Thursday, May 7, 2009

Final Grades Are Up

I received grades for the third exam from the scantron folks this afternoon, and I have been able to post them (and the lingering extra credit points I have not yet gotten up) along with final grades for the course.

A few notes:

Letter grades are assigned on the basis of the scale in the syllabus, i.e. above 90-A, 80-89-B, etc. I took the liberty of rounding up (so As start at 89.5). I assume that no one will mind.

To calculate your final numerical grade by hand, you must compute a weighted average of the three exams. Exam 1 is 25% of the total. Exam 2 is 35%. Exam 3 is 40%.

If you were in class on Monday and signed in for the relevant extra credit, you have a "y" in the LAST DAY column in the grade book. If you are in this group, I gave an extra half point in rounding for assigning final letter grades (so, an A for an 89, for example). This bumped about 15 up a letter.

I haven't had time to calculate a full grade distribution, but it looks like something around 10% of the class got an A, 35% got a B, 35% got a C, 15% got a D, and about 5% got an F. I'll post more details later.

As a reminder, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act is a federal law that protects the confidentiality of your academic records. I am prohibited by law (and university policy) from communicating with anyone but you (or other approved university personnel) about your grades. I am also prohibited from communicating information about your grades to you via unsecured communications methods (including e-mail) or when I cannot verify your identity (such a a telephone call). So, if you wish to speak with me about your grades, the conversation must be initiated in person. My office hours on Monday (from 8:30-11:00AM) would be an excellent opportunity to do so.