Personal things have had me feeling down lately, despite being on vacation, so I suppose getting my grades is as good a diversion as any.
The first grades in are from Chemistry, where, apparently, I managed to get an A. The break down of that grade isn't available (yet - maybe it will be later), but I know I got a 92% in the Lab section of the course, which counted for 25% of the total. That means I'd have needed a 94% minimum in the lecture to get an A (assuming a 94% is an A, and not an A-, and assuming that a 93.5 is rounded up rather than down).
My grades on the two regular exams were 74 and 96, for a total of 170/200. The final was out of 200 points, and I don't know the exact grade I got on it. Basic math reveals that a 100% would have left me with a 92.5% average in the lecture portion, however, which makes my actual 4.0 untenable without some kind of curve.
Yay for grade inflation.
I didn't really need it in this course - I should have had a 4.0 anyways, if not for carelessness on the first exam. For that reason, the inflation doesn't really worry me. When I take the MCAT, I'm confident my actual ability in Chemistry will reflect a 4.0, or something close to that.
It's possible the curve was small - I was expecting an A- after all, so it could have been as little as a half-step bump. Nonetheless, grade inflation like this in all the classes is really something, and it's not a good something. If inflation is that common in other universities, it might make sense to just adopt a system that's entirely pass/fail across the board, rather than pretend to separate students along a more regimented set of criteria that only exist for show. Added bonus: a pass/fail system would cause students less stress. If you're going to have evaluations, I really think it's worth having them done seriously. Otherwise the whole process turns into something of a joke.
Anyways - next up will be Physics. I expect the results of that in the next few days.
