BAD grade and want REDO : How to ask PROF (written by one)
Retaking an exam in college after making bad grade
Did you completely bomb an exam?
And now you are wondering if you can ask your professor to retake the exam? Maybe you want the bad grade replaced by a better grade and are hoping your professor will let you take it a second time.
I have answers for you since I was a professor for 15 years. I got these same questions from students ALL THE TIME. And I will tell you exactly how I dealt with it.
But most importantly, I will tell you how to talk to your professor about retaking an exam. You are probably a little nervous to approach your professor about failing an exam or simply scared to talk to them altogether, but I will give you some tips.
What does it mean to retake an exam?
If you want to retake an exam, you are asking your professor if you can take an exam for a second time. Maybe you didn’t do as well as you planned, or had some valid reason for performing terribly and you want to repeat the exam. But usually, a student who asks to retake an exam is doing so for a second time to try and get a better grade.
Can you retake an exam in college to replace a bad grade?
In college, it is not typical to be allowed to retake an exam for a second time. Most of the time, professors will NOT allow students to retake exams to try and make a better grade.
You may have a more lenient professor, but most won’t allow students to retake exams. However, I have seen some professors, mostly online, allow students to take a quiz twice and the highest grade is used in the calculation of your overall grade, but that’s rare.
But other than that, it is very uncommon for professors to allow students to retake exams.
This is because professors have hundreds of students each semester and they couldn’t accommodate every student that asked for a retake of an exam. It would be impossible.
And it could also be unfair. How can a professor choose which students should be allowed to retake an exam?
And how can a professor allow a student who has already seen the exam questions retake that same exam? It doesn’t make a lot of sense. The only way to avoid this is for the professor to create a new exam for the student to take. And that is WAY TOO MUCH WORK for professors to do this for every student who performed bad.
Also, professors believe the grade you got is the grade you earned.
Should you ask your professor to retake an exam?
Most college students shouldn’t ask their college professor if they can retake an exam. Professors aren’t going to allow the majority of students an opportunity to retake an exam to earn a better grade.
A professor may allow you to retake an exam if that’s their policy. You can check their syllabus and see if they have information in there that discusses their policies about retaking exams. But I doubt it’s an option in most courses.
How to ask your professor if you can retake an exam?
If you want to ask your professor to retake an exam, you should plan to talk to them immediately. Don’t wait days or weeks to bring this up to your professor. Go to them in person, and tell them WHY you want to retake the exam.
You are going to need to explain why you did not perform as well as you’d hoped on the exam. Give them plenty of details to understand your situation.
My biggest tip for you is to bring up to your professor the importance of learning the material. And by studying again and retaking the exam, you are going to absorb more of the material and learn the subject better.
You may also want to share with them your goals for your future career and how mastering this material is crucial. If having a specific G.P.A. is important, let them know that. Some students also have G.P.A. requirements for scholarships and you can share that information too.
Make sure you give them the option of creating an entirely new exam for you so that you aren’t given the same old exam because that would be unfair.
Now, I want to say one last thing. You should ask your professor what the average grade was on the exam. This is important because if the professor realizes that most of the class failed the exam, they may give everyone the opportunity to retake the exam. Or they may curve the grades.
But look, please understand that they are not obligated to allow you to retake an exam. It isn’t really their problem that you failed the exam but they should be concerned with helping you improve and making sure that it wasn’t anything they did that caused students to fail.
How to talk to your professor about failing an exam?
If you failed the exam, you should definitely talk to your professor about failing the exam to assess your situation. You should schedule some time to speak with them during office hours and discuss what went wrong. And get some tips on how to improve.
Before you go talk to them, you want to review your grades in the course. Was this an isolated bad grade or are you failing lots of your assignments? Did you feel prepared and expected to do better or did you know you were going to fail before you even took the exam?
These are all questions you need to ask yourself because your professor is going to want to know.
The first thing I would ask my students, who came and talked about failing an exam, was how did they prepare for the exam, and how did they think they were going to do on the exam.
This would often open up the conversation where they would talk about how they didn’t study enough and how they couldn’t concentrate during the exam.
When you talk to them, try and avoid blaming them for your failing grade. Don’t tell them that you did bad because they made the questions hard or confusing. It is okay to talk about that with them but don’t blame them.
You should focus on what you can do next time to improve. Your overall goal of this conversation should be about finding the errors you made on this exam and what to do to prepare for the next one.
You also want to discuss with your professor about your grade in their course and what this means for your overall grade. Will you be able to pass the course or should you plan on withdrawing from the class?
I have a feeling that you will get a lot of your questions answered when you reach out to your professor and discuss your failing exam grade. You don’t want to continue the semester and make the same mistakes again.
Plus, it will show your professor that you care, and you want to do better in their class.
Do professors allow you to retake an exam if you made a bad grade?
Most professors aren’t going to let students retake an exam because it is unfair to other students. Also, if they allow you to retake the exam, they would have to create another exam just for you because you already saw the exam questions the first time. Professors won’t let you retake an exam because if it goes against their policies.
Finally, professors may not allow students to retake a failed exam because the student has a history of failing exams and assignments and a retake opportunity won’t result in a better outcome. Professors want students to understand what went wrong and how to improve to make long term changes. You really need to get to the root of the problem.
Is it normal to fail tests in college?
It is not normal to fail exams in college but it does happen occasionally. It may happen to students who are first-year students or students that are taking a hard subject. Some students may also fail their very first exam in college because they weren’t prepared and did not know what to expect.
Sometimes, it takes freshmen in college a little more time to understand how to study and take exams in college because there are lots of differences between college and high school.
As a professor, I wouldn’t say that it is NORMAL to fail your college exams, but it isn’t entirely uncommon. It seems to happen to students who just weren’t prepared, and didn’t know how much they needed to study . Or they missed class entirely too much and didn’t understand the material.
If I had to give you a percentage of students who fail their college exams, I would say around 10%-15% of college students fail their exams. So, definitely not the majority but it does happen.
What happens if you fail a test in college?
If a college student fails their exam, they will receive the failing grade and it will be used to calculate their overall grade in the course. A professor won’t typically allow students to retake exams in college because of a bad grade.
The student will get the grade that they earned. On rare occassions, a professor may allow a student to retake an exam, but it won’t happen often.
If a student fails a test in college, they should plan on figuring out what went wrong and go and speak with their professor. After getting some answers from their professor, they should plan to get some tutoring too.
Hopefully the student learns how to improve and puts in the extra work to make better grades on future exams. Most college students can recover from failing one exam but if they have too many failing grades, they may have to withdraw from the course or risk getting a F in the class.
Since a professor likely sees many students fail exams throughout their career, it won’t be incredibly uncommon to them. And it’s not like they are going to call you out or talk to you about it. It will be like nothing ever happened.
Finally, if the failing test grade impacts your final grade in the course too much, and you end up with a low G.P.A., your college may place you on academic probation.
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