should i appeal my grade?

Question

Class: ISM- computers, Junior level. My 4 test grades are what they are, no problem. The problem is 11% of our grade was based on 11 weekly chapter summaries we handed in. After the first few weeks we noticed that she wasn't grading our assignments. We asked her when they would be graded. She said she like to wait until the end of the semester and do them all at once. We said then how do we know how we're doing, or if we're doing them right. She said they're basically do or don't do. If you do them and cover all the basic topics you'll get 100%. I was pretty confident I had done that since I spent hours doing each one. Now that grades are done, she gave me 90's on most of them. Next problem is the 5% for attendance/class participation. I attended every single class, on time, stayed until the end, while most other students skipped and left early. For participation I am a little shy but spoke a few times when I could knowing that participation counted. I got an 85% in this area.

My final grade is a C+, 78.17. If she had given me 100 % on the 11 summaries and 100% on attendance/participation, I would have an 80 something % for a B-. I’m shocked that this happened. It’s obviously subjective and she is a hard stickler. I’m assuming the appeal process is rarely in the students favor. Should I bother? I truely believe I deserve 100% for these two areas. Also I would need BOTH areas changed for the grade to change. Not just one or the other.

Answer 1

I'm afraid you don't have much of a basis for an appeal. Let's start with participation. Just showing up and speaking occasionally should earn you a C, not 100%. You were lucky to get 85%, which is a B. As far as the chapter summaries went, it sounds like she thought you didn't cover all of the basic topics, but you still got 90%. Neither an 85% or a 90% is a bad grade. In fact, they are much better than the grades you obviously got on the tests. You seem to think that you should have gotten 100% unless you did something wrong, but that is NOT how professors look at grades. Generally, only an outstanding job gets 100%. Furthermore, 15% doesn't make much of a difference on a grade overall. Unless all of your exams were at the very upper edge of whatever grades you got and would have been tipped by almost anything, the difference between an 85% or 90% and 100% won't change the overall grade. It will just annoy the professor, who put a lot of time into the grading.

Answer 2

If you have not discussed this with the professor first I would. If this gets you know where you might want to draft a letter stating your concerns and either meet with the dean of the department or the provost (which I recommend because they are suppose to be the voice of the student). Your chances are very slim but at least you can say you tried. I would be careful though and not get too emotional or pushy because you might end up in a class of hers later. Most professors aren’t vengeful, but there are some after all it’s a human emotion.

Good luck.