1 Grade scale

All letter grades are based on ODU’s 4-pt scale:

All grades for assignments & exams will be recorded as a number on this 4-pt scale. Intermediate values (e.g., 3.5) falling between letter grades are possible. Although 4.0 is the largest value on the official ODU scale, individual grades on assignments, projects, & exams may range as high as 4.5, so that a single grade below A does not make it impossible to achieve an overall A average.

2 Converting raw grades to 4-pt

Scores on assignments and exams will first be converted to a percentage based on the number of points possible on that item.

Scores on project phases are treated as if already a percentage and are capped at the 0..100 range, although the calculations used in those phases can yield raw scores both below 0 and above 100.

Percentages are then mapped to the 4-pt scale as follows:

This mapping is likely not what you are used to. Depending on where you went to primary and high school, you may be used to a “D” being anything over a 60 or 70, an A being anything over $x$ where $x$ could be any number in the range $93\ldots 97$. (Everyone seems to assume that the grade scale they grew up with is the “correct” scale, even though it’s really nothing more than a matter of local tradition. There is no science or even experimental evidence supporting these traditional scales. )

This mapping is based partly on the experience of multiple CS350 instructors over several years. It is also intended to hew fairly closely to the “official” ODU 4-pt scale in the sense of how grades average together.

For example, in the 4-pt scale, suppose you get an “F” in one course. How many “A”’s do you need to get to bring your average back up to a “C”? Just one!

But if you grew up in a school system where a C is a score of 75-80% and you get a zero on one assignment, how many perfect “A”s do you need to get your average back up to a “C”? It could be as many as 5! Frankly, I think that’s ridiculous. Everyone has an occasional bad day, and there should be a possibility to make up for a a bad score or two. (This may also explain why so many other instructors feel compelled to apply grade curves, offer extra credit assignments, free points for activities unrelated to the course, etc. I prefer not to play those games.)

The grade mapping I have set for this class behaves much more like the 4-pt scale when grades are averaged together.

3 Overall Grades