English professor only gives out 1 A in the entire class. Ridiculous policy or what?

The best professor I ever had only gave out one A in his class. It wasn't a written policy and he never stated it, but we all pretty much knew the deal. I loved it. It made me work harder. I dk about "fairness." A professor has pretty free range for how he/she teaches his/her class, no?

Josh Hamilton's Addiction wrote:

The best professor I ever had only gave out one A in his class. It wasn't a written policy and he never stated it, but we all pretty much knew the deal. I loved it. It made me work harder. I dk about "fairness." A professor has pretty free range for how he/she teaches his/her class, no?

Yup. And the student is free to skewer him in the evals if he or she chooses.

It's an odd policy but not necessarily ridiculous. What's odd to me is that he'd announce that he gives only a single A. Why not just do that without announcing it but that's his business. I once got an A from a history prof who was known to go years without giving As so that was kind of a hoot. But he never announced that he rarely gave As, he just didn't.

I was a prof myself for many years. There were never any rules or guidelines about grading. If someone felt they'd been given too low a grade they could go to me or to the administration but there really was no way I could have been forced to change a grade so I'm inclined to tell you that you'll be wasting your time complaining especially when the grade is based on something as subjective as a written essay. If you've been getting upwards of 90% of the answers right on objective tests that's one thing but grading papers is a whole other matter.

The whole grading business stinks. I hated it from both sides. The real issue is whether or not you've learned anything and can write a good paper. Your life isn't going to fall apart because you got a B rather than an A in a Russian Literature class. Write your paper and move on.

Listen, there is only one man in the world capable of speaking Russian in English, so quit your bellyaching.

Only 5% of students getting "A"s is very common in the Humanities as it is a more competitive field (job wise in this ultra-utilitarian culture). The 100+200 level classes are more lenient as they are filled with students just looking to get their Gen Eds done. In those classes 15% usually get "A"s.

You, OP, just need to do your best. Stirring the pot will not turn out well in this case. Additionally, you were given the syllabus with the grading expectations before the add/drop date. You not dropping is the equivalent of signing a contract that you agreed to the professor's grading policy. So... good luck with your fight.

A better option is just to go talk with your prof every office hours he has until your paper is well written.

We now have a language filter on letsrun? So silly.

Your professor could be bluffing to try to get you to work harder. I think your best bet is to go to an administrator and ask "Would it be appropriate for a professor to announce they are only giving one A in the course? What happens if they do this?" and see where the conversation goes. This way you do not out the professor and cause potential trouble for you. You also might learn some valuable information as to what to do if the professor decides to grade the class in a weird way.

When I was an undergrad in an upper level science class, the moronic professor decided to give everyone in the class a B+. As the top student this annoyed me. There was another student who left the university 3 weeks into the semester, never took any of the tests or did the homework and he got the same grade as everyone else.

The most valuable lesson I learned from that class was not to be a moron when teaching. I explained exactly how my class was going to be graded. If students wanted to argue for points on papers or tests, I would always listen and never hold it against them.

Speaking as a professor and a former department head:

Grades are not a central part of teaching or learning. As a student, you know what you learned, independent of your grade. As a teacher I have a decent idea of what you do and don't understand, independent of your grade (at least in a small class). The grades exist mainly so that people other than you and me can evaluate how you did in a class.

For that reason, a policy of only giving one A, regardless of the performance of a set of students, is illogical and defeats the purpose of assigning grades at all. For the same reason, grade inflation erodes the usefulness of grades, though this is a little less serious because we all know that a GPA of 2.0 is no longer 'average'. Our interpretation of grades just tracks the inflation.

An instructor who gives all As or no As is presumably trying to make friends (all As) or make a statement (no As). Neither one is particularly helpful to someone who was not in the class but is trying to interpret a transcript. A good professor can make a statement in better ways than by simply refusing to give an A to the best students. And a good instructor does not need to buy good evaluations from students by inflating grades.

