Importance of Grading

It is important to set the right tone for students during the first semester and to ensure that grading standards are maintained across teams. In general, advisers who give an A to every student every semester will have teams that exhibit low productivity. The reason is that students will gladly accept an A for very little work and spend their time working on other classes or activities. A team that has a reputation for getting an easy A will attract many students expecting to do little work. A student who receives a C, D or F in VIP one semester rarely returns to the team the next semester. Thus, non-performing students tend to leave well-run VIP teams. An average across all VIP teams of 3.2 to 3.5 is what should be expected, even aimed for. This is similar to an average across senior design courses and graduate courses.