Knowing Your Current Grade is Essential for Strategic End of Semester Planning
With only a few weeks left in the fall semester there is always one piece of advice I provide all my students; calculate your grades in your courses before final exam season starts.
You may be wondering, why should I calculate my course grade with just a limited number of weeks left in the semester. There are a couple of reasons to do so.
1. To Know What is Left
At this point in the semester, there are probably only a few assignments left to be calculated into your final grade. Now is the best time to check what is left to submit (or to be graded) in each course so you can plan out the rest of the semester.
2. To Know the Weight of Your Final
Most students assume their finals will have a large impact on a final grade in each course, but this is not always the case. Since it has probably been a while since you thoroughly reviewed your syllabus, now is a great time to go back and review this information. You can read my previous post on reading a syllabus here.
Some classes have an optional final to replace a low exam grade. Other professors may decide that the final is weighted like any other exam throughout the semester. While other professors may have this count for 70% of your grade. And, if you are in law school, your final exam can count for 100% of your grade in a class.
3. To Determine Final Course Grade Range
Knowing your grades can help you to understand your possible course outcomes. By having this information, you can start to mentally prepare for your GPA. I know this can sometimes be scary, but knowing is always better than not knowing how the semester is going to turn out, especially because you can still change the outcome of your GPA with the remaining assignments and exams.
Also, if you have determined you are going to fail your class, you can start to look into retaking that course, speaking with your Academic Advisor about options, and deciding if retaking is the best decision for you. The sooner you start confronting these issues, the easier it will be to solve them.
4. To Prioritize Your Time and Efforts
Your time studying for each class should be considered an investment. What if you determined that as long as you get a 50% on the final, you will still get an A in the course? This means you do not need to put as much energy into preparing for this final than the class where if you do not get above an 85% you will not get a B.
Prioritize the time you have left in the semester to focus on the courses where your time has the largest impact.
*Want an example? I had a student determine that no matter what grade she got on the final a 0% or 100% she was going to fail the course. Due to this, I told her not to spend any of her time studying for this single course and to instead place her energy into her other courses as her studying can positively impact her grade. By taking my advice she managed to still get over a 2.3 GPA for the semester and was not placed on academic probation due to her final grades for the semester.
5. To Compare Your Calculation to What Your Faculty has Documented
The grade you determine may not be the same as the one that is in the system from your faculty member or Teaching Assistant. By calculating your grades, you can intervene early enough to confirm if they are correct or if there has been a miscalculation.
6. To Reach Out to Faculty, If Necessary
You do not want to be the student that reaches out to your faculty when the semester is completely over asking “is there extra credit?” or “what can I do about my grade?” when all your work is already submitted. Before final exams is one of the best (and arguably last) opportunities you have to sit down with your faculty, discuss your course grade, and have them help you make a plan to prepare for the remainder of your assignments.
To calculate your grades, I really like this website. You can select percentages, points, or letters so you can input things according to how your professors give their grades back to you. Additionally, there is a final grade calculator near the bottom of the page where you can determine potential overall course grades.
Thanks for reading.
Image credit: Shutterbug75 via Pixabay.