Professor is a TOUGH grader (What to do)

Professors can vary a lot in how they grade students’ work.

Some are easy graders while others are tough graders and seem to deduct points for the littlest of things.

There can be lots of explanations for difficult professors, and it is something that most students will have to deal with at some point in college.

I totally understand how it can be difficult for students to deal with these types of professor because they just seem so strict with their grading policies.

Even the best students can struggle.

In this article, I am going to help you understand why professors grade so tough and what to do about it.

But you aren’t just going to get run-of-the-mill advice here.

I am going to tell you about some proven strategies that have helped my very own students when I was a professor.

Why do professors grade so harshly?

Professors might grade harshly because they have high expectations for their students and they want their degree to have value. The professors may be seen as the gatekeepers for some professions.

If professors weren’t challenging, anyone could get a college degree and enter the workforce. And the value of a degree would decrease.

I am NOT saying that professors should arbitrarily grade students to keep them out of certain professions, but we really need them to provide a good learning experience with adequate assessments.

Some professors may have more experience than others and have set high expectations for their students. I find that some of the more experienced professors grade more harshly.

While new professors are trying to make their way and don’t quite understand how to assess students’ knowledge yet and they may go easy on students instead.

Another reason why professors grade so harshly is because they don’t actually understand how to effectively grade. They might be learning themselves and are too subjective or just plain tough.

It isn’t like anyone really sits professors down and helps them understand how to grade properly. It is a learned art and as professors develop their assessments, rubrics and skills, they’ll get better at grading.

Finally, professors may grade differently because of their rubrics. Rubrics help outline how the professor will grade the student, and if they have a difficult rubric, you’re likely going to see tougher grading.

Should you drop a class with a professor who is a tough grader?

Some students might want to carefully consider dropping a class when the professor is a tough grader if they think they are going to fail. Otherwise, the student should try to challenge their academic rigor and meet the strict requirements.

This decision is NOT to be taken lightly and will depend on how much you want to challenge yourself.

• Ask yourself if you will learn anything of value by completing the course with your current professor?

• Are you taking the easy route by dropping the course?

• How can you be sure that another professor is going to make the class any easier for you?

• Will it delay your graduation by dropping the class?

• Do you have any financial aid consequences?

There might be something annoying about the next professor too.

You can’t really be certain that taking the class with another professor is going to help your situation.

The next professor might take forever to grade their assignments, which leaves you little room to improve. Or they might grade too easily which won’t really do you any favors in the long run.

I knew some professors who graded really easily and had glowing reviews, but their students weren’t challenged.

I talked to one of these students once and they told me that they didn’t feel like they really learned anything and didn’t deserve the grade they got.

You can really take a lot of pride in yourself when you complete a difficult course with a strict professor.

Let me give you an example. I had a student who was really struggling with an assignment that I required in my class.

They came to me several times asking me questions about the paper. I gave them a lot of advice.

They were still so worried about it. But they put in all the hard work and submitted a stellar paper.

They didn’t think that they could do it. They were so proud of themselves. By completing the assignment, they had more confidence in their abilities.

If you stick it out and do the same, you might just surprise yourself and realize that you are up to the challenge.

This can do a lot for you later on in life.

When you are faced with a difficult situation, you won’t just jump ship and take the easy road.

Before you drop the course, make sure you understand exactly what the consequences are.

I don’t go into detail in this article about the disadvantages of dropping a course so definitely check out that post. You will thank me later.

But remember, this is your life and your decision, you have to figure out what is best for you. It could be better for some students to drop rather than endure the pain.

Why are some professors more difficult than others?

Some professors may be more difficult than other professors because of their previous experience in the field. They may use their insights to create their course content and assessments to measure students’ performance.

Some professors might just be hard on their students and this can be frustrating for students. But I ask you to consider a few things first.

What do you have to compare this professor’s grading to?

If you are comparing your high school experience to college, they are entirely different. Now, I want you to compare your grades in this college-level course to other courses you have completed.

Are you submitting similar work and getting entirely different grades?

If so, maybe there are some discrepancies in how the professor grades compared to others.

You really need a large sample to determine this. You can’t just compare ONE professor to another. But if you have quite a bit of education under your belt, you have a pretty good idea if this grading is exceptionally harder.

What is the course?

Some topics and fields are entirely more complicated compared to others.

You couldn’t possibly expect to perform the same way in an easy course compared to some of the more difficult math and sciences courses.

Try and compare your grades to similar courses you have taken in the past.

Is this your field of study or is this an elective or a course for your general requirements? If so, it might just be the course and the curriculum.

Are you putting in the effort?

Let’s be real for a moment. Are you trying as hard as you have in the past?

