Do you have professors who refuse to give any A's?

[Lady Victoria]

I have a physics prof who's really tough. He doesn't scale and his tests are brutal. The highest grade in the class right now after three tests is a 74. I'm in between a D and a C with a 69.5 basically. We only have three more tests and the final to go and he said he has no trouble giving no A's or B's as final grades. I know he can do whatever he wants, but in your experience do they do that? I always thought profs aimed for the class average at the end of the course to be a C.

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[MossPoh]

He can't really do WHATEVER he wants. If it is hard because the material is hard and they tend to do trickier concepts then it is considered ok. If he is just putting material on so people do crappy and it has no right being on the test there can be formal complaints....very hard to win though. I had a professor that heard the class I was enrolled in at the time was considered an "easy A" so he graded tough without any real reason. We'd turn in a 20 page paper and he'd email us a B back. (which was the highest grades) There were no comments, no reasons, no rubrik...he never even let us see our papers when we were done. That situation the class petitioned and he is actually forbidden to take that class...we were also given the option of retaking it or taking another sections final if we wanted without cost to us.....it took lots of fighting to get it done though...... 3 tests and a final is a lot though. At least where I am...we usually get 2 exams and a final, or in the case of two of my courses one comprehensive exam with multiple "quizzes"....which is german department lingo for an exam.

 

[Mac11]

If its a science subject, study your behind off and do well. Really. Maybe the dudes tests are brutal, but you're not learning anything different from other people; you're just doing it in more depth, faster, or whatever.

I have a problem with my non-science class, where the prof. just doesn't want to give me an A. Just doesn't. It's worse, because in a science class, if you got the problem right, you got it right. Non-science is all mushy, which I hate.

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

I have a physics prof who's really tough. He doesn't scale and his tests are brutal. The highest grade in the class right now after three tests is a 74. I'm in between a D and a C with a 69.5 basically. We only have three more tests and the final to go and he said he has no trouble giving no A's or B's as final grades. I know he can do whatever he wants, but in your experience do they do that? I always thought profs aimed for the class average at the end of the course to be a C.

You get what you deserve, he cant change A's to b's. If you earn it you get it. You say the tests are "brutal", i say you dont study hard enough. Itsa all about effort and instead of posting on sdn perhaps you should be studtying for the class. No offense intended just giving my $0.02.

 

[Ginkneephur]

My first semester my ENC 101 professor said that he didn't give out As. I didn't really think he was serious. Anyway, he was. If I had know he was serious I would have switched into another professors class.

 

[Lady Victoria]

You get what you deserve, he cant change A's to b's. If you earn it you get it. You say the tests are "brutal", i say you dont study hard enough. Itsa all about effort and instead of posting on sdn perhaps you should be studtying for the class. No offense intended just giving my $0.02.

You know what? That isn't helpful at all. I have the second highest grade in a class of 93 people. We had more, but most dropped. I study my butt off for that class. I do problems every night. I'm in a study group with the guy who has the highest grade and he and I study together all the time. We spent 12 hours studying, not gossiping or chatting or talking, just studying for the last exam and he got a 75 and I got a 73. We had the two highest grades. So all 93 of us don't study? This Physics for science majors and most of us are NOT slackers. We study our butts off because we're all into pre-med, pre-pharm, pre-dent, engineering, and whatever else.

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course? I ask because I've heard of classes where the profs scale at the end of the semester so that the class average is in the 70's. This is usually in Org. Chem. from what I've heard. I just think that when 50 out of 93 people have an F average, there's something to be said about the prof, not necessarily the students.

 

[GujuMD]

my neuroscience prof was anti-pre-med. and his tests were really hard and he rarely gave A's. he thinks that pre-med are always wanting A's..so a way to stop pre-meds from taking his course was to give less A's. but i knew a lot of neuroscience majors in my schools who were also pre-meds and have to take that class because of their major requirements.

 

[Cirrus83]

You know what? That isn't helpful at all. I have the second highest grade in a class of 93 people. We had more, but most dropped. I study my butt off for that class. I do problems every night. I'm in a study group with the guy who has the highest grade and he and I study together all the time. We spent 12 hours studying, not gossiping or chatting or talking, just studying for the last exam and he got a 75 and I got a 73. We had the two highest grades. So all 93 of us don't study? This Physics for science majors and most of us are NOT slackers. We study our butts off because we're all into pre-med, pre-pharm, pre-dent, engineering, and whatever else.

