Math 126 C, Summer 2013: Grades

Grade Weights:

• Final: 30
• Midterm 1: 20
• Midterm 2: 20
• Homework: 15
• Worksheets (attendance): 5
As an example, since the weights add up to 90, the final is 30/90 = 1/3 of your grade. To convert weights to percentages, muliply by 100/90.

Note: You may miss up to 5% of the overall WebAssign points with no harm to your grade. For instance, a 96% and a 99% will both receive the same overall WebAssign score.

GPA Calculation Methodology

Department policy requires the median course GPA to be 2.9 +/- 0.2. The University gives guidelines for GPA distributions. With these in mind, I calculate GPA's as follows.

1. Convert raw points to overall percentages.
2. Compute the median percentage. This grade will get assigned a 2.9 +/- 0.2 GPA, depending on how strong the class seems to be.
3. Determine 4.0 GPA cutoff so the top few students per section get a 4.0. I try to avoid giving 3.9's.
4. Determine 2.0 GPA cutoff by roughly following the University's guidelines.
5. Determine 0.0 GPA cutoff (typically 50%).
6. Do a piecewise linear interpolation between these values to convert all other percentages to GPA's. (Convert scores between 0.0 and 0.6 to 0.0.)
7. Review the results and tweak cutoffs as necessary.

For instance, we could have a 70% median correspond to a 3.0 GPA, an 80% cutoff for 4.0's, a 60% cutoff for 2.0's, and a 50% cutoff for 0.0's. A 75% overall would then receive a 3.5 GPA.