While Brown is the only member of the Ivy League that uses neither pluses/minuses nor D's in its grading system, other Ivies employ their own peculiarities in evaluating students.
Though Yale University awards grades A to F - with pluses and minuses on every grade other than F - it does not give A-pluses, said Daria Vander Veer, assistant director for Yale College classes.
Yale also has a "Credit/D/Fail" option "in order to encourage academic experimentation and to promote diversity in students' programs," according to the Yale College Instructors' Handbook. Under Credit/D/Fail, the registrar converts all grades between A and C-minus to "CR" for credit. Grades of D-plus, D, D-minus and F are recorded as such.
Vander Veer said a course can be dropped up until the last day of classes, but courses dropped after the midterm show up on transcripts as a "W" to signify that the student withdrew.
Like Yale, Harvard University awards pluses and minuses on grades A through D but does not give A-pluses. But instead of F's, Harvard assigns E's. Courses can be taken pass/fail, where a pass is granted for grades of A through D-minus and a fail for a grade of E. Some courses, including all freshmen seminars and many junior and senior tutorials, have "SAT/UNS" grading, in which a grade above C-minus is satisfactory and anything below is unsatisfactory.
Dartmouth College's failing grade is also an E. The reason for this is primarily "alphabetical (and) historical," said Dartmouth Registrar Polly Griffin . Dartmouth has pluses and minuses but no A-plus and no D-plus or D-minus. This grading system was implemented in 1973.
In 1994, Dartmouth became the first college in the United States to indicate median grades for each course on transcripts, Griffin said.
Some courses at Dartmouth are mandatory credit/no credit, but it is not a grade option for regular courses, Griffin said. The Dartmouth Undergraduate Regulations explain: "The concept of essentially non-graded courses was developed mainly to offer an improved way of dealing with subject matter that is intrinsically ill-suited for grading."
In addition, Dartmouth lets stu-dents choose the Non-Recording Option for courses. Under this option, students can choose the lowest letter grade they are willing to have recorded for a certain course. If his or her final grade is lower than that, the student receives a NR (Non-Recording) for the course, unless they receive an E, in which case the E is recorded. Professors are not entitled to know who is taking a course NR.
Columbia University awards grades of A-plus through F, with pluses and minuses on all but D's and F's, said Assistant Registrar Mel Francis. Under the university's "Pass/Fail" option, anything above an F is recorded as a P. The pass/fail option must be elected before the last day to drop a class, which was Feb. 21 this semester. Students can also elect, with the approval of the instructor, to take a class for an R, earning credit for registration but not a grade. Major and core requirements cannot be taken pass/fail or for R credit.
Beginning in fall 2004, Princeton instituted a new grading policy "to address locally the persistent national problem of grade inflation," according to the Princeton registrar's Web site. This new set of "expectations" dictates that A's (A-plus, A and A-minus) must account for less than 35 percent of grades given in undergraduate courses and less than 55 percent in junior and senior independent work. Princeton assigns grades from A to F, with pluses and minuses on A through C only.
At Cornell University, grades from A-plus to F are assigned, with pluses and minuses on every grade but F. Anything above an F is a passing grade. During the first three weeks of the semester students can choose to take a course SU, where a grade of S for satisfactory is assigned for anything from A-plus to C-minus, and a grade of U for unsatisfactory is assigned for a D-plus or below. Some courses must be taken SU, but major requirements cannot be taken SU except with permission from the department.
The University of Pennsylvania assigns grades from A to F, with pluses and minuses from A-plus to D, although there is no D-minus. Up to eight electives may be taken pass/fail, with any grade of D or above appearing as a P.
