Re: UCLA physics course (non-rant)

[Joel Rauber <Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU>]

Mark (and others),

We have the exact same prose definitions of A,B,C,D,F as you; and here the
definitions are ignored in practice as well.  I may have the statistice
slightly wrong, but I understood at a talk two years ago that the average
graduating GPA at our school was something on the order of 3.4 or 3.5 (I
don't remember precisely) but it was something that I viewed as a student as
being a fairly good graduating GPA, I graduated in 1978 *after* some grade
inflation had already occured and it has just gotten worse.  I was utterly
flabbergasted when I heard this.

I think it would help all concerned if transcripts indicated not only a
students GPA, but also the average graduating GPA for that particular
students major over something like the last 4 or 5 years; I think you have
to average of the most recent N years to make the average meaningful for
those majors that graduate a small number of students.

Joel
> Joel,
>
>         Here at Cal State Fullerton a D means "below average
> performance,
> though passing".  C means "average performance", B "above average"
> performance, and A "outstanding performance"....  And a
> student does need a
> 2.0 gpa to stay in school.
>
>         The problem we have, which led to my rant on
> http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com is that our average
> undergraduate grade
> has been at about 2.6+ for some time now.  In other words, most of our
> student are "above average" even though half of them can't
> pass the ELM
> (bonehead math test) or the English entrance exam (which
> requires them to
> write a coherent sentence).
>
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joel Rauber [mailto:Joel_Rauber@SDSTATE.EDU]
> Sent: Friday, October 08, 1999 1:28 PM
> To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
> Subject: UCLA physics course (non-rant)
>
>
> I checked the on-line syllabus of the infamous UCLA Physics
> 10 course and
> found it interesting that "C" is referred as the minimum
> passing grade.  At
> our university "D" is the minimum passing grade.  We do
> require a 2.0 GPA
> for graduation which does mean for every passing "D" you make
> you must at
> least make an equally weighted "B".  And there are some
> individual grade
> requirements in some majors for some specific courses or set
> of courses.
>
> What is the state of affairs at other institutions in the Phys-L
> community??
>
> Joel Rauber
> Joel_Rauber@sdstate.edu