Wrong Report Card Still Not Corrected by the Academic Committee
M26s find HC applications missing from biannual cornerstone reports, revealing systemic integration issues in the university's new grading system.
Several M26s noticed that HC applications were missing from their biannual cornerstone grade report.
Twice a year, M26s receive cornerstone grade updates through what we colloquially refer to as “John Cote” reports, based on the sender’s email address.
On January 28, suffering from a bout of procrastination, I decided to close-read (#critique) my newest John Cote report. I noticed that an HC I remembered applying and getting a 4 on, showed as having no recent applications in the Competence plot.
Hours of detective work later, I discovered HC applications in Spring EL199 had been completely excluded from the report. Disappointingly, the same happened last year where recent EL199 scores had also been excluded from the John Cote report. However, last year the report was recalculated within the first week of the original report being sent out. Now, it has been nearly 5 weeks and M26 is still waiting for the updated cornerstone report.
Furthermore, I noticed very minor increases in transfer scores for successful applications in my recent Tutorial course final. Turns out, these applications had been reduced to a weight of 1x. This unlocked a whole new systemic problem: the new percentage-based grading system has been improperly integrated with the classic Course Outcome (weighted) grading system.
The tutorial professor had never been instructed to include the (arbitrary) percentage-to-weight conversion in the Forum course rubric, causing the assignment weights to default to 1x, greatly depreciating HC grade improvement efforts. It’s unclear whether this admin error will be corrected.
I have now sent 2 reminders and a response escalation. After 4 weeks of waiting, I received a progress update: Dean Dossman acknowledged the missing EL199 scores but countered my remaining theories. I was able to meet with John Cote, but the updated report still is not ready. As a result of these poor calculations (and who knows how many more there could be), most M26s are on track to graduate with a lower-than-merited GPA.
It should be a University’s priority to generate fair and accurate assessment reports without the need for distrustful student supervision, and at the very least, respond when students notify them of mistakes.
It should be a University’s priority to generate fair and accurate assessment reports without the need for distrustful student supervision, and at the very least, respond when students notify them of mistakes.
Note From John Cote
The Minerva Column has been in contact with John Cote regarding the issues raised in this article. He acknowledges isolated errors in the transfer grading calculations, noting that Spring EL199 scores were submitted too late to be included in initial calculations released in January. Furthermore, he warmly encourages students to reach out with any questions, and is happy to walk them through their grades, noting that most discrepancies turn out not to be errors on the data side. He adds that he is heartbroken that students in the transitional system did not have adequate tools to track their scores throughout the semesters.
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