Advice for begging to pass a course

[thendless]

So my whole semister went okay, so i thought, and i see my mark online for one course on my schools general academic account information and I see a D . I need a D+ to pass. I don't know my final exam mark yet but I'm pretty confident i just need like 2 marks on the fricken paper to pass! I can't believe this is happening... it's never happened to me... Anyways, I've never seen a prof about this kinda stuff, I'm planning on contacting him to look over my paper to make sure it was marked correctly and what not, however if it does turn out that my final mark is not enough to pass, do you guys have any advice (serious posts) on what I should say to my prof, how I can coerce him into letting me pass? I'm ususally not desperate, but this is my graduating semister and if I fail this I have to retake it in september, thus extending my graduation. This would really bring me down... :mad: Serious posts please...

[Ojam]

I know here at my uni. (UNBSJ) what you are suggesting is REALLY looked down upon, and if done, and the professor is one that agrees with the admin can actually put you in a worse position then before, even to the extent of having a black mark on your transcript. If I were you I would go over your university regulations carefully (probably in your calendar) to see what the regulations are concerning such things.

[anandwww]

Did you you have midterms, assignments and projects for this course?? If you had done well in all these and just did not do well in the finals try to tell your prof that you found it difficult and such things..Tell him you had done well through out the course and he might as well give a better grade.

This is provided you need just a few marks to pass. All the best

[JohnB]

If its a serious Universtiy (ie, somewhere "good") chances are you wont be passing.

If you request your exam to be re-evaluated it will be graded by a different professor.

See if anyone could just talk with the prof, or coerce him as you put it, pretty much anyone would be asking him for the little extra bit. So from a D+ to a C, or the old B+ to an A "for my scholarship" or whatever.

Maybe if you were serious you would have redone the exam by yourself over the winter break and showed him how you “really did know the material”, or bring in your notes and all the study sheets you reviewed from. Or try to beg.

But since you are not colleagues with the prof, then I dont see how he would extend to you the professional courtesy of an extra 2%.

Im sure other people have failed, if its physics or an ee course its not uncommon to slip up due the difficulty of the subject matter.

Anyway, I hope it works out for you.

[thendless]

Ya that's the thing, if it was a lot of marks to pass I wouldnt bother, but I know for certain I only need 1 or 2 to pass...

[anandwww]

if the prof is nice see if you can defer the exam. The prof can always say that you did not complete the exam and you might retake it in winter. But then it depends on the prof..

[thendless]

Well I have to see my paper first and go through it myself.. I know I didnt do bad on the exam so this is a big suprise. Hopefully there is a mistake in the addition or I catch something wrong in his marking...

Frick.. this is such a downer

[aquariaguy]

I think if you're really sincere, and straight up to him. How did you do on your midterms/assignments? If you did bad on all of those, than i don't see a reason for you passing. But if you did good on the midterms/assignments, he might bump you. But if you failed your midterm, than i see no reason for him bumping you, as you did not improve.

[reqle55]

a friend of mine was 4% (he had about 45.7%) under the passing mark. He just asked him to pass him, and requested to do some small extra credit work...

The prof saw that he was willing to work for the passing mark, so he just passed him w/out the work. If you ask nicely and show that you are deserving of the mark, there isn't any reason why it would be a black mark on ur transcript. The only reason why you wouldn't be bumped is if your prof was a REAL DICK, and refused!

Oh yeah, it was from York University for Stats. But I've had my other friends from UofT and Mac ask for extra marks, chances are you'll get it if it means passing, graduating, staying in the program or scholarships. But if its only becuase you want a higher mark....gonna be tuff!

[dont.wanna.study]

Make it seem like you really put the effort, see your prof personally and have chats with him/her. That's what I'd do.

[Ojam]

a friend of mine was 4% (he had about 45.7%) under the passing mark. He just asked him to pass him, and requested to do some small extra credit work...

The prof saw that he was willing to work for the passing mark, so he just passed him w/out the work. If you ask nicely and show that you are deserving of the mark, there isn't any reason why it would be a black mark on ur transcript. The only reason why you wouldn't be bumped is if your prof was a REAL DICK, and refused!

Oh yeah, it was from York University for Stats. But I've had my other friends from UofT and Mac ask for extra marks, chances are you'll get it if it means passing, graduating, staying in the program or scholarships. But if its only becuase you want a higher mark....gonna be tuff!

