Today, I am going to blog about a subject that is near and dear to the hearts of every honors student at TCU and at most universities across the country. This is an issue that questions the equality and justice of the practices at this university. I, of course, am talking about the plus/minus grading system. It is an instance of discrimination against those with higher intellects. It is a system that is skewed towards people with a mentality of "Cs get degrees" who spend more time inebriated than not. I'm being extremely sardonic about this manner and that last sentence could quite possibly be an overstatement, then again it might not be. The qualm I have with the plus/minus system that is advised our professors use is that there is no reward for achieving an A+, while there is a penalty for receiving an A-. With every other grade on the scale there is an equal reward and penalty for each letter, except for the one that the highest achieving students strive for. This unfairly penalizes the people who are looking to be the most competitive in the most competitive fields. This is a move I don't understand. The way a university gets touted as one of the best in the world is if its students get hired. Period. If TCU wants to become an upper echelon school there should be an incentive for an A+, allowing top tier students a chance to boost their GPAs above their counterparts, or account for an A- that occurred in a subject they disliked in their first semester of college where the teacher didn't clearly outline the format of the test or the depth of information required for it, so the first test was a bit of a struggle for this obviously hypothetical student who then had trouble raising their grade because of the low overhead provided by trying to obtain an A. (By low overhead I mean the mathematical difficulty of raising a grade when there are so few points between their current grade and the maximum possible grade.) So there's the two cents of a sleep-deprived, mind-mushed, bitter, stressed out freshman.
I think it's time for a nap.
I support your idea. I think it's fair to give the top students A+ because of all the distinctive works they do. However, I think about it more like a recognition, than an incentive to work toward. The top students should already have the mentality to do their best for the learning shake and their passion of educating themselves. It should not because of A or A+. TCU has the responsibility to explain to people outside the school about its grading system and how hard a student needs to work to achieve that grade. So, to compare two schools with different grade systems is not fair and it's not TCU fault. Moreover, every students at TCU has to deal with the same system, so if you want to compete with students at other schools, you should be able to compete with TCU students first. Since everybody is the same, you should not make an excuse of your grades because this teacher or that test.
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