Grades are unfair when TAs have varying standards

TO THE EDITOR:

In a class with more than 100 students your grade depends a bit on luck. For practical reasons your work will most likely be graded by one of the TAs which is nice for the professors — they only have to teach the material not spend countless hours grading — but this creates a huge problem for students.

Whenever there is subjective grading (e.g. short answer essays and papers) done by multiple sources there's typically a disparity in the average grades. And I think it's safe to say it's not because one TA simply got smarter students; rather that TA was a little more generous in grading.

Not to knock on these smart grad students but it would be nice to be graded by the professor who is the one saturating us in knowledge.

The difference in trends should be accounted for so they both lie closer to the mean. A simple mathematical formula would take in all of the TAs grading styles and thus distribute fairer grades. 

Grades aren't everything but for the same work it's nice to receive the same credit as the next guy.



Zach Holland
Senior
Economics