Originally posted by: Leros
Basically I really screwed up and got a 135/200 on the second midterm. I did awesome on the final and got a 245/250, however this only makes my average an 89.4 which is in the B range for the class (there will be no curve). Maybe I'm just grabbing for points, but I feel that since I did so good on the final it shows that I have learned the material for the course and deserve an A.
What do you guys think? Should I contact my professor? And, if so, how should I present my argument?
FFS say something. Tell the professor/TA you are concerned about your grade because of your 2nd midterm. Admit that you dropped the ball on the 2nd midterm. Tell him you studied as hard as possible after it given your workload/job and learned as much of the material as possible. Try to give the impression that you care about your grade, but even if you don't get the grade you want you are better off knowing the material. That's basically the argument I used to get my students' grades adjusted.
In my two semesters as a GenChem TA, I got 4 of my students grades changed because of the effort they put in. They never found out their grades were adjusted because they never asked for an adjustment and I never told them about it.
One student went from a D to a C (the student, a senior, failed the course 2 times before and needed it to graduate--thank god he told me that after he got his grade otherwise i would have lost sleep if he got the D). He started coming to my office hours after the first exam (came 2-3 hours a week) and did the extra problem sets I made; chemistry was just very hard for him but he worked at it. When we assigned grades, I faught for him because of his improvement and effort; he got a BC on the final. Sadly my best student was my "worst" student gradewise.
Another student went from a B to AB, because she started coming to office hours and got an A on the final.
Two others that were ABs to As, didn't go to office hours but emailed me questions in a timely fashion and did all my extra problem sets.
Also all 4 of those students came to every discussion section (minus 1 or 2) and were within .5% of the grade; except the C student he was off by 1%.
I had 5 students that were literally 5 points away (out of 1050 and 1250) from the higher grade and I didn't fight for them; rarely went to discussion and never went to office hours. They gave the impression that they didn't care enough about their grade so why should I.