills me that there are plus/minus here...my GPA would be so much higher if I didn't have so many A-'s!! Such a pain in my butt...I like though that some professors won't utilize it, but others are all about it.

Today we voted on changing the grading system. Many people at Kutztown are opposed because it will screw up things with financial aid, ie getting a 2.0 to resume their financial aid.

At my old school we had the plus and minus system. One thing I noticed is that some professors just do A, B, C and D. Others are very strict.

I voted opposed today because there wasn't enough information available for it to be worthy, in my eyes. I would like to know if financial aid GPAs would be adjusted accordingly as well as some scholarship GPAs.

Note, I am above a 3.0, and although the grading doesn't concern me, it is very important to those students who rely solely on financial aid to attend college.