Grading Policy

Since Prof. ConLaw took a few minutes to carefully explain BLS' relatively new grading policy, I should clarify a couple misconceptions.

As much as I've been emphasizing class averages, the goal was never to set the mean at or around 3.0 but rather to set the median at 3.0. The difference is huge. The goal was never to keep people from getting D's or F's; the goal was to have the 50th percentile student achieve a 3.0.

To maintain a mean of 3.0, the professor would need to give 3 A's for every F; 2A's for every D; and 1 A for every C.

In a class of 25 without pluses or minuses the grades would have to look something like below to keep a mean of 3.0. In this case the median student would obviously have an A.

A 13
B 5
C 3
D 2
F 2

That being said, Prof. ConLaw has taken a look at all the distributions and the new BLS policy is exactly what the administration intended it to be.