Does your school publish grade distributions for UG courses?

[chrisski]

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I'm curious if other schools do this. I go to a big state university that publishes the exact number of each letter grade a professor gives, the average gpa of students going into his class, the average GPA students receive in his class. I cannot imagine doing college without it. For example, intro bio has two seperate teachers, one gives 38% of Students an A/A-. The other gives 2% an A/A-. I also learned that both classes take the same final and the students in the easier class do just as well. Point being, without grade distribution I never would have known. Other big public schools in my state do not do this, I am curious if any other schools do.

 

[ThaliaNox]

While I'll admit it would be nice to know flat stats like that before taking a class, most people do know ahead of time who the "hard" and "easy" professors teaching each class are by word of mouth from upperclassmen. It isn't as much of a loss not having the statistics as you might think. In addition, we're both in the dark about professors teaching the course for the first time!

 

[JJMrK]

Isn't that information available on pick-a-prof or rate my professors?

 

[chrisski]

Isn't that information available on pick-a-prof or rate my professors?

Somewhat, but it is often vague and obviously opinionated. Say three people that fail an easy class by a great prof get on and review a professor poorly. That would create an incorrect perception of that professor. Not to say that I don't use RMP. If a professor has a low distribution(i.e. students earn a grade lower than there actual gpa), but I get on and learn that although the professor is hard, they are also very good, I still take the class. Just my 2 cents.

Also, I am referring to a statistical numerical summary of the professor, not merely statements like on RMP.

 

[JJMrK]

Somewhat, but it is often vague and obviously opinionated. Say three people that fail an easy class by a great prof get on and review a professor poorly. That would create an incorrect perception of that professor. Not to say that I don't use RMP. If a professor has a low distribution(i.e. students earn a grade lower than there actual gpa), but I get on and learn that although the professor is hard, they are also very good, I still take the class. Just my 2 cents.

Also, I am referring to a statistical numerical summary of the professor, not merely statements like on RMP.

Yeah, this is available on one of those sites.

 

[ThaliaNox]

While some "statistics" may be available on sites like RMP, there is a ton of report bias. I certainly do not go report my scores for every class, and I doubt anyone else does for every class either. People are far more likely to report bad grades than average or mediocre grades, and I find that favorite professors who teach hard subjects (organic, physics, etc) get blasted, while poor professors who teach little but grade easy get excellent ratings.

 

[chrisski]

All you do is type in _______ University grade distribution into google and it is the first thing that comes up. I have tried this for numerous schools and have yet to find any other that does this.

 

[Tatastrophy]

we don't have that....we have "class comments" which is like ratemyprof but it is also course specific and much much more useful. oh and yea I agree with what someone else said earlier....I know ahead of time if my prob is relatively hard grader or lets you skate on by.

 

[JJMrK]

While some "statistics" may be available on sites like RMP, there is a ton of report bias. I certainly do not go report my scores for every class, and I doubt anyone else does for every class either. People are far more likely to report bad grades than average or mediocre grades, and I find that favorite professors who teach hard subjects (organic, physics, etc) get blasted, while poor professors who teach little but grade easy get excellent ratings.

I'm pretty sure pick-a-prof has grade distributions obtained from schools.

 

[kami333]

The university I am at now publishes average GPA by class and section. It's pretty interesting to see the differences between professors.

 

[chrisski]

I'm pretty sure pick-a-prof has grade distributions obtained from schools.

Interesting. Thanks for the head up. I had never heard about this before, do you find that it provides pretty accurate grade distribution results. Its unfortunate that it costs money.

 

[artx2008]

My school publishes grade distributions.

 

[randombetch]

All the profs (except in the humanities and in large intro courses) have the same grade distribution here.

 

[TaylorMDhopeful]

At my school there were departments that had specific grade distributions for all the classes within the department but not all professors (especially tenured) stuck with it and some professors had their own distributions.