Not directly related to dental, but look at what my university pulls

[1070752]

Marks were released today, and this was sent out to the students:

"The final course marks have been uploaded on ROSI/ACORN. You may be wondering why your mark is lower than expected. I had submitted the original marks and the department denied them because the distribution was skewed (too many As). I was told to adjust and re-submit, which I did by applying a 3% deduction to the final marks. I adjusted the grades as minimally as I could to meet the department's guidelines. The university suggests that only 25% of the final marks should be in the A range, the adjusted marks for our class came out to be in 26%, before adjustment it was much higher. Overall, there is nothing I or you can do to change these adjustments."

Clearly department standards override how hard you worked to get a certain mark.

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[Advance]

Marks were released today, and this was sent out to the students:

"The final course marks have been uploaded on ROSI/ACORN. You may be wondering why your mark is lower than expected. I had submitted the original marks and the department denied them because the distribution was skewed (too many As). I was told to adjust and re-submit, which I did by applying a 3% deduction to the final marks. I adjusted the grades as minimally as I could to meet the department's guidelines. The university suggests that only 25% of the final marks should be in the A range, the adjusted marks for our class came out to be in 26%, before adjustment it was much higher. Overall, there is nothing I or you can do to change these adjustments."

Clearly department standards override how hard you worked to get a certain mark.

This can't be real. lol.

Why would a department LIMIT the amount of A's in a course. I'd be pretty upset if my grade dropped because of it.

 

[1070752]

This can't be real. lol.

Why would a department LIMIT the amount of A's in a course. I'd be pretty upset if my grade dropped because of it.

They want to maintain their "reputation" most likely.

 

[JLT223]

Tons of departments do this. You just don't ever hear about it.

 

[Advance]

Tons of departments do this. You just don't ever hear about it.

Wow. I had no idea. I hope this doesn't happen in DS.

 

[1070752]

Tons of departments do this. You just don't ever hear about it.

It's not just one department, our whole school does this.

 

[JLT223]

It's not just one department, our whole school does this.

Well that is terrible and I feel bad for you. I knew of a few at my school that were notorious for it.

 

[zammyd]

Can confirm, there are many many universities that do this.

 

[Advance]

It's not just one department, our whole school does this.

I'm shocked no one has gone to the media or complained about that. If you meet the requirements to get an A in a course you should receive an A. They're messing with people's lives.

 

[frozenicecreamDMD]

i went to a public university in california (UC) and it does this all the time (aka 16%A, 25% B, 35% C, rest are D and F for lower division course) and (25%A, 35%B for upper division). The major reason is to prevent grade inflation and control the average GPA of the whole department at around 2.8 or 2.9. This helps the top students to stand out by just looking at their GPA

however, what the OP complains about is the curve down, if the average is too high and there are too many As, professors/instructors must curve down aka people who get As straight scale (>90 or >93%) wont get As just to meet the distribution

None of many people who attend the universities complains about this even though their universities always do this is because the instructors/professors there curve up. They do this by making the tests super difficult where the average of the class on each test hovers around 50-60%. so when at the end, your total percentage is around 70-75% and you get an A you can't complain.

so undergrad is always "may the curve be forever on your favor" "you always want the average on the exam to be super low so your curved score can be higher"

on the side note, OP, you dont want to attend the school whose average GPA is 3.5 3.6. it reflects badly on the quality of your GPA despite your hard work.

 

[1070752]

i went to a public university in california (UC) and it does this all the time (aka 16%A, 25% B, 35% C, rest are D and F for lower division course) and (25%A, 35%B for upper division). The major reason is to prevent grade inflation and control the average GPA of the whole department at around 2.8 or 2.9. This helps the top students to stand out by just looking at their GPA

however, what the OP complains about is the curve down, if the average is too high and there are too many As, professors/instructors must curve down aka people who get As straight scale (>90 or >93%) wont get As just to meet the distribution

None of many people who attend the universities complains about this even though their universities always do this is because the instructors/professors there curve up. They do this by making the tests super difficult where the average of the class on each test hovers around 50-60%. so when at the end, your total percentage is around 70-75% and you get an A you can't complain.

so undergrad is always "may the curve be forever on your favor" "you always want the average on the exam to be super low so your curved score can be higher"

on the side note, OP, you dont want to attend the school whose average GPA is 3.5 3.6. it reflects badly on the quality of your GPA despite your hard work.

I understand this, but I still don't find it fair (especially if you deserved your grade and you got bumped down from an 3.7 for example to a 3.3, or a 4.0 to a 3.7). It's even worse for those of us that need to maintain high grades in order to get into dental, medical, etc...