I think that you are not likely to influence your professor's policy without speaking to the department head, but I also think that you should speak to the professor first. (Depending on the person's personality... some people are vindictive, but most faculty should be willing to discuss and explain their standards.). If you make no headway, speak to the head. He/she will be probably be interested to know that grading policies are this far out of line with reasonable expectations, and will at a minimum discuss it with the professor. He/she might not change the policy, but will at least be forced to evaluate and explain the reasons for it.

Congrats, you officially win the most ignorant person award on letsrun.

P.S. When you say you're not meaning to "sound condescending" and say exactly what you said; you should of paid more attention in the kind of classes your criticizing.

It is not fair to give only one first place in a track race if others deserve it.

It does make me wonder about all these people who allegedly carry 4.0s. Do they all just cherrypick professors who never have policies like the one the OP mentions?

I suppose it's theoretically possible in math or science majors to get so much undeniably correct that you could actually earn a 4.0. But in literature or history or philosophy or psychology majors....what's the likelihood that EVERY professor is going to think your rantings and scribblings merit an A?

I was major engineering. Most classes gave out 2, maybe 3 A'.s It was based on standard deviations and the cutoff mathematically defined to the hundredth.

However, the liberal arts courses and grading were far easier. Each year, when the Summa Cumm Laude's (misspelled for filter) were announced, about 90% of them were psychology majors. I had to take one of said courses and it was a true cake walk. Don't feel like turning in your paper this week, how about next week or the week after that? In the engineering school work was do at a specific hour, on a specific day, or it was a zero. That's how the real world works folks.

So only one A given out? Tough nuts. You'll still score, find a job some day, and live a happy life. Get over it or pick a new area of study.

another perspective wrote:

Welcome to Wake Forest where one English professor I had gave an A only 5 times in his 27 years. All of the A students went on to be well respected authors in their field of literature.

Is that right to only give one A per class.... No. However, it's better than the professors who hand out A's like candy. I've always thought there should be weighted multiplier for the difficulty of each professor. A weighted multiplier would would bring down the easy A and significantly bring up a difficult B or C. Then a difficult B or C could be worth more than the effortless A where nothing was learned.

can you name the five authors? i really don't feel like googling "potentially famous authors in various fields that graduated from wake forest."

also, how come no jokes yet?

seems like this teacher's polic-a[y] is to give most students a polic-c.

not surprised wrote:

Let me guess. You are part of the entitlement generation (born 1986-present)?

Yep, cause such ruthlessness invariably produces better, superior people. Let the cream rise, filter out the riffraff! Just like how the Soviet Gulags destroyed the weak and left the strong remaining! In fact, America would be a lot better if we embraced Social Darwinism and implemented eugenics.

jk

Well said.

BackBayCoder wrote:

I was major engineering. Most classes gave out 2, maybe 3 A'.s It was based on standard deviations and the cutoff mathematically defined to the hundredth.

However, the liberal arts courses and grading were far easier. Each year, when the Summa Cumm Laude's (misspelled for filter) were announced, about 90% of them were psychology majors. I had to take one of said courses and it was a true cake walk. Don't feel like turning in your paper this week, how about next week or the week after that? In the engineering school work was do at a specific hour, on a specific day, or it was a zero. That's how the real world works folks.

So only one A given out? Tough nuts. You'll still score, find a job some day, and live a happy life. Get over it or pick a new area of study.

The liberal arts classes you took didn't care if you turned in your work? You must have gone to a pretty sh*tty school.

BackBayCoder wrote:

...Summa Cumm Laude's (misspelled for filter)...

What, "cum"? What's the problem?

Or was the filter rejecting "laudes," prompting you to form the plural with an unnecessary apostrophe?

I will be willing to wager that the one person destined to receive an "A" in the class is not posting on Let'sRun.com about the unfairness of the "only one 'A' policy".

Think about it.

This is the problem with subjectively marked subjects. I had a first year English professor that never gave A's to students outside of an English major. It cost me my scholarship.

So you can't beat 19 other people?