If everybody is able to do this, and it becomes common the value of the degrees that the university awards decreases in the eyes of employers and in the eyes of the rest of academia, so yes the uni would not want this to happen, and should use the methods at their disposal to stop, or at the very least discourage such behavior. You're not given grades, you earn grades.

[TenzoR]

ouch what course is this? Wireless? :P

[anandwww]

If everybody is able to do this, and it becomes common the value of the degrees that the university decreases in the eyes of employers and in the eyes of the rest of academia, so yes the uni would not want this to happen, and should use the methods at their disposal to stop, or at the very least discourage such behavior. You're not given grades, you earn grades.


how on earth do you get jobs?? A student with a 4.0 gpa may not get a job while a student with a high network of friends and a low 3.2 gpa might end up in a good job. :mad: its not time to discuss about ethics...no one is ethical :D

[TenzoR]

If everybody is able to do this, and it becomes common the value of the degrees that the university awards decreases in the eyes of employers and in the eyes of the rest of academia, so yes the uni would not want this to happen, and should use the methods at their disposal to stop, or at the very least discourage such behavior. You're not given grades, you earn grades.

u do what it takes to get it done, whether its good or bad, both have consequences

[gilboman]

if the prof was going to bump you to pass, he/she would've done so already since they have to review all the marks before failing a student and if you really were only one or two percent off, they would've bumped you already.

but from your perspective, doesnt hurt to try, just say something caused you to perform less than what you were capable of and assuming you did reasonably well during the course, bring those up and showcase your work.

[Ojam]

u do what it takes to get it done, whether its good or bad, both have consequences

But from the POV of the uni if the value of the degrees they award goes down, enrolment will also fall, meaning losses in revenue. Less money means less research which means less publicity, which in terms means even less students, which lowers revenue more. In the end, it’s all about money.

[taro-chan]

ouch what course is this? Wireless? :P
Wireless didn't have a paper.... and also, no one failed that 4th year class. CEG 4286

And I've never done it before, but heard lots of stories about people getting away with stuff in uOttawa.
=\

[commie]

For what its worth, here is a perspective from a professor's side.
I teach part-time at a local college.
And without fail, each semester, I would have at least 1 or 2 students come up to me and request/beg for higher grades.

This past semester there was a classic example, this student who only showed up for the first day of class, the mid-term, and final....
And fails both the mid-term and finals....barely getting a 40% in the class,
comes up to me, and tries to sweet talk me into passing the course.
Starts saying this was the last course before graduation, has part-time work, etc....

What i did with this student was give it a fair mark and failed the student.
If he/she had came to me during the semester, I might have reconsidered, not the last day of class. Also if the student had made some attempt at showing up to class and doing the work during the semester I might be more lenient.

Most profs will bump the student's grade to the next level, if its close and if the student shows a sign of improving. IE. if a student has a 48-49, the prof might bump it to a 50-51 , or a 59 to a 61...

[watewate]

You just have to know how to get around the system. Some things that have been tried AND tested at my alma mater:

1. If your midterm and final grades differ significantly, ask them to re-weigh the exams so that the one you did better counts for more. As long as you give them a reasonable sounding explanation.

2. You can just ask for more. Heck, I got extra 5% on top of my final grade once. I've gone 1 for 1 on this method. It can't hurt to try.

3. If you REALLY want to go about the roundabout way, you can just sit on it and ask the registrar to expunge the courses off your records at a later date. I personally know of two people who had this done (one of them had 2 of his 5 first year courses expunged). This is extremely difficult to do, but it's been done .


Btw, this is at UofT - St. George, in a very competitive program.

[setell]

For what its worth, here is a perspective from a professor's side.
I teach part-time at a local college.
And without fail, each semester, I would have at least 1 or 2 students come up to me and request/beg for higher grades.

This past semester there was a classic example, this student who only showed up for the first day of class, the mid-term, and final....
And fails both the mid-term and finals....barely getting a 40% in the class,
comes up to me, and tries to sweet talk me into passing the course.
Starts saying this was the last course before graduation, has part-time work, etc....

What i did with this student was give it a fair mark and failed the student.
If he/she had came to me during the semester, I might have reconsidered, not the last day of class. Also if the student had made some attempt at showing up to class and doing the work during the semester I might be more lenient.

Most profs will bump the student's grade to the next level, if its close and if the student shows a sign of improving. IE. if a student has a 48-49, the prof might bump it to a 50-51 , or a 59 to a 61...

