Why grading sucks

I figured out final grades yesterday, and discussed them with my supervisor.  We’re required to have an average in the B range for the course, and it should be in the lower part of the B range.  All of my classes were pretty good with that, with one class at a 3.4.  He agreed with my distributions, and that was that.  Last night I get an email from a student trying to get me to lower the curve so he can have an A.  Problem is, if I do that, I have to do it for 3 other people, raising the class average to a 3.5, which is way too high.  He already talked to my supervisor, who explained that there will always be people on the border of the line.  He asked for a regrade,  but was told that the chances are much better that we’d find more errors and his grade would go down even more.  I hope he’s dropping the issue.

At this point, I’m just annoyed.  For one, I don’t have to curve the class at all.  I could use an absolute scale, like in all of my wife’s classes, and be done with it.  But I don’t; I give a slight curve with primarily reduces the number of C’s I hand out.   Also, everyone gets to drop their lowest lab score.  Which means, if we counted all labs, his average is even lower!  So he’s even more in the B range.  So, I’m trying to figure out why I should give someone an A when they earned a B.  Quite simply, I shouldn’t, and won’t.  My supervisor backed me up on this, and thanked me for maintaining my stance.  You know what’s funny?  This is a 1 credit course.  Which means it barely affects their gpa.  This grade fulfilled the graduation requirement, it’s time to accept that you simply did a B job and move on.

Some people…