It's funny that they need to maintain a 2.0 - 2.7 average GPA (even when the students have earned it).

 

[DC206R]

It's very true like everyone else mention. Larger schools will do this. At U of Washington, the average on most of the science test were ~60% and that would be a 2.7 average. They like to maintain the bell curve so there isn't a whole bunch of A's given out.

 

[nonociceptors]

Meh, at my undergrad it was standard for most of the non-basic science courses to have no more than 15-20% As. This is why I roll my eyes when people say it's just as hard to get GPA X at school Y as it is at school Z.

 

[fogorvostan]

So funny how different college is from grade school. I was told that if I'm the reason any of my seniors don't graduate in June, I won't have a job to come back to.

 

[distressstudent]

i went to a public university in california (UC) and it does this all the time (aka 16%A, 25% B, 35% C, rest are D and F for lower division course) and (25%A, 35%B for upper division). The major reason is to prevent grade inflation and control the average GPA of the whole department at around 2.8 or 2.9. This helps the top students to stand out by just looking at their GPA

however, what the OP complains about is the curve down, if the average is too high and there are too many As, professors/instructors must curve down aka people who get As straight scale (>90 or >93%) wont get As just to meet the distribution

None of many people who attend the universities complains about this even though their universities always do this is because the instructors/professors there curve up. They do this by making the tests super difficult where the average of the class on each test hovers around 50-60%. so when at the end, your total percentage is around 70-75% and you get an A you can't complain.

so undergrad is always "may the curve be forever on your favor" "you always want the average on the exam to be super low so your curved score can be higher"

on the side note, OP, you dont want to attend the school whose average GPA is 3.5 3.6. it reflects badly on the quality of your GPA despite your hard work.

The biology department faculty at my UC makes it very clear to us they will never curve down and only up (because it's written in the syllabus). That's rather nice of them. Some professor occasionally comment that the department heads would give them an ear-full about it, but I dont think there ever has been a case of a professor curving down (even with +50% A s). However, there are known instances of professor overcompensating by handling out too many F for the too many A the previous semester and surprise many students who listened to their upperclassmen's advice : p

 

[LaughingGas]

sounds like UCLA lol

 

[Screwtape]

25% A's?? And you're complaining ?? It was 15% where I went...as with many schools.

 

[Mad Jack]

This can't be real. lol.

Why would a department LIMIT the amount of A's in a course. I'd be pretty upset if my grade dropped because of it.

There's a lot of schools in my state that grade on a curve. Only 20% of students can get As, 30% can get Bs, 30% get Cs, 10% get Ds, and 10% fail. It's pretty crazy.

 

[rokata94]

25% A's?? And you're complaining ?? It was 15% where I went...as with many schools.

Its top 11-12% where I go to school lol. 25% is insanely generous imo.

 

[JLT223]

Its top 11-12% where I go to school lol. 25% is insanely generous imo.

Where exactly did you go to school? 25% is very common

 

[1070752]

Where exactly did you go to school? 25% is very common

He went to Iamlying University.

 

[dyesht]

I'm honestly more shocked they shared this information with you guys lol

 

[hellofuturedentists]

I was under the impression at my university that professors try to make their classes more difficult than they should be so that they won't have to curve down, rather they could curve up. Seems like your prof ****ed up and made the class too easy lol. I did get curved down slightly once. It sucked. But it was also because the professor made the class too easy and the department got mad

 

[whaleofatale]

This can't be real. lol.

Why would a department LIMIT the amount of A's in a course. I'd be pretty upset if my grade dropped because of it.

It's to prevent grade inflation. This is especially common at the Ivy's.

 

[Advance]

Does anyone know if dental schools do this too?
I think at Baylor the grading scale is different 93+ is an A or something but I haven't heard of scaling down before.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[whaleofatale]

Ivy's are known for implementing grade inflation, not preventing it.

Ah sorry, I was thinking backwards! I had a friend at BU in undergrad that reported stuff like this since BU has to compete with Harvard for students. So stupid.

 

[Scumbag_Steve]

.

 

[MahiMahi]

Commonplace at many universities. Happens at mine too.

 

[doc toothache]

Too much spiked KoolAid.

 

[rokata94]

.

 

[super frank]

Ah sorry, I was thinking backwards! I had a friend at BU in undergrad that reported stuff like this since BU has to compete with Harvard for students. So stupid.

Yes, my brother went to BU and always complained about this.

 

[the6kid]

This sounds like a certain University in Ontario!