This course might just be more challenging and you might have to study a little harder.

Try cranking up your effort and see if you can improve your grades before you jump to any conclusions.

I definitely believe that most students can recover from a bad grade.

When to worry

Let’s say that you think you are completing the same level of coursework in other classes but are still being graded harder in this class, it might be worth a closer look.

However, your professors in the other classes might just be really easy graders and you haven’t experienced a professor who grades according to a rubric.

I can remember having students take my class for their second time, and performed vastly better than they did with another professor.

So, it could totally be the professor too. They might not be a good teacher, which impacts your learning. Or the student might have just been more prepared the second time around. It’s hard to tell.

If you still think that none of these things explain your situation, I think you need to keep reading to learn how exactly to deal with a tough professor.

What to do if you have a tough professor who grades harshly?

If you have a professor who grades too tough, you should immediately talk to them and have them explain exactly whey they are deducting points from your assignments and ask if they could provide some additional assistance for success like reviewing a draft of your next assignment.

I am going to give you some general ideas on how you can deal with your professor that you believe is grading too difficult.

And then after I share these ideas with you, I am going to tell you how I wish my students would have approached me about their grades.

I don’t think most professors want students to fail so they’re willing to help.

Talk to them

Ask them what the perfect assignment looks like? Ask them what the perfect students would do in their class regarding studying, working on assignments, etc.

For example, when I was a professor, our university had amazing resources for students like a writing lab. If students wanted to improve their grades, they should have visited that lab. If you just ask your professor and have an honest conversation, you’ll get further.

You have to do this FIRST. Bottom-line, you really just need to ask them for help.

Consider their perspective

When I first started teaching, my syllabus was about two pages long.

When I left the profession, it ended up being around eight pages long.

Why?

Because of all the different things that happened with students that made me create a new policy.

Your professor has some experience, either teaching or in the field, and there is an expectation that they have set from their experiences. Try to understand where they are coming from.

Tutoring

You should immediately sign up for some academic assistance at your college.

Most universities will have plenty of academic resources for enrolled students.

Check out what your college has to offer and utilize them all. If they don’t have anything, ask a classmate to help you or create a study group.

Ask for a redo

You might consider asking your professor if you can redo the assignment after understanding the requirements a little better.

They might not allow you to do this, but I have a great article to help you ask them. It’s worth a try.

Retake the class

If you do not think that you are going to pass, and you end up failing the class, you might have no other decision than to retake the class with a different professor.

Some students might even drop the class with plans of retaking it with someone else. It is a BIG decision so think about it first.

Withdraw

If you do not think that you can recover from your grades, you need to seriously consider withdrawing from the course.

Do not just jump into this decision without determining all the consequences first. I mentioned earlier that I had the perfect article written just for students considering withdrawing from a course.

Understand the rubric

Do they have a grading rubric? Are you following it?

You need to sit down with your professor and have them help you understand what you are doing wrong based on their rubric. If they don’t have a rubric, maybe you could tell them it would help you perform better.

Honestly, you might not be understanding the assignments and it’s okay to ask for some help.

And as a very last resort, you do have some other options.

If you really believe that your professor is grading your assignments unfairly, follow my advice here.

What my students did

Okay, now that I have explained what options you have when you are dealing with a tough grader, I want to tell you what my students have done in the past and what’s personally helped REAL students with the same problems.

One time, a student was not doing well on this exams. He failed his first two exams and we only had a few left. He was really worried and didn’t understand how to pass the tests. He was honest with me and I helped him understand that he wasn’t studying the right material and he definitely wasn’t given himself enough time to study either.

He tried my solutions, and then somewhat improved his grades. But it wasn’t enough. Then I told him about some workshops that our college offered. He had no idea they existed. They taught him some study strategies and lessened his test anxiety.

I am not lying when I say that this student improved his exam score by 31 points.

So, going and talking to your professor who grades tough is most important.

Let me give you another example.

A student wasn’t doing so well on their discussion posts. She came by my office and told me her dilemma and asked me if I had any ideas on how she could do better. I was able to go over her last post with her and explain all the errors she made. I told her about the university’s writing lab, and she went before the next discussion was due.

She improved but still could do better. The next discussion, she came to my office with an outline and I helped her understand how to guide her thought process for the assignment. She really did improve on the next post after she implemented my steps.

Now, I know it can be super intimidating to talk to your professor about failing, but it really is a MUST.

Talking is honestly the BEST way to deal with a professor who grades too harshly. And when your professor knows that you want to improve and you have talked to them about your assignments, they may just take that into consideration when they are assigning final grades.

Now, if you just have a bad professor, you should read about what to do next instead.

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