Grading Policy

There are two components to your raw total:

• Homeworks: 25%
  • Remember we have a drop policy so if you miss a homework due to illness or did not perform as well as you’d hoped, you have an opportunity to bounce back.
  • Specifically, we will include only the top 27 homework problems (including the lab problems) scores in computing your final grade. We expect to grade 9 homework, each with 4 problems. Should for some reason we grade fewer homework problems, we will still use the top 27 homework problems.
  • If you submit everything, this policy is equivalent to dropping 9 homework problems.
  • If you submit less than 20 homework problems you are likely to fail unless there is an overriding excuse.
• Exams: 75%
  • There will be three midterm exams and a cumulative final exam.
  • We will drop the lowest exam grade (including the final exam grade). Hence, each exam is worth 25% but if you screw one up, never fear, one exam will get dropped. Alternatively, if you do well on the midterms and want to skip the final, go for it! We will try our best to give students a projected final grade after the third midterm.
  • Keep in mind that regardless of the exam you drop, you will still be tested on the entire course content since the final is cumulative.
  • We will use a flat curve to make all the exam averages to be approximately 70 points. Thus it should not be beneficial to drop one exam over another.
  • There will be no conflict exams. The drop policy is specifically for individuals who need a bit of a break for whatever reason (illness, duty, etc.).
  • We do not want to be the arbiter of what is and is not a valid reason to miss your work (and neither should students have to plead and hope for mercy from the professors). That is why we constructed this merciful policy but we will apply it strictly. If you have a serious issue that causes you to miss two or more midterms, you need to contact your department’s advising office and/or the emergency dean.

Final grade calculation

There are two grade distributions that we use when calculating a final grade. The first is a deterministic grade distribution which is the standard cutoff used in most American educational systems.

A+	A	A-	B+	B	B-	C+	C	C-	D+	D	D-	F
97+	96-93	92-90	89-87	86-83	82-80	79-77	76-73	72-70	69-67	66-63	62-60	59-0

These are the minimum grades that you can achieve in this course using the raw final grade (which includes the flat curve for each exam).

We won’t give anyone a grade less than the above distribution dictates. Furthermore, we will use an additional relative grading scheme layer where the cutoffs are determined such that the percentage of students getting each letter grade is approximately as follows.

A's	B's	C's	D's and F's
30%	35%	25%	10%

Important notes:

• Grade cutoffs change for every semester simply because the exam/homework grade distributions change every semester.
• Cutoffs (even for the relative scheme) are finalized after the third midterm so students can figure out if they want to take the final or not.

Regrade requests

All regrade requests would be handled via Gradescope. Regrade requests can be submitted at most a week after the grades are posted on Gradescope.

• Make sure the Canvas Gradebook is correct. The only reason why we are keeping Canvas around is because we want to be open about the grades we have recorded so you all can keep us honest and point out anything that seems a miss.
• Please check that your grades are tabulated and recorded correctly. If you notice a mistake, please use Gradescope to ask for a regrade. The regrade period for homework/exams is one week after the grade is available.
• If you do not understand your grade on a homework or exam problem, please discuss your grade with the course staff during office hours. After that discussion, if you still believe that your work has been graded incorrectly, please request a regrade.
• Late regrade requests will be ignored. Homework and exam regrades can be requested within Gradescope.
• All regrade requests must include a written succinct justification for the request. Good justifications include the following.
  • My answer agrees with the posted solution, but I still lost points.
  • You took off points for missing the base case, but it is right here (right here!).
  • My answer is correct, even though it does not match the posted solution. (This happens more frequently if your answer is not even remotely similar to the “standard” solution.)
  • The official solution is incorrect; here’s a counterexample.

  Regrade requests with poor or missing justifications will be denied.

• You will lose all points on a question if you waste our time by submitting repeatedly unjustified regrade requests.
• We can only grade what you submitted. You cannot get a higher grade by explaining what you meant, either in person or in writing; your original submission must stand on its own.
• If you submit a regrade request, we will regrade the submitted problem from scratch. Hence, your grade may go down.
• We will readily admit, apologize for, and correct our mistakes if you have been graded unfairly. However, please remember that “unfairly” means your grade is inconsistent with the published grading rubric, or that you were graded more harshly than other students, not just that you think the rubric itself is too harsh. Please also keep in mind that each homework point is worth approximately 0.1% of your final course grade. Don’t fight for each point like your life depends on it - it does not!
• You would lose points (and potentially all of them) for long and tedious solutions.

Extra Credit

Extra credit (which is given completely at the discretion of the course staff) would be given in exceptional cases for the following:

• Being in the top few participants on Piazza. (As long as most of your answers are useful and correct [and add to the current discussion {i.e., don’t repost others’ answers just to increase your count}] - a campaign of disinformation on piazza would gain you little.)
• Taking on small, interesting problem/research challenges we may post to the website.
• Extra credit is only given to people who have completed significantly more work than is required for this course. Significant means tens of hours of solid work/effort.