My slightly irksome feeling that my 99% in Calc 1 is not going to be reflected in my grade made me wonder whether the Rice plus/minus system helped or hurt my GPA compared to the regular 5 grade system UT and Texas State use. I'm assuming the pluses and minuses will basically cancel out, but I got a good number of A+ my junior and senior year, so it's worth testing.
My total GPA using the Rice system: 3.643
Using the UT/Texas State system: 3.635
My last 60 hr GPA using the Rice system: 3.917
Using the UT/Texas State system: 3.836
Some B- early in my Rice career hurt me, but the A+ from the latter part of my career helped me, so that overall, it's a wash. But it does impact the "last 60 hour" GPA that many grad schools like to look at (since they know how ridiculously common a relatively poor showing in the first year or two of college is).
Despite the relatively inconsequential impact on the overall GPA, I still am in favor of the plus and minus system. I think 5 categories of scholastic performance, especially when the bottom 2 are used so infrequently, does not discriminate enough. As a person reviewing someone's transcript, I would like to know, for instance, whether the student got an A+ in statistics or an A-. (I may not give a rat's ass what variety of B she got in German.)
In further fun with my Excel spreadsheet:
If I add in the 9 post-Rice classes I plan to take and get A's in all of them (2 of which I have already finished for A's), my new (UT/TSU-method) total GPA will go up to 3.71 and my last 60 hr GPA will go up to 3.95.
(That damn B+ in public finance that I got my very last semester at Rice will haunt me forever. The B+ I got because I failed to see a required reading on the syllabus and was screwed when I took the final exam that had an essay question on this reading that I was not able to adequately finesse. Argh.)
Now back to studying for my psychology essay test tomorrow. The party never ends.
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4 comments:
I calculated that my GPA was about the same either way. I got a lot of grades of B+ and A-. But my school didn't give out A+'s. And UT is thinking of switching to a +/- grading system that will not include A+. You actually got more than 4.0 grade points for an A+?
With no A+, switching to +/- is going to be very, very bad for people who get straight A's (or almost do).
Rice gives A+, and 4.33 Grade points for it. (It is 4.33, exactly. 3 semester hours gets you 12.99 grade points - if they gave 4 1/3, it would be 13.)
A plus/minus system without an A+ is completely idiotic.
At my school, one of the arguments against +/- is the requirement that students earn a C in coursework in their majors. Apparently a C- wouldn't count and the current head honcho is on the record as saying that he won't accept any grading system that contains a C-. (This doesn't make sense to me. To me, a C- is a variety of C. But this is what I've been told by a semi-reliable source - i.e., a professor.)
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