Final Grades Elude Students

There’s a new pastime on campus that’s more popular than perusing Facebook.com: obsessively checking the Registrar’s website. As of last night, some students who were enrolled in classes offered by the government and economics departments last fall were still waiting to hear about their grades.

Last night, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Registrar Barry S. Kane attributed the delays to faculty who have not yet submitted grade lists.

“The Registrar’s Office is always current and up-to-date with all grade recording,” Kane wrote in an e-mail. “If there are grades not displaying, it is because they have not been received by our office.”

The Registrar’s office said that students would be able to access their most recent grades by Feb. 6. Last semester, the Office of the Registrar decided to withhold grades until they could be verified and released all at once.

“I understand that it’s important for them to verify it, but they’ve had two weeks since the end of exam period,” said Matthew T. Valji ’08, who is missing grades from Government 97a, the department’s required sophomore tutorial, and Government 1792. “I wish they would’ve posted them when they said they were going to.”

Gabriel M. Scheinmann ’08 is missing his grade from Government 1792, “Intellectual Foundations of American Foreign Policy.”

“All of us are kind of pissed off,” Scheinmann said, referring to his roommates, who are also waiting for their grades. “Every two or three hours, someone’s been checking the Registrar’s website. It’s been a little nerve-racking to keep on checking and checking.”

Students involved in job searches or shopping week decision-making were hoping to have received their grades earlier.

“It’s a little inconvenient, especially because I’m not sure how well I did in my graduate class,” said D. Brendan Moore ’07, who is missing grades from Economics 1035, “Policy Applications of Psychology and Economics” and Economics 2010a, “Economic Theory.” Moore said he would have liked his grade from the second class because he was considering Economics 2010b, “Economic Theory,” but he has since decided not to enroll in the class.

Moore and other students in Economics 1035 may not have received their grades for that class because their grades were not submitted by the Registrar’s deadline, according to course instructor and Professor of Economics Sendhil Mullainathan.

Kane said last week that the uploading procedure for grades was changed to ensure that “when students are able to view their grades, they are looking at accurate information that has been reviewed and reconciled by the Registrar’s staff.”

Despite this change, however, fall semester grades that have been posted were not all accurate.

Grades in Foreign Cultures 90, “Urban Culture in Another Zion,” were not uploaded until Wednesday, and it was soon discovered that some students had received the wrong grades.

When course instructor Avi Matalon, who is assistant professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, received an e-mail from a student whose online grade report showed a C for the class but who had actually received an A-, he realized something was wrong.

Matalon said that the problem arose because a student who had dropped the course was not removed from the Registrar’s records. Beginning with the student who had left, every subsequent student received the grade of the student alphabetically above them.

“Six grades were entered in error and have been now corrected,” Matalon quoted from an e-mail sent by the Registrar. Today, affected students will be able to view their correct grade online.

“I really hope my grade is wrong,” Ryan A. Peterson ’08, a student in the class, said last night.

—Staff writer Lulu Zhou can be reached at luluzhou@fas.harvard.edu.