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course? I ask because I've heard of classes where the profs scale at the end of the semester so that the class average is in the 70's. This is usually in Org. Chem. from what I've heard. I just think that when 50 out of 93 people have an F average, there's something to be said about the prof, not necessarily the students.

It's possible but that would make your professor a humongous a-hole. Why don't you just go make an appointment to go see your professor and talk with him 1 on 1. And just explain that you're trying to go to med school and you've been studying super hard for his exams-point out the fact that you're #2 in his class or whatever. Just be honest and ask if he really doesn't give out A's. If he responds by being a complete jerkwad and saying that if you want that A you should get a 95 or whatever, I would assume he's serious about not giving A's. And I would promptly drop this idiot's class and go take physics either with another professor or even at another school over the summer (I took physics over the summer at SUNY Stony Brook and got an A for everything). Better than having this idiot wreck your science GPA.

However, most likely your professor won't respond by being a total a-hole and will explain that you can still get an A or a B+ or something. You'll have to be the judge of what it seems like you'll be getting.

Oh and you should check a professor rating website to see what sort of grades he's given out in the past-or just ask the older kids on campus.

Seriously why are you even asking us this question-most of this stuff is common sense

 

[Sol Rosenberg]

It's the professor's perrogative about whether or not to scale/curve a course, obviously. To answer your question, I've never had a class where when situations like the one you are describing have happened, the prof. didn't scale grades at the end, but again, it's the professor's perrogative. That's why resources like pickaprof.com are so valuable, because I steer away from profs like the one you are describing (the devil's advocate might say that I am taking the easy way out by doing so, but draconic grading policies don't help me to learn the material any better.)

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

You know what? That isn't helpful at all. I have the second highest grade in a class of 93 people. We had more, but most dropped. I study my butt off for that class. I do problems every night. I'm in a study group with the guy who has the highest grade and he and I study together all the time. We spent 12 hours studying, not gossiping or chatting or talking, just studying for the last exam and he got a 75 and I got a 73. We had the two highest grades. So all 93 of us don't study? This Physics for science majors and most of us are NOT slackers. We study our butts off because we're all into pre-med, pre-pharm, pre-dent, engineering, and whatever else.

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course? I ask because I've heard of classes where the profs scale at the end of the semester so that the class average is in the 70's. This is usually in Org. Chem. from what I've heard. I just think that when 50 out of 93 people have an F average, there's something to be said about the prof, not necessarily the students.

Perhaps you are just not a physcis person. Think if an english major took genetics, no matter how hard they studied (i am taking your word that you study hard, although hard to believe) they would not get an A. If you are studying hard maybe you are like that english major. Maybe stop whining and study for 14 hours instead of 12. Unless you have studied like 24/7 and are still failing should you complain. Sorry to be harsh but i hate people who complain because they are lazy or just dont try hard enough. They say oh i have studied x amount of hours, well study harder if you dont like your grade. Not trying to offend but it bothers. My $0.02

 

[A Tree]

This makes me chuckle-- I was in an upper level chemistry seminar in college that was team taught by one inorganic and one organic prof. There were six people in the class. At the end of the semester we compared notes, and they gave all six of us B's. Granted 3 of us were B+, but still...I actually felt insulted on behalf of the whole group. We worked really hard and I felt like we learned a ton of material really well...apparently not well enough. They taught the class every other year together, and I suppose they could have gone back and compared us to previous classes. So maybe compared with the class of, say, 1999, we didn't do so hot on the final.

Anyway, maybe have a chat with an advisor, or another professor as well. Or get a tutor. He can't be writing exams that are IMPOSSIBLE...difficult yes...try to beat him at his own game. That would probably piss him off more (ego trip and all)

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

This makes me chuckle-- I was in an upper level chemistry seminar in college that was team taught by one inorganic and one organic prof. There were six people in the class. At the end of the semester we compared notes, and they gave all six of us B's. Granted 3 of us were B+, but still...I actually felt insulted on behalf of the whole group. We worked really hard and I felt like we learned a ton of material really well...apparently not well enough. They taught the class every other year together, and I suppose they could have gone back and compared us to previous classes. So maybe compared with the class of, say, 1999, we didn't do so hot on the final.

