Source
r/UCSD•
odwall

The curve for Econ120A was curved down? How common is this?

Dear students,

The following are the grades cutoff:

A+: 100-97

A: 97-95

A-:95-93

B+: 93-90

B: 90-86

B-: 86-82

C+: 82-75

C: 75-70

C-: 70-60

D: 60-50

F: below 50.

Seems pretty crazy, especially since the entire class was composed of 2 midterms and a final worth 50% of your grade. I mean I'm not complaining as I didn't lose a single point, but how common is it for a professor to adjust the grades NOT in favor of the students?

Edit: I may have meant curved up in the title

Posted Dec 12, 2016, 11:26 PM UTC · edited

518
ayejay9225•

That is one cancerous looking grading scale. Do a lot of professors really do this?

13
jakesmith562•

This is not common. Who is the professor?

5
odwallOP•

Prof. Santamaria, he's taught the course once before. The avg on CAPES is a B- for his class.

4
I_Am_TreebeardComputer Science (B.S.)•

It's not a common thing to do, but I had him for 120A and he explicitly says that he gives easier tests than most of the other econ professors. It sucks for the people who miss the cutoff for the A/B, but he even tells the class in advance how he curves too. I don't hold it against him at all.

10
odwallOP•

On the first day of class he did say there would be a curve, but I had no idea it was one like this. Ah that's just too bad, and for the econ department to be doing this of all departments.

1
JennybunnyC•

Maybe the department told him that his grade average was too high and he needs to curve it down? Were the exams easy? They were super easy when I took his econ 120a.

4
odwallOP•

Yeah they were easy, I wouldn't be surprised if a handful more of people got perfect scores as well. Kinda sucks for my peers on the cutoff though.

2
starmiemdComputer Science (B.S.)•

Wow, I've never heard of this. That sounds awful.

5
has4•

econ 1 was the same rip

3
BrokenAlcatraz•

Did she publish final grades? This and Bowers 20A.....

1
has4•

nah the final grades aren't out yet but the grading scale has usually been like this in the past

1
kr583Computer Science (B.S.)•

lol fuck that

1
kid_blue96•

his exams were super easy when i took him for 120a and 120b in fall and winter of 2015-16 school year. The econ department probably forced him to do this

1
like-a-bbas•

Daaamn. So glad I took him last quarter. I got a 93.5 which was an A.

1
seriousYfComputer Science (B.S.)•

This is happened with CSE 103 as well, and it's worse. You need to get at least 100 out of 110 to get an A.

A: 100

A-: 95

B+: 90

B: 85

1
odwallOP•

Thats actually insane, I saw you guys had ten percent EC though. Please tell me the final was really easy sheesh

1
Xephistix•

Average was a D on the final.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
ZechuchitEconomics and Japanese Studies (B.A.)•

I'm surprised no one has said this yet: for the Econ dept. this is basically standard. When I was there, they would say that the department policy was that average in the class was the lowest B-, so if the average was an 80, and you got a 79, you got, at best, a C+. Not sure if this is still true, but for a class like 120A, they probably are operating under this rule.

1