I was in the same situation as the OP a while back. Except my prof failed me and didn't seem to care. I was 3.5% away from passing and not needing to repeat another class. It was not my favourite subject and I'm sorta glad she failed me now since I took another class with another prof and had a excellent time with him. My prof that failed me wasn't sympathic that I needed the class to graduate, the ONLY class to graduate at the last semester of my univ career. I did see her half way through the term to tell her that I was really struggling with the class. Went to see the assistant dean of science to talk to her about my problems. I went to all my classes, never missed a class and I worked hard on all my assignments and got good marks on them. The only problem was my midterm marks weren't good and then a bad final. Well... I thought I did good on the final but boy was I wrong. I even faught the mark by getting it remarked by another prof. I went through the whole official univ regulation procedure to get an extra measly 1%. That was nothing to help me graduate. I'm still bitter at the prof as I still think she was a mean old ***** that was just nasty and enjoyed hurting their students. It doesn't help that this prof is the most hated prof in the whole dept and all the students hates her guts. Her marking scheme is a ***** just like her personality. Funny thing is I heard from a friend of mine that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months back. I'm still not sure if I feel super sorry for her or just sorry for her. Sorry for ranting but to the OP it's okay to repeat. I felt like you and went through it, but give it a try by talking to the prof. If you have a nice prof they'll pass you but hope you don't have a prof like mine.

[Anessa]

You just have to know how to get around the system. Some things that have been tried AND tested at my alma mater:


3. If you REALLY want to go about the roundabout way, you can just sit on it and ask the registrar to expunge the courses off your records at a later date. I personally know of two people who had this done (one of them had 2 of his 5 first year courses expunged). This is extremely difficult to do, but it's been done .


Btw, this is at UofT - St. George, in a very competitive program.

I would have loved to known about the third one when I was in undergraduate. I thought GPA was set in stone as being culmulative.

[Anessa]

I was in the same situation as the OP a while back. Except my prof failed me and didn't seem to care. I was 3.5% away from passing and not needing to repeat another class. It was not my favourite subject and I'm sorta glad she failed me now since I took another class with another prof and had a excellent time with him. My prof that failed me wasn't sympathic that I needed the class to graduate, the ONLY class to graduate at the last semester of my univ career. I did see her half way through the term to tell her that I was really struggling with the class. Went to see the assistant dean of science to talk to her about my problems. I went to all my classes, never missed a class and I worked hard on all my assignments and got good marks on them. The only problem was my midterm marks weren't good and then a bad final. Well... I thought I did good on the final but boy was I wrong. I even faught the mark by getting it remarked by other prof. I went through the whole official univ regulation procedure to get an extra measly 1%. That was nothing to help me graduate. I'm still bitter at the prof as I still think she was a mean old ***** that was just nasty and enjoyed hurting their students. It doesn't help that this prof is the most hated prof in the whole dept and all the students hates her guts. Her marking scheme is a ***** just like her personality. Funny thing is I heard from a friend of mine that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months back. I'm still not sure if I feel super sorry for her or just sorry for her. Sorry for ranting but to the OP it's okay to repeat. I felt like you and went through it, but give it a try by talking to the prof. If you have a nice prof they'll pass you but hope you didn't have a prof like mine.

Karma's a _______.

[JoeO]

I was in the same situation. First course I ever failed was in my last semester. I just spoke with the prof, explained to her that I needed this course to graduate and I already had a job lined up on the condition I graduate. She gave me the 4% I needed to pass.
I guess it depends on the prof, but I find most of them are pretty reasonable and are not out to hurt you. I'd recommend just being straight up and explaining the situation first, rather than doubting the marking or whatever. Don't try to force them if you don't have to.

[setell]

I was in the same situation. First course I ever failed was in my last semester. I just spoke with the prof, explained to her that I needed this course to graduate and I already had a job lined up on the condition I graduate. She gave me the 4% I needed to pass.
I guess it depends on the prof, but I find most of them are pretty reasonable and are not out to hurt you. I'd recommend just being straight up and explaining the situation first, rather than doubting the marking or whatever. Don't try to force them if you don't have to.

Wow you had a really nice prof then. Sadly my prof wasn't as nice, I did go to her and explained my situation before going to the univ regulations. Looking back now it was sorta embarrassing to be crying my eyes out infront of her then get a flat no and told that it wasn't her problem I did so bad. She actually told me that I can go to the employer that had already hired me like you and tell them I won't be graduating to extend my start date by like a year or half a year. She was pure nasty!