Anyway, maybe have a chat with an advisor, or another professor as well. Or get a tutor. He can't be writing exams that are IMPOSSIBLE...difficult yes...try to beat him at his own game. That would probably piss him off more (ego trip and all)

Thank you finally someone who understands where i am coming from. Kudos.

 

[ssquared]

I would go and talk to the professor one-on-one about your concerns, but I don't know how much it'll help to tell him that you want an A in his class. Professors hate that. Most hate pre-meds anyways because of the grade-grubbers.

And there is the possibility that you don't get physics yet. I studied plenty for physics, but some of the stuff I just didn't get, so it didn't really matter how much I studied or how many problems I did. Physics is more than memorizing formulas; if you don't thoroughly understand the concepts then those equations won't help you.

Also, there are profs that simply don't curve or give A's. It sucks, but it happens. It's a way to thwart grade inflation. If you didn't get an A on the exams, why should you get an A in the class? Effort doesn't count for much in college, it's all about performance.

 

[Rafa]

If you have a digital camera, take a picture of the most recent test and post it here. I'd like to see what kind of problems it has.

 

[abcxyz0123]

what kind of schools do you people go to? i find it hard to believe that if you go to a reputable enough school that they actually would do this. the only places ive heard of professors doing this are in pretty low-tier schools or community colleges, and its understandable why because there has to be some point where you just have to say ok, we can't just hand out a's to the top 15 percent of the class when the top 15 percent are still just slackers or barely understand the material in the first place.

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

what kind of schools do you people go to? i find it hard to believe that if you go to a reputable enough school that they actually would do this. the only places ive heard of professors doing this are in pretty low-tier schools or community colleges, and its understandable why because there has to be some point where you just have to say ok, we can't just hand out a's to the top 15 percent of the class when the top 15 percent are still just slackers or barely understand the material in the first place.

Preach it man!

 

[A Tree]

Incidentally, pre-meds have a VERY bad reputation with science academics. The stereotype is unfortunate. For them, pre-med=grade-grubbing, apathetic to their subject, cheaters, etc. ALthough, there's some truth... I've heard some appalling TAing stories from a friend who went to get a phd at a certain ivy who shall remain nameless.

But med schools' insistence on placing such great importance on GPA breeds the sort of means-to-an-end attitude that basic scientists hate. That's a whole 'nother topic....

 

[ssquared]

what kind of schools do you people go to? i find it hard to believe that if you go to a reputable enough school that they actually would do this. the only places ive heard of professors doing this are in pretty low-tier schools or community colleges, and its understandable why because there has to be some point where you just have to say ok, we can't just hand out a's to the top 15 percent of the class when the top 15 percent are still just slackers or barely understand the material in the first place.

I attend one of the top schools in the country that is in the top 5 for public universities. It's hardly a school for slackers. Rather, we usually have 600 of the entering 1,300 freshmen wanting to be pre-med, so a lot of weeding out must happen. Maybe 80-100 survive to see the process through. The only way they can do that is by simply not giving out a lot (if any) high grades. Although I'm a little bitter about some of the grade-deflation, I don't blame the profs for not giving out a grade that hasn't been earned. If I didn't get an A on my exams, I cannot rightfully expect an A in the class, regardless if the exams were extremely easy or extremely difficult.

 

[Cirrus83]

I would go and talk to the professor one-on-one about your concerns, but I don't know how much it'll help to tell him that you want an A in his class. Professors hate that. Most hate pre-meds anyways because of the grade-grubbers.

Of course you don't come out and just say you want an A, lol.
One time I was having some trouble in a class-with a professor that I really liked btw, so I went and talked with him and explained that I really enjoyed his class and actually was planning on changing my major because of it (this was true btw). And I said that I hadn't done so hot on the last exam and didn't want to suck so bad at my own major lol.

