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[cmare]

Hello all!
I have been told that there is a very low probablitly of getting A+'s in grads school. A colleague told me getting one was a sign that a professor would accept working with me.
What do they mean, really?

[scampster]

This is so school and professor specific. I got A+s in grad school and while I don't know how many were handed out, I know from when exam distributions were reported, I was usually of the top one or two scores in the class (I spent my first year of grad school overcompensating for being an average undergrad).

What field are you in roughly? In my case (engineering), professors could hand out A+s all they wanted but if they didn't have money to take you on, then they aren't going to take you on, even if they think highly of you.

[blackbart]

What do they mean, really?

"They" (A+s) mean that you did really, really well in the class. Why might they "mean" anything else?

If a professor really wants to work with you, s/he'll likely say so. If you want to work with him/her, ask. Grades aren't academe's equivalent of smoke signals; they're grades.

[minorleaguer]

An A+ is great and all, but did you get the gold star on your first paper for the course?

That's super-top-secret grad school lingo for a budding relationship with your advisor.

That and if you haven't been asked to join the Freemasons by now, you might as well quit now.

[polly_mer]

I have been told that there is a very low probablitly of getting A+'s in grads school. A colleague told me getting one was a sign that a professor would accept working with me.
What do they mean, really?

What they mean really is that you got an A+ on whatever is being graded.  It's a grade.

As for whether the professor would work with you, I earned grades of B-minus in classes with people who were working with me because my research was fine, but my performance in the class was not and I earned As in classes where people declined to take me on as a student because of other factors.

I have had students earn As whom I in no way would ever take on as research assistants and I have been very pleased with the research assistants who earned Cs.  Classroom performance is not necessarily closely correlated with research performance.  The only way to know if a professor will take you on as a student is to ask the professor directly because some professors also have very low standards as to what constitutes an A+ so that many students who take those classes earn those grades.

[st_alfonso]

Hello all!
I have been told that there is a very low probablitly of getting A+'s in grads school. A colleague told me getting one was a sign that a professor would accept working with me.
What do they mean, really?

I hate the + - grading system. In my opinion, it means the professor is afraid to use the rest of the scale and has grade inflation. The new customer friendly grading system maps on to the old scale as follows:

A+ = A
A = B
A- = C
B+ = D
B = F

[mended_drum]

Is "A+" a final grade?  or the grade on a paper?  Because, once in a while, I've met a professor who will add that + to an assignment grade to signal truly superlative work, but I've never actually seen it on a transcript.

[scampster]

Is "A+" a final grade?  or the grade on a paper?  Because, once in a while, I've met a professor who will add that + to an assignment grade to signal truly superlative work, but I've never actually seen it on a transcript.

I have them on my transcript from my masters, but they count the same as an A in terms of the GPA (interestingly, at my undergrad my one A+ went into my GPA as a 4.3).

Another in my cohort who I was close friends with also got A+s in the same classes as me, so they weren't that uncommon to get at my master's school.

I don't think my PhD school does A+s though.

[locutus]

Considering most "Does my graduate GPA matter?" threads end up on "No", I'd say that an A+ mean absolutely nothing.

[mozman]

Grades?

I took every class pass/no pass.  Had one prof who initially didn't allow it.  I appealed by saying "what, do you want me to prove I can get an A?  You admitted me, you must know that I can, so what's the point?"

In my current program, students get grades.  I am for it for masters students, totally against it for PhD's.

mm

[laurel_knx]

I got a couple of A+s in grad school, and I think they were pretty rare. Not everyone seemed to even use them. I took it to mean I exceeded their standards FOR COURSEWORK by a large margin, and stood out from other student work. It was in no way an implicit offer of employment, but it certainly can't hurt to politely ask about the possibility of working with the prof after making a good impression in class.

At worst, I would bet grades are uncorrelated with the possibility of working with the prof.

[helpful]

Hello all!
I have been told that there is a very low probablitly of getting A+'s in grads school. A colleague told me getting one was a sign that a professor would accept working with me.
What do they mean, really?

I hate the + - grading system. In my opinion, it means the professor is afraid to use the rest of the scale and has grade inflation. The new customer friendly grading system maps on to the old scale as follows:

A+ = A
A = B
A- = C
B+ = D
B = F

In our grad school, C+ or below is an F. B- is a warning. You basicallyhave to get a B or above to keep being a student in our grad school.

There are also no exams in our grad school program. All marking is based on written assignments.

[helpful]

Considering most "Does my graduate GPA matter?" threads end up on "No", I'd say that an A+ mean absolutely nothing.

GPA matters in getting scholarships and funding. That's the only way the funding agencies can judge students as the content of their research is difficult to judge.

[heldsteady]

Considering most "Does my graduate GPA matter?" threads end up on "No", I'd say that an A+ mean absolutely nothing.

GPA matters in getting scholarships and funding. That's the only way the funding agencies can judge students as the content of their research is difficult to judge.

This is excellent advice. On the other hand, in the humanities, it's all about the letter of recommendation. However, if a professor is giving you B's you might not get a great letter out of them.

[short4bob]

The A+ I got in grad school was from a professor in a related field who was trying to recruit me to his program. YMMV, but don't expect they're going to show up regularly. Ultimately they're not relevant.