Any tips for challenging final grades?

[Kasey]

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Hi all, I was wondering if anyone had ever challenged their grades and had it do some good?
I'm a post-bacc student at U. Md COllege Park and was given a D in an elective english. As was most of the class. This is a course taught (and I use the term taught loosely, there wasn't any actual teaching involved, mostly yelling at the students, in fact, well over half the class dropped the course, those of us who stayed did so b/c we would be under full time because of it). The grading was blantantly arbitrary and we didn't actually get anything graded and returned to us until the course was 3/4 over. Obviously, it was a very frustrating experience. So now I've banded together with about half the class that ended up finishing to try to get our grades at least changed to pass/fail.
I personally would hate to have this mark on my record although it probably won't kill me in terms of my future, it certainly ain't pretty and was certainly underdeserved. So I'm wondering if anyone who has been through the process before at any school has any advice?
Thanks guys,
Kris

 

[lola]

have you spoken with the dean of the faculty at your school? perhaps he/she could advise you. is the prof tenured? that sounds like a terrible situation.

 

[nikoo]

sounds like u definitely gotta take this matter up with administration, any teacher that mean does not sound like he could negotiate...

 

[moviefreak]

first, try talking and reasoning out with the prof. if this doesn't work out, perhaps you can try wrting a nice long letter and address it to the prof, the dep't head and the dean. and since as you have said you and remaining students have sort of the same plight, have all of them sign the letter too.

 

[relatively prime]

Yeah, I've had classes like this. Fortunately I saw it coming and nagged the prof about my grade and made it clear that I wouldn't be accepting any old grade he wanted to give me.

Anyway.... first, I'd look at the sylibus (did he give you one?). Read it a few times over and see if there's anything in there he said he would do but hasn't done. If you can't find anything incriminating or if he didn't give you one at all... then try asking him how he calculated your grade. I would put it writing. Explain to him (as politely as possible) why you believe you deserved a better grade. You never know, he might change it. If that doesn't work, go to the dean of the department and explain your situation and hand him/her a copy of the letter you wrote to your professor.

Whatever you do, don't go to anyone higher up until you first talk to your professor... niether your professor or the higher up person will appreciate that.

good luck 🙂

P.s. I'm not doubting that you probably deserved better than a D... but you might want to be honest with yourself... how hard did you work for this class? You should ask yourself these questions b/c you're going to have to defend yourself when the prof or the dean asks you why you deserve a higher grade.

 

[Lavndrrose]

I'll give you the same advice someone on this site gave me once. "Be pushy...very pushy." I was very persistent and it finally worked out in the end. Good luck! 🙂

 

[Kasey]

He's actually not a prof, to the best of my understanding, he's a grad student in the department. And to my understanding, there is a formal grievance procedure but it seems to have a pretty small sucess rate (basically if the teacher refuses they won't do anything). WE're going to set up a meeting first with the teacher and tehn with the chair of the department and then take it to the board essentially, but I've personally never questioned a grade before and am not looking forward to being bashed by this teacher again and am afraid it will get around to others in the department since now I have to take another english course and again, my teachers name isn't on the faculty list which leads me to believe that they're a grad student.
Since I've never done this before, I'm firstly a little worried about losing my temper (normally not a problem, but this course pushed me to the edge, when I saw my grade today my boyfriend took me out to lunch and bought me a couple of killin' games for Play Station and computer which helped 😉 and really don't know how to try to reason with someone who so often lost his temper with us. And how to go to the department chair without sounding insulting to the teacher or like a whiner.
Of course I'm also wondering why grad students are given 200 level courses of their own to teach. But I went to a small conservatory attached to a small liberal arts college for undergrad, so I guess I was sort of pampered (no grad school = no TAs).
Essentially, I don't want to come off as a slandering, hot-tempered bitch but don't know how to not sound like one. I'm hoping out little coalition will help, but it looks as if the system is set up so we can't bring complaints as a group after looking at it more closely.
Sorry for the rant!
And thanks for the help!
-Kris

 

[Neuronix]

It depends on the policy at your institution. At my undergrad (U of Delaware) there is absolutely NO WAY a grade can be changed unless you can prove sexual or racial discrimination (yeah, I'm sure that's possible as a white male). I have tested this twice, with written letters to the professors/chairpeople/deans, and only come out with scornful and rude responses.

 

[NE_Cornhusker1]

Just check out your student rights; http://www.usmh.usmd.edu/Leadership/BoardOfRegents/Bylaws/SectionIII/III100.html

From what you describe you should be able to challenge under section B and D of the student rights.

They (whoever you challenge) will probably contest the scope of timeliness (sect. D) and how specific the grading procedures had to be (sect. B). If the guy didn't return important grades until after P/F and course dropping deadlines you should definitely raise that point. If the guy didn't explain how he was going to grade in his syllabus (the written 'contract' between teacher and student) definitely bust his b@lls over this. Also read the little mission statement on the top of that page. Hope it works. Peace.

 

[LoneCoyote]

We had a weird situation here at U of Arizona with a TA in one of my labs. He started the class grading VERY hard, like 20s on lab reports, then got easy and gave everyone A's on reports. Then at the end of the semester when the class average was a 91 he announced that he was throwing out the standard 90 = A, 80 = B etc. grading system and putting it all on a bell curve. Needless to say we were all pissed. He was a 1st year grad student and I think he had no clue how to grade.

Basically, we all banded together and made it very clear to him that this was not acceptable and that we would appeal the grades. A couple of us read up on the appeal process so we knew what to do once the grades were issued. At first he did not back down but I think he must have asked other TAs because in the end he graded fairly. My advice is to read up on the appeals procedure which should be available in the university course catalog or from the registrar or the office of the dean of your college. That way when you all go into talk to the prof, you can lay out exactly what will happen if the grades are not changed. And I think the large group of upset people will definitely help your case. Good luck.