So he gave me some tips about how I should go about developing my next paper, and said I should bring him a draft, etc. And he gave some tips about studying and told me maybe I should ask for other people's notes, etc to beef up whatever I might have missed in my own notes.

And you know what, I ended up doing pretty well in his class (not super well, but decent enough) and he saw me standing around waiting for the bus one day and said that I had done pretty well and whether I was happy with the grade I got on my final paper (an A-) and I said I was. Then he offered me a ride to where I was going (the local CVS pharmacy), and I didn't even have to wait for the bus. He was a pretty kickass professor though, so obviously one shouldn't expect every professor to be that nice.

Anyways, obviously you don't want to come into their office and tell them you're a premed and you need an A-that's just friggin' tactless. Obviously it helps if you're talking from the heart-but here's how I would go about it if it was physics.

Tell the physics professor that you've always been so good at physics-in high school you had A's and such, and always enjoyed it so much-and loved how it explained all these things you had wondered about since you were a little kid, etc. But now you find yourself struggling so hard and still doing so poorly-that you're disappointed in your own performance and whether he has any tips on how you can stop performing so badly on the tests-because you know you're an A physics student and not a C physics student. That should trigger the professor to say something about how you can improve, etc, and give you a clue about what kind of grade they'll be likely to give you.

Seriously...only a complete ***** would walk in there and be like "I need an A cuz I am premed". Obviously, if you actually hated physics your whole life, you'll have to be a pretty good actor to use what I wrote. So if you're not a good actor think of some real reason you actually do feel like you should be doing better and just don't mention the whole premed thing. Maybe just how you've always been very good at the sciences and you're frustrated with how dumb you feel. Or whatever you think the professor would actually respond to.

 

[Cirrus83]

what kind of schools do you people go to? i find it hard to believe that if you go to a reputable enough school that they actually would do this. the only places ive heard of professors doing this are in pretty low-tier schools or community colleges, and its understandable why because there has to be some point where you just have to say ok, we can't just hand out a's to the top 15 percent of the class when the top 15 percent are still just slackers or barely understand the material in the first place.

Wow, you might actually have a point...my mom went to community college and she said almost all the kids in the class were doing horribly on all the tests-so much that the professor was like "I can't believe that you can barely speak english and yet you're doing better than these kids in a writing class". Some professor actually told my mom that after seeing that one test she didn't even need to come to class ever again because she had a guaranteed A in his class-after she was like the only person who even tried to complete the test (apparently a lot of the kids kinda just gave up and left a lot of stuff blank). Funny that my mom had a 3.96GPA at her community college and she really didn't know how to speak english when she first got there-lol. She just took a dictionary around everywhere and read the textbooks by constantly looking up words one by one. I remember her asking me for grammar help whenever she had to type up an essay. Heh.

Anyways, hopefully the OP isn't at a community college where being the top person in the class actually isn't very impressive. If that *is* the case, it might very well be true that the OP is #2 in the class but is really getting C's on tests that you can get an A on. Personally I never found Physics tests to ever be impossible to do well on (since it's more or less just using formulas for everything and doing basic math), so I definitely understand how some people here find it a little unbelievable that nobody in the class can do better than a 73.

OP, post a scan or a photo of your test...and we'll tell you whether you're just being a damn slacker =p

 

[jonathon]

It must suck to go to the schools that most of you go to. I go to a small liberal arts school and we are forced to learn how to think and not be forced to memorize little details about the structure of a protein. Instead we are forced to answer exam questions where there is a picture of a method result for a lab test and we have to explain in detail what has taken place for the result to be what it is. Bascially, my school forces us to understand the big picture and not minute details. People don't really remember minute details but if you can remember the big picture the minute details come to you faster.

 

[Cirrus83]

It must suck to go to the schools that most of you go to. I go to a small liberal arts school and we are forced to learn how to think and not be forced to memorize little details about the structure of a protein. Instead we are forced to answer exam questions where there is a picture of a method result for a lab test and we have to explain in detail what has taken place for the result to be what it is. Bascially, my school forces us to understand the big picture and not minute details. People don't really remember minute details but if you can remember the big picture the minute details come to you faster.

Dude, this is physics...what in the world are you talking about-pretty much all physics requires you to know what's going on in the system and know what you're solving for.