[x86asm]

Wow you had a really nice prof then. Sadly my prof wasn't as nice, I did go to her and explained my situation before going to the univ regulations. Looking back now it was sorta embarrassing to be crying my eyes out infront of her then get a flat no and told that it wasn't her problem I did so bad. She actually told me that I can go to the employer that had already hired me like you and tell them I won't be graduating to extend my start date by like a year or half a year. She was pure nasty!

MAn what a total b****. I hope I don't have to deal with prof's like that.

[Anessa]

MAn what a total b****. I hope I don't have to deal with prof's like that.

They're everywhere :(

[Sylvestre]

I had a roomate that begged his way through school (took his 7th year of engineering to finally pass).

bottom line, you may get through okay but you are paying (a lot!) to learn this stuff. if you got a poor mark it obviously means you don't understand the material.

For your own sake you should want to fully understand the material and not just try to squeeze your way through.

[taro-chan]

I had a roomate that begged his way through school (took his 7th year of engineering to finally pass).

bottom line, you may get through okay but you are paying (a lot!) to learn this stuff. if you got a poor mark it obviously means you don't understand the material.

For your own sake you should want to fully understand the material and not just try to squeeze your way through.
There's a lot of those everywhere. A couple of people I know aren't fit to graduate, and yet they did. Heck, one of them was my final project teammate. Prof assigned him to us even though we didn't want him, and he did nothing. We wanted to fire him, we can't. We couldnt do anything and TA knew the guy did almost nothing. Yet he passed that course. Go figure.

[danfromwaterloo]

I was in the same situation as the OP a while back. Except my prof failed me and didn't seem to care. I was 3.5% away from passing and not needing to repeat another class. It was not my favourite subject and I'm sorta glad she failed me now since I took another class with another prof and had a excellent time with him. My prof that failed me wasn't sympathic that I needed the class to graduate, the ONLY class to graduate at the last semester of my univ career. I did see her half way through the term to tell her that I was really struggling with the class. Went to see the assistant dean of science to talk to her about my problems. I went to all my classes, never missed a class and I worked hard on all my assignments and got good marks on them. The only problem was my midterm marks weren't good and then a bad final. Well... I thought I did good on the final but boy was I wrong. I even faught the mark by getting it remarked by another prof. I went through the whole official univ regulation procedure to get an extra measly 1%. That was nothing to help me graduate. I'm still bitter at the prof as I still think she was a mean old ***** that was just nasty and enjoyed hurting their students. It doesn't help that this prof is the most hated prof in the whole dept and all the students hates her guts. Her marking scheme is a ***** just like her personality. Funny thing is I heard from a friend of mine that she was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months back. I'm still not sure if I feel super sorry for her or just sorry for her. Sorry for ranting but to the OP it's okay to repeat. I felt like you and went through it, but give it a try by talking to the prof. If you have a nice prof they'll pass you but hope you don't have a prof like mine.

I too had the same problem. When I was in first year CS at UW, I had the absolute all-time worst Calculus professor. Not only did she never speak up or speak clearly, but her teaching was absolutely horrid. She never explained anything. As a result 2/3 of the class failed. I finished with a 48%. When I went in to beg for the missing 2% she laughed at me. I'm sure she'll get hers someday.

[thendless]

Tenzor: No it wasnt wireless

Hearing some of your other stories has helped guys... I was freaking out last night... i've come more to my senses now, Just have to wait till next week when I check out my exam and face my prof...

The main thing that will bother me forever if nothing happens is that I just needed 1 or 2 marks to pass, if you're goign to down right fail me, just give me a F already, don't bring me that close to passing! :evil:

[15-20_God]

The main thing that will bother me forever if nothing happens is that I just needed 1 or 2 marks to pass, if you're goign to down right fail me, just give me a F already, don't bring me that close to passing! :evil:

you have to realize you're displacing the blame onto the prof. you're responisble for your marks. its not the prof thats failing you, you're failing yourself.

[rdtx2002]

So my whole semister went okay, so i thought, and i see my mark online for one course on my schools general academic account information and I see a D . I need a D+ to pass. I don't know my final exam mark yet but I'm pretty confident i just need like 2 marks on the fricken paper to pass! I can't believe this is happening... it's never happened to me... Anyways, I've never seen a prof about this kinda stuff, I'm planning on contacting him to look over my paper to make sure it was marked correctly and what not, however if it does turn out that my final mark is not enough to pass, do you guys have any advice (serious posts) on what I should say to my prof, how I can coerce him into letting me pass? I'm ususally not desperate, but this is my graduating semister and if I fail this I have to retake it in september, thus extending my graduation. This would really bring me down... :mad: Serious posts please...

