Favorite student emails

[scamp]

Final Grades: You can submit a request to raise your grade because it would help you. Such a request will cost you 0.5% of your grade. If your request is sufficiently moving, I will bump up your final grade.

Maybe add the detail that the grade bump will be no more than 0.5% of the grade.

I would then love to see how many students make requests. The results would make for a great educational research article.

My prediction to Downer's idea: A flood of requests. It indicates that you are open to persuasion, and, as long as a student knows that a 0.5% penalty won't drop them down into the next grade category, what do they have to lose?

Aster's amendment would probably reduce the flow, since it would only be relevant for the tranche of students near the next grade category. But I'm guessing that it would still produce more responses than anybody wants.

I think Aster was making a joke - if it costs then 0.5% and the most their grade can be bumped is 0.5%, they come out the same.

My colleague in Australia says at their uni the students need to pay a fee (like $20 or something) to have an exam regraded if they have a complaint about their mark. And their grade is as likely to go down as it is to go up on regrade so this isn't a popular option.

[FishProf]

I just posted this on the 'Bang your head" thread, but perhaps it belongs here.

"is there anyway I could possibly get it up to an 87 to boost my grade to a B+ or is there anything that I could do for you before 4 o'clock today."

[Anon1787]

Biology major (probable pre-med) enrolled in what the student seems to have expected was a relatively easy course because my course is just a (non-mathematical) social science course. The student first questioned the calculation of an exam score earlier in the semester having earned only 90%. I was afraid that this student would cause me more heartburn later on, and lo and behold, the student earned a mediocre 78% on the comprehensive final exam, which resulted in a final grade of 'B'.

On Christmas Eve (when grades were first posted on the CMS), the student fired off an email to me because the student finds the grade "difficult to believe" and wants me to double-check my grading. I can look forward to a meeting next semester when the grade grubber will contest every point, but it will be to no avail given the need for a B+ on the final exam to raise the final grade to the A-range. I also looked up the student's other course grades in biology and chemistry this semester and they were all B's. So my class is not going to be the one responsible for the student's difficulty getting accepted to med school.

[Hegemony]

I got the usual spread of opinions, including both "I liked everything in this course except [Certain Text], which was dry as dust and a huge waste of time" and "The real high point of the class was [Certain Text], the rest wasn't so interesting."  I also got both "Class was too hard" and "Class was too easy."  Well, aren't course evaluations useful?

[marshwiggle]

I got the usual spread of opinions, including both "I liked everything in this course except [Certain Text], which was dry as dust and a huge waste of time" and "The real high point of the class was [Certain Text], the rest wasn't so interesting." I also got both "Class was too hard" and "Class was too easy."  Well, aren't course evaluations useful?

If you got about an equal number of both responses, then it indicates that you are hitting about the correct level for the median of the class, which is very useful. The distribution of answers to a questions is useful to know, and in fact sometimes it's the questions with unanimous responses that are giving you less useful information.

[science.expat]

Summarised

Stu - just before Christmas: have been trying to get an answer on <>, can you help me? Name and student number included.

SE - same day: I'll try when the uni re-opens on 6 January. Can you provide me with some more information on the problem?

Stu - next day: name and student number, nothing else

Stu - 3 January: 'a gentle reminder' that you were going to help me with <>

SE - same day: the uni is closed until 6 January

I don't know what she expects me to do in the meantime....

[bopper]

SE:

You know that Uni is closed = I can't do anything.
Does the student?

[science.expat]

SE:

You know that Uni is closed = I can't do anything.
Does the student?

I would hope so, but maybe not...

[the_geneticist]

Got this one:

srry, i was late in the [basketweaving class] and the TA said to email for changing another section class, is there any seats available for me? im sooo sorry i was trying to get a [basket thing needed for lecture] on monday in the section but there is a long line at the bookstore.
[very late student]

They were over an hour late for a lab that starts at 1:00pm.  This was after two emails and an in class announcement that all labs are full and have a waitlist, students need to go to their registered lab on time or they will be dropped from the class.

Follow-up email:

is there any lab I can go to if I'm not on the waitlist. is there any chance I can have any section? what should i do? i really need that class.

[deeply_uncertain]

Missing class

Good evening professor, unfortunately i wasn't able to attend class this week, was there anything important apart from the syllabus that i miss that i wouldn't be able to find online? Thanks and hope to hear from you soon, i am looking forward on this semester with you.

My reply:

My lecture

[Aster]

I have replaced the traditional  first-day "go over the syllabus" name with something with a lot more punch.

Now it's "full class orientation".

The name-change seems to help with first-day attendance.

[apl68]

I have replaced the traditional  first-day "go over the syllabus" name with something with a lot more punch.

Now it's "full class orientation".

The name-change seems to help with first-day attendance.

I suppose students have learned that anything called "orientation" is serious business.

[Wulfenia]

10% of the final grade is for weaving a small basket in a weekly basket-weaving session, it was easy to get some credit for a reasonable try. The students were informed of this in the first lecture, in the first basket-weaving session and near the end of the semester when a third of them had still not woven their basket which made most of them rapidly weave an ugly basket. One student did not (presumably because they were not there to hear the information and the reminders), got 0 credit for the 10% and then wrote me this email:

"I am surprised by the 0 grade in basket-weaving, I know that I never participated in the basket-weaving sessions, but I never thought that I would have 0, and this has really demoralised me, I sincerely ask you, isn't there a possibility that you change the grade ? Because with my grades, my chances of passing this course are low and this grade could lead to problems with my residence permit."

How can they think that it is a good idea telling me that they were surprised to get 0 credit for literally doing 0?

[dr_codex]

10% of the final grade is for weaving a small basket in a weekly basket-weaving session, it was easy to get some credit for a reasonable try. The students were informed of this in the first lecture, in the first basket-weaving session and near the end of the semester when a third of them had still not woven their basket which made most of them rapidly weave an ugly basket. One student did not (presumably because they were not there to hear the information and the reminders), got 0 credit for the 10% and then wrote me this email:

"I am surprised by the 0 grade in basket-weaving, I know that I never participated in the basket-weaving sessions, but I never thought that I would have 0, and this has really demoralised me, I sincerely ask you, isn't there a possibility that you change the grade ? Because with my grades, my chances of passing this course are low and this grade could lead to problems with my residence permit."

How can they think that it is a good idea telling me that they were surprised to get 0 credit for literally doing 0?

Still one of the best lines from The Simpsons, from Ned's hipster parents: "We've tried nothing and we're out of ideas."

Much quoted in my house.

And after Department Meetings.

[Aster]

My University's version of this.

"We give a new name to the the same stuff that we always do and nothing different happens."