Please get off your high horse about being at a small liberal arts school-my school had massive orgo classes and you'd still have to explain the reaction and what happened on the exams-what does that have to do with how big or small your school is?

Not that my school was huge, but it was mid-sized.

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

It must suck to go to the schools that most of you go to. I go to a small liberal arts school and we are forced to learn how to think and not be forced to memorize little details about the structure of a protein. Instead we are forced to answer exam questions where there is a picture of a method result for a lab test and we have to explain in detail what has taken place for the result to be what it is. Bascially, my school forces us to understand the big picture and not minute details. People don't really remember minute details but if you can remember the big picture the minute details come to you faster.

Wow, sounds pretty easy to get an "A" there. My school required you to know both the "big picture" and "minute" details!

 

[abcxyz0123]

Wow, sounds pretty easy to get an "A" there. My school required you to know both the "big picture" and "minute" details!

haha, exactly.

 

[brbsb]

what kind of schools do you people go to? i find it hard to believe that if you go to a reputable enough school that they actually would do this. the only places ive heard of professors doing this are in pretty low-tier schools or community colleges, and its understandable why because there has to be some point where you just have to say ok, we can't just hand out a's to the top 15 percent of the class when the top 15 percent are still just slackers or barely understand the material in the first place.

I went to DePauw University my freshman year (I'm not there anymore because I hated it) and had two profs who refused to give As to anyone. The exceptions to this rule were generally people whose parents were big donors to the school. I also had a prof who told me that I'd be getting an A in her class if I got a B or better on the final during one of our bi-weekly meetings that she required, then ended up with a B despite getting an A on the final.

Definitely don't miss that place at all.

 

[Stolenspatulas]

i went to duke. i had a few classes that made it ridiculously hard to get As / didnt give As.

Premeds should not take those classes if they dont have to. ha.

 

[spicedmanna]

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course?

I don't know what's considered "normal" procedure or not, but something definitely smells rotten here. There are three likely senarios: a) the class as a whole isn't up to par with the basic material and/or requirements of the class, and he or she is therefore trying to kick your collective asses into the right gear; b) the professor is making a test that is graduate level in nature and beyond the reasonable scope of your class or your collective abilities; c) he or she is genuinely a prick and wants no A's or B's in his or her class.

I've never actually encountered a scenario where a professor flat out (categorically) refuses to give any A's or B's at the end of the class, so you'll have to excuse my genuine disbelief and horror at the thought; that just seems highly irregular and probably improper.

As some have already stated, talk to your professor about your concerns, remembering to be diplomatically honest and genuine. Try to figure out what is going on here with his or her help. If he or she refuses to listen or collaborate with you in performing well in his or her class, and as a class you are all working as hard as humanly possible, then take it up with your academic director or the Dean of the physical sciences department. It is expected that your professor accurately gauges the performance and knowledge of his or her students with assignments and tests, and if you suspect that this is not happening, then you have a definite right to speak up about it to those who can do something. I know I would; there's more than just your future at stake here, and it's more than just pre-meds that are judged by their grades.

I've had some real son-of-a-gun-genuinely-tough classes while doing my post-baccalaureate work. Physics was one of them. Sometimes you just need to keep elevating your own level, even if it means having to learn differential equations (even though it was not a requirement for the class) and learn how to apply Euler's rule to solve a second-order differential equation describing the damped oscillation of RLC circuits. The last time I took calculus was around 10 years ago. If I can overcome a final exam question that asked me to prove how magnetic force and electric force converge when a series of charges in a segment of wire are accelerated close to the speed of light using Einstein's relativity transformation equations, then you can do well in this class. Do what must be done. Period. Then (and only then) after you have tried everything and no resolution is in sight, take it to a higher authority.

My fellow classmates (in the post-baccalaureate program) and I were all very intense people; naturally we had to be since, for many of us, our prior grades were not medical school caliber, so to speak. We all tried as hard as we could to understand the material above and beyond the scope of the class. Many professors took offense to how much some of us whined about grades and about "curving"; most just got annoyed, but I actually had an Organic professor who refused to curve at all because he hated how people ask for curving when their grades sucked as a opposed to when their grades were all good. Naturally this concerned us greatly, when in the second semester nobody broke a high B (he began making the tests much harder to create a more reasonable spread). But he caved pretty quickly enough, and he did eventually curve the class appropriately at the end of the semester. At the end, I'm glad he made his tests as hard as he did; I learned tremendously more by having to continually elevate my own level. Perhaps this is what your professor intends to do.

