disputing grades?

[richard_b]

Advice please? I'm a first-year graduate student and am struggling tremendously in one of my classes. The thing is that the teacher's assistants keep taking points off erroneously from my grades. Every assignment, I have to keep going back and ask them to review my grades. This is tremendously embarrassing in front of my peers (the TA's are all PhD students), not to mention the professor, but I usually walk out with 5-10% more (consider the fact that if 100% is an A+ and I had a 75%, I just walked away with 80-85%...). There are only about five assignments this semester for that class, so each counts.

If I don't pass this class, I'm in trouble, so I keep going back for the points. If I were doing well in the class, I wouldn't bother.

If you were me, would you keep doing this - would you do whatever it takes to pass the class, even if you look annoying and desperate? Is it annoying and desperate to keep going back? Wouldn't I feel even worse if I didn't pass the class because I didn't go back to dispute the grades?

Edited November 12, 2010 by richard_b

[timuralp]

If this is happening repeatedly and it is clear that the points were taken off wrong, I would bring this up with the professor. The TAs do the grading, but it is up to the professor to reel them in when the grading gets too ridiculous. I would keep fighting on this, especially if this is the only graded part of the course. Further, you'll find a lot of times TAs don't care very much about grading and at times barely read the submitted work. If it's obvious that that's the case, bring it up with the professor.

As to the embarrassing part, as long as it's clear that there is a grading error, as opposed to something along the lines of "I believe I'm entitled to more partial credit", then it will be fine. It's only coming off desperate when it's the really subjective calls on "how right" you were.

[richard_b]

Thank you so much - I kinda felt... well... ASHAMED for having to do this. Your email makes perfect sense - and it's a really great answer. i'll keep that in mind.

[Bukharan]

I agree with Timuralp. Keep fighting for your grades.

You are going to graduate soon, and these grades are there to stay on your transcript when you are applying for other schools. I don't think you will then care about having been embarrassed in front of your peers once - you won't even remember that but you will be grateful that you fought for that extra percent that may make a difference when your application is assessed.