Determination of course grades

We begin with the following components.
Edit of Tue Apr 29: We are not assigning an A6 this semester. We are adjusting by making the various components of the coursework be listed as "points" rather than "percents". By then computing the course grade out of 92 points possible than out of "100%", all individual course components are rescaled in influence by the same amount.

In-person final exam: 30% points
Two in-person evening prelims: 30% points total, 15 % points each, but:
- Students must receive a C- or better on both prelims to receive a C- or above in the course. This is not meant to be a high bar.
Assignments: 40% 32% points
: with no A6, course scores will be computed out of 30 + (15+15) + (4+6+7+8+7) = 92 points.
- Individual-assignment weights: A1: 4% points, A2: 6% points, A3: 7% points, A4: 8% points, A5:7% points A6: 8%.

Then, we make class-wide score-to-letter-grade conversions.

During the semester, for each assignment and exam, we will announce rough letter-grade interpretations (e.g., “ a score of 192 represents an understanding of the material that we would describe as being like a letter grade of A; a score of 165 represents an understanding of the material that we would describe as being like a letter grade of B, …”), so that you know how you are doing.
- The interpretations are not pre-determined, but rather are set on a case-by-case basis depending on our judgment of the difficulty of the assignment or exam.
- This judgment is not based on the distribution of student scores. This means that you are not in competition with each other. We would be thrilled if everyone earned an A, and we believe you are all capable of this!
- We do not report any median or mean scores. As a wise former course-staff member said, "Reporting the median is guaranteed to make at least half the class feel bad", even if everyone did well.

After the class-wide score-to-letter-grade conversion is determined, we then apply the following adjustments to each student's score:

Lecture attendance: a (potentially negative) bonus. Click the link for full description.
Completion of end-of-semester course evaluation: potentially a small positive bonus.

Then, we apply the already-chosen class-wide score-to-letter-grade conversion to your adjusted score, arriving at a preliminary letter grade.

Finally, there is one final adjustment that can be applied:

Lab results: For every 3 labs recorded as no-credit in the lab server, we reserve the right to reduce your course grade by the equivalent of a "level" (e.g., from B to B-).

No A+ grades will be awarded. We approve of students reporting Cornell GPAs as out of 4.0.

S/U grading option

Engineering students must take CS 1110 for a letter grade for it to count towards the technical common-core curriculum.

But regardless of that fact, in Spring 2025 any student may register in Student Center to take this course S/U. S/U students do all the same work and take all the exams that letter-grade students do; your S/U grade is computed by converting a C- or above to an S, and a D+ or below to a U.

Regrade requests

Regrade requests must be in writing and submitted on the relevant submission platform (CMS, Gradescope, etc.); we will not discuss regrades in person or email. Reason: Regrade decisions often involve discussion among multiple staff members for consistency, and all participants need to be considering the exact same evidence.

We want to give grades that accurately represent our assessment of your understanding of CS 1110 material (while also allowing us to manage the course, hence regrade-request deadlines). Therefore:

If you are given a lower score than is right, you should absolutely bring it to our attention via the specified mechanisms.
However, we must mention a consequence of the importance of grade accuracy: If we notice that you have been assigned more points than you should have been, we are duty-bound to correct such scores downward to the correct value.