Oh well. The best of luck.

 

[TimeResonance]

i agree non science profs are the worst for this. I had an english prof who openly said "I dont give A's...well sometimes I do... but you basically have to write it better than I could". I wont go into how im not getting a phd in english and in no stretch of the imagination should I ever be able to write it better than her.On top of that she is the one judging the quality of my writing and im willing to bet she will give herself an edge. If Tennyson himself explained to her everything he meant to convey and did it all in iambic pentameter she would give him a B at best. I feel your pain but at least its science where you have some chance. Study harder. Take it as a lesson like i did. Never again will I stay in a non science class that brags about not giving A's.

 

[Gabby]

Perhaps you are just not a physcis person. Think if an english major took genetics, no matter how hard they studied (i am taking your word that you study hard, although hard to believe) they would not get an A.

I'm a Journalism major and my grade in Genetics at the moment is a 96%, the highest in a class of science majors, so your prejudicial "logic" would be wrong.

I don't know why you take joy in adopting a condescending attitude when people are asking a question that doesn't seem unreasonable (and you've done it on other threads too). The OP didn't ask for your advice on how to make the C an A. The OP asked what's the norm as far as scaling goes.

To the OP, I had a Gen Chem class where only two of us got A's. We genuinely earned them, but if we hadn't, the teacher wouldn't have cared. He gave the grade you got and didn't routinely believe in curves.

 

[Rafa]

i agree non science profs are the worst for this. I had an english prof who openly said "I dont give A's...well sometimes I do... but you basically have to write it better than I could". I wont go into how im not getting a phd in english and in no stretch of the imagination should I ever be able to write it better than her.On top of that she is the one judging the quality of my writing and im willing to bet she will give herself an edge. If Tennyson himself explained to her everything he meant to convey and did it all in iambic pentameter she would give him a B at best. I feel your pain but at least its science where you have some chance. Study harder. Take it as a lesson like i did. Never again will I stay in a non science class that brags about not giving A's.

This is exactly why I'm no longer taking a class with a certain English prof. He's a great guy, but he's one of those 'I want to push you all' guys who begrudges giving A's - especially when he judges you aren't writing up to your potential. Buddy, you don't know WTF my potential is. Hell, I don't know. But I don't appreciate being kept on the A-B border all semester simply because you want us all to do our best. You don't become a better teacher by giving your students lower grades and telling them it's for their own goods - that isn't teaching; it's copping out. A-work deserves an A whether it means giving out ten of them or whether you're having a bad day, week, or month. I agree that the best thing to do would be to get out of the class when you can see the chip on the professor's shoulder through the walls and three floors away. It isn't worth it.

 

[ryandote]

I didn't read all the posts, so I'm sorry if somebody already said this:


When NOBODY in the class can get better than a 74 percent, is it possible that the skill/ability of the professor are being reflected in the score? Students should not be punished for professors who can't teach well, or who can't write tests well.

Note that I am NOT saying this is automatic, but I think that it should definitely be considered.

 

[Nickelpennykid]

Even with a horrible professor, in my experince, you can teach yourself physics out of any college textbook. Like someone else said, define the system, apply the equations (or derive them), plug and chug. There isn't much more to it than that. I took a semester of physics at a small liberal arts college and the second semester at a large state school. No matter where you take it, who teaches it or how hard the tests are, F is always going to equal ma. If your prof sucks, teach it to yourself.

 

[DenmarkDoctor]

Even with a horrible professor, in my experince, you can teach yourself physics out of any college textbook. Like someone else said, define the system, apply the equations (or derive them), plug and chug. There isn't much more to it than that. I took a semester of physics at a small liberal arts college and the second semester at a large state school. No matter where you take it, who teaches it or how hard the tests are, F is always going to equal ma. If your prof sucks, teach it to yourself.