MAYBE if you STUDIED better.. you wouldn't have this problem ;)

[TenzoR]

Tenzor: No it wasnt wireless

Hearing some of your other stories has helped guys... I was freaking out last night... i've come more to my senses now, Just have to wait till next week when I check out my exam and face my prof...

The main thing that will bother me forever if nothing happens is that I just needed 1 or 2 marks to pass, if you're goign to down right fail me, just give me a F already, don't bring me that close to passing! :evil:

good luck nonetheless!

[Sylvestre]

MAYBE if you STUDIED better.. you wouldn't have this problem ;)

funny how it's always the profs or TAs fault. :cheesygri

[callous]

First step is to see the exam paper. See how far you are from where you want to go.

[Tiberius]

One key thing University (and I'm guessing College) profs consider is how you did leading up to a final exam. If you were at the classes, did all the assignments, etc. they are more likely to give a break when you are right on the edge of pass/fail. If you didn't go to classes, didn't do assignments, etc.... they could care less - because clearly you didn't care about the course they were teaching.

Another tactic I know someone used successfully was as follows (maybe you could adapt this somehow?):

- They knew they needed to pass the final exam to pass the course - they were spotty with attendance and assignments, but did most so weren't completely screwed in that regard. They skipped class for about a month in the middle of the semester and missed a key chunk of the course that was NOT in the textbook!

- They went in to the final exam and knew immediately they were going to fail! There were 4 multi-part questions, and 2 of them were topics the person flat-out didn't know and had never seen/studied before (from the month they skipped... all based on hand-outs given in class).

- This person went to the profs office repeatedly after this exam whenever they could until they finally caught the prof in the office (before final marks were posted!!)

- She then gave a sob story to the prof about how it was her final year, and she couldn't afford another fail because she reached her limit during her first year and would lose her degree with another failure, but she was worried she may have blown the final exam. She explained that she had some serious personal and family issues in the middle of the semester and had thought she had gotten caught up. She got notes from someone in the class, but they didn't include the hand-outs as that person said there was some stuff that wasn't from the text but it wasn't too much. She sob-storied all over the prof. essentially playing the: I had a personal - family crisis mid-term / I thought I had done the right things to get caught up in the course / Half the final exam was from material I had barely seen but I tried to do my best on it but don't know if I got enough marks to pass / If I fail this course I will be bumped from the Honours program and won't graduate despite my 4 years of hard work

She played it up like she was fishing for a hint if she had "blown her entire university life"... not directly asking to see her exam grades... but fishing for clues... the prof listened and just said he couldn't release grades until all exams were finished (school policy)...

Sure enough, when grades were posted, she had a "D"... definitely not an earned D! Other people had failed the course... doesn't really seem fair, does it?

[insanity]

Straight talk with the Prof is the best thing. No BS. Take your previous assignments that you did good on to show that you have the potential..etc.

[springroll]

Try crying.

[Rogue_77]

I surprised noone mentioned anything about working with the prof on "extra-curricular" activities :D

[setell]

I surprised noone mentioned anything about working with the prof on "extra-curricular" activities :D

haha nice suggestion ;)

[7jai]

it's sorta hard to beg for marks, because there are the hard-ass professors, and the nice ones. And VERY VERY RARE do you see those nice professors.

I mean, you can try convincing them, or asking them to do "extra credit" work, if they are willing to mark it for u, but yeh otherwise very rare chance they would give u a mark.

Think about it this way. If they let you go this time, then everyone else would do the same. If they dont get the same treatment, they can sue.

That's pretty much it.

[goob3r]

Try crying.

tweezers help.

Best of luck with getting your marks though.

[felixdd]

If everybody is able to do this, and it becomes common the value of the degrees that the university awards decreases in the eyes of employers and in the eyes of the rest of academia, so yes the uni would not want this to happen, and should use the methods at their disposal to stop, or at the very least discourage such behavior. You're not given grades, you earn grades.

Those are big hypotheticals there. Obviously not everybody does it. Otherwise everyone and their grandmothers would be posting anecdotal accounts on this thread. Only a few of my friends have done so, with good results. Students obviously understand that it's a last resort that should not be taken lightly. We all know it shouldn' be done; but the difference is that thendless is asking how to do it, not whether or not he should.
And considering what's at stake here, I (personally) wouldn't condemn him in trying.