Plus/Minus Grading system?

[texas*princess]

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? )

[Betarulz!]

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?)

[texas*princess]

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.

[carnation]

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.

[texas*princess]

OK.. i'm super worried about this now

[bucutie02]

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

[Dionysus]

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

[sugar and spice]

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.

[AZ-AlphaXi]

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...

[Munchkin03]

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?

[canadajen]

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

[SilverTurtle]

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

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.

[Sistermadly]

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.

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

[MoxieGrrl]

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. 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.

[Kevin]

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

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