Thats what i did. BTW saying it's because of your teacher is a "cop-out".

 

[Oculus Sinistra]

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course? I ask because I've heard of classes where the profs scale at the end of the semester so that the class average is in the 70's. This is usually in Org. Chem. from what I've heard. I just think that when 50 out of 93 people have an F average, there's something to be said about the prof, not necessarily the students.

Yeah, there's something wrong there. I think professors have to give out at least 1 or 2 A's by order of the institution.

Don't think much can be done about it now outside of talking to someone above your professor about the class status to see if they can step in.

It's incidents like this that have led me to be more and more dependent on websites like www.ratemyprofessors.com (and more recently, the MySpace Rate You Professor).

Sorry to hear

 

[smuwillobrien]

Rate My Professors is a pretty good site, but there are quite a few I've seen - at least at my school - where people knock the professor even though they're pretty nice.

Just do your best - sometimes you run into people who are *****s - just keep going.

 

[Misfit!]

I had a lab instructor once (it was her first semester - and this was at a 'top 5' school, for whatever that matters) who refused to give anyone above a B, literally - and she got fired the next semester because of it. It was completely ridiculous. Just to test it, someone copied another student's lab report from another section, which was given the highest grade (an A, by a well-regarded, notoriously tough professor), turned it in, and our rouge instructor gave her a B-/C+. What a joke.

Don't worry, people like this do exist. Hopefully your school cares enough to weed them out. My parents are both profs, so I hear plenty of stories of new professors who come in and try to prove themselves by being dinguses like that, and then they get fired! haha. Just try to figure out who these people are, if possible, and avoid them.

 

[ryandote]

Even with a horrible professor, in my experince, you can teach yourself physics out of any college textbook. Like someone else said, define the system, apply the equations (or derive them), plug and chug. There isn't much more to it than that. I took a semester of physics at a small liberal arts college and the second semester at a large state school. No matter where you take it, who teaches it or how hard the tests are, F is always going to equal ma. If your prof sucks, teach it to yourself.

I disagree. While F=ma no matter whose class you are in, that is NOT very likely to be a test question. I've had personal experience with a poor professor who taught basic physics fairly well, but whose tests were incredibly dumb. The questions he asked did not make sense until you took them to his office and he explained them. Seriously, he wrote extremely poor questions, and the average score on the first 2 exams was only 60-something. In a class of 150 people at a decent school, something is wrong with a 60 percent average, in this case it was his testing methods, as confirmed by the dean's office. Somebody whined about the tests to the department, and he eventually apologized and explained that he was a grad student teaching his first course.

We're not talking plug and chug stuff here, we're talking extremely complicated story problems that were incredibly poorly written, and taken from sections we hadn't covered yet. In my case, I don't hesitate to say that the low average was much more a component of a poor professor than of dumb students.

my .02$

 

[Nickelpennykid]

I disagree. While F=ma no matter whose class you are in, that is NOT very likely to be a test question. I've had personal experience with a poor professor who taught basic physics fairly well, but whose tests were incredibly dumb. The questions he asked did not make sense until you took them to his office and he explained them. Seriously, he wrote extremely poor questions, and the average score on the first 2 exams was only 60-something. In a class of 150 people at a decent school, something is wrong with a 60 percent average, in this case it was his testing methods, as confirmed by the dean's office. Somebody whined about the tests to the department, and he eventually apologized and explained that he was a grad student teaching his first course.

We're not talking plug and chug stuff here, we're talking extremely complicated story problems that were incredibly poorly written, and taken from sections we hadn't covered yet. In my case, I don't hesitate to say that the low average was much more a component of a poor professor than of dumb students.

my .02$

I understand what you are saying and yes, I am well aware that F=ma is not usually a test question, I only said that to prove a point. Even if he wrote poor exam questions, they can still be solved using basic physics equations and defining the system. For one of my physics semesters I had an absolutly horrible professor and while class was useless, I just taught it to myslef. I am not an above avg pre-med by any means, but most people will agree that you can just teach physics to yourself. Some tests are harder than others, but if they cover the material on the syllabus, it's fair game.