 

[1070752]

This sounds like a certain University in Ontario!

*cough* u of tears *cough*

 

[darklordzz]

i went to a public university in california (UC) and it does this all the time (aka 16%A, 25% B, 35% C, rest are D and F for lower division course) and (25%A, 35%B for upper division). The major reason is to prevent grade inflation and control the average GPA of the whole department at around 2.8 or 2.9. This helps the top students to stand out by just looking at their GPA

however, what the OP complains about is the curve down, if the average is too high and there are too many As, professors/instructors must curve down aka people who get As straight scale (>90 or >93%) wont get As just to meet the distribution

None of many people who attend the universities complains about this even though their universities always do this is because the instructors/professors there curve up. They do this by making the tests super difficult where the average of the class on each test hovers around 50-60%. so when at the end, your total percentage is around 70-75% and you get an A you can't complain.

so undergrad is always "may the curve be forever on your favor" "you always want the average on the exam to be super low so your curved score can be higher"

on the side note, OP, you dont want to attend the school whose average GPA is 3.5 3.6. it reflects badly on the quality of your GPA despite your hard work.

u make some great points, u always wanna maximize ur gpa so u dont have to do a postBACH. if u get good stats u will be competitive for UNLV dental

 

[FrenchyM.D/D.O]

Marks were released today, and this was sent out to the students:

"The final course marks have been uploaded on ROSI/ACORN. You may be wondering why your mark is lower than expected. I had submitted the original marks and the department denied them because the distribution was skewed (too many As). I was told to adjust and re-submit, which I did by applying a 3% deduction to the final marks. I adjusted the grades as minimally as I could to meet the department's guidelines. The university suggests that only 25% of the final marks should be in the A range, the adjusted marks for our class came out to be in 26%, before adjustment it was much higher. Overall, there is nothing I or you can do to change these adjustments."

Clearly department standards override how hard you worked to get a certain mark.

My school did this!! Only so many students could get an A in a class. 30% I believe.

 

[frozenicecreamDMD]

u make some great points, u always wanna maximize ur gpa so u dont have to do a postBACH. if u get good stats u will be competitive for UNLV dental

I am just curious. Why would you bring up on how I will be competitive at UNLV dental? I didn't mention any school in my post.

 

[bwc]

A lot of STEM departments do this, saying that as much as it sucks, professional and graduate schools (including dental school) are interested in how students rank among their classmates in these courses. That being said, if too many people get A's, then the A grade loses its meaning. When students ask if there exists a mandatory grade distribution, most departments and instructors usually try to deny that this obligation exists. If too many students do too well on an exam, then the subsequent exam is deliberately written to be harder to compensate.

At my school, a lot of engineering classes get this to happen by not defining a grading scale in the first place. At the end of the semester, they don't even tell you what the grade cutoffs are. Otherwise, you can imagine how many people who missed the next grade up by merely a fraction of a percent are going to go in and argue with the instructor...and then if the instructor were to agree to shift the grading scale, the cycle will just be endlessly repeated.

 

[Advance]

A lot of STEM departments do this, saying that as much as it sucks, professional and graduate schools (including dental school) are interested in how students rank among their classmates in these courses. That being said, if too many people get A's, then the A grade loses its meaning. When students ask if there exists a mandatory grade distribution, most departments and instructors usually try to deny that this obligation exists. If too many students do too well on an exam, then the subsequent exam is deliberately written to be harder to compensate.

At my school, a lot of engineering classes get this to happen by not defining a grading scale in the first place. At the end of the semester, they don't even tell you what the grade cutoffs are. Otherwise, you can imagine how many people who missed the next grade up by merely a fraction of a percent are going to go in and argue with the instructor...and then if the instructor were to agree to shift the grading scale, the cycle will just be endlessly repeated.

Here's my thing though.
Maybe when applying for a job or something it's important if you have a GPA higher than average at your UG. As it relates to dental school applications it just seems silly since you're compared to other dental school applicants, not to everyone at your UG.

Either way, i'm glad my school didn't do this.

 

[hellofuturedentists]

Here's my thing though.
Maybe when applying for a job or something it's important if you have a GPA higher than average at your UG. As it relates to dental school applications it just seems silly since you're compared to other dental school applicants, not to everyone at your UG.

Either way, i'm glad my school didn't do this.

Idk. If your undergrad is known to give out As, your GPA won't mean much or look very impressive.

 

[Advance]

Idk. If your undergrad is known to give out As, your GPA won't mean much or look very impressive.

I don't even think my UG publishes the average GPA of current/graduating students, so how would adcoms know?