 

[xylem29]

You know what? That isn't helpful at all. I have the second highest grade in a class of 93 people. We had more, but most dropped. I study my butt off for that class. I do problems every night. I'm in a study group with the guy who has the highest grade and he and I study together all the time. We spent 12 hours studying, not gossiping or chatting or talking, just studying for the last exam and he got a 75 and I got a 73. We had the two highest grades. So all 93 of us don't study? This Physics for science majors and most of us are NOT slackers. We study our butts off because we're all into pre-med, pre-pharm, pre-dent, engineering, and whatever else.

My question was, is it normal for a prof to not give any A's or B's at the end of the course? I ask because I've heard of classes where the profs scale at the end of the semester so that the class average is in the 70's. This is usually in Org. Chem. from what I've heard. I just think that when 50 out of 93 people have an F average, there's something to be said about the prof, not necessarily the students.

Yeah, never heard of it. Usually, profs aim to have 69-72 average and they will scall accordingly. It makes no sense - if you teach a class and not one student receives an A, what does that say about you?

And yes - if profs want to, they can write a test that will yield a 55 average and there's no amount of studying you can do to avoid it. If they want to screw you, they will - but this is usually just to f8ck with our heads b/c it works out in the end - just make sure you are around or above the class average. Don't get scared by a screw job test.

 

[Rafa]

Yeah, never heard of it. Usually, profs aim to have 69-72 average and they will scall accordingly. It makes no sense - if you teach a class and not one student receives an A, what does that say about you?

1. Your standards are too high.

or...

2. Your standards are unintelligible.

In either case, change is in order.

 

[baylormed]

Wow, sounds pretty easy to get an "A" there. My school required you to know both the "big picture" and "minute" details!

Careful, you might hit someone with that huge stick up your butt.

 

[Misfit!]

Careful, you might hit someone with that huge stick up your butt.

LOL. I was thinking the same thing

 

[Rafa]

Careful, you might hit someone with that huge stick up your butt.

 

[solitude]

 

[mvenus929]

Incidentally, pre-meds have a VERY bad reputation with science academics.

Oddly enough, pre-meds don't have a good reputation with my history professor this semester. He had everyone stand up and introduce themselves on the first day, including their major, and I was the only biology major, and he immediately asked me if I was going to medical school, and sort of scoffed when I said that I had planned on it. It's not like I'm taking the class for an easy A, nor does it fulfill any gen ed requirements I have. I'm taking it because I'm interested in the subject. All the science professors I've had seem really happy to help.

I've also never been in a class where the grades are curved... you get the grade you earned, end of story. I've heard that the general psych professor at our school doesn't lecture on the material that appears on the quizzes, and the questions on the quizzes are so obscure that it's very difficult to make an A in the class, since the entire grade is based off of 10-25 point quizzes. Unfortunately, he's the only professor that teaches gen psych at our school, and all psych majors are required to take the class, plus the class fulfills gen ed requirements for the rest of us, so a good portion of the student body takes the class.

 

[Wordplay]

Wow, you might actually have a point...my mom went to community college and she said almost all the kids in the class were doing horribly on all the tests-so much that the professor was like "I can't believe that you can barely speak english and yet you're doing better than these kids in a writing class". Some professor actually told my mom that after seeing that one test she didn't even need to come to class ever again because she had a guaranteed A in his class-after she was like the only person who even tried to complete the test (apparently a lot of the kids kinda just gave up and left a lot of stuff blank). Funny that my mom had a 3.96GPA at her community college and she really didn't know how to speak english when she first got there-lol. She just took a dictionary around everywhere and read the textbooks by constantly looking up words one by one. I remember her asking me for grammar help whenever she had to type up an essay. Heh.

Anyways, hopefully the OP isn't at a community college where being the top person in the class actually isn't very impressive. If that *is* the case, it might very well be true that the OP is #2 in the class but is really getting C's on tests that you can get an A on. Personally I never found Physics tests to ever be impossible to do well on (since it's more or less just using formulas for everything and doing basic math), so I definitely understand how some people here find it a little unbelievable that nobody in the class can do better than a 73.

OP, post a scan or a photo of your test...and we'll tell you whether you're just being a damn slacker =p

MADDDDD props to your mom.