What-if grades, explained (and when they're wrong)

What-if grades let you type a pretend score into any assignment on your course site’s Grades page and watch your total grade change. They’re the fastest way to answer “what happens if I get a 70 on the next exam?” But the total is only as right as the way your professor set up the gradebook. If the weights, dropped grades or ungraded work there don’t match your syllabus, the what-if total is wrong too, sometimes by several points. Below: how to use what-if grades, five ways they go wrong, and how to check them in ten minutes.

How to use what-if grades

1. On your course site, open the class, then Grades.
2. Find an assignment, quiz or exam. Click its score (or the empty space where a score would be).
3. Type the score you want to test, and press Enter.
4. Your total updates as if that score were real. The real score stays underneath.
5. When you’re done, use revert to actual score (it may appear next to the score or at the side of the page) to put your real grades back on screen.

Three things to know:

• Only you see them. What-if scores don’t change your grade, and your professor doesn’t see them.
• There’s a setting for ungraded work. Most grades pages have an option to calculate your total from graded work only, and it’s usually on. Leave it on to see your grade so far. Turned off, every ungraded item counts as zero.
• No total, no what-if. If your professor hides the course total, there’s nothing for a what-if score to change.

A worked example

Say your syllabus weights the class like this: Homework 20%, Quizzes 20%, Midterms 30% (two midterms), Final 30%.

So far you have: homework average 92, quiz average 78, Midterm 1 74. Midterm 2 and the final aren’t graded yet.

Your grade on what’s graded is each average times its weight, divided by the weight graded so far (70%):

(20 × 92 + 20 × 78 + 30 × 74) ÷ 70 = 5,620 ÷ 70 = 80.3%

Now try a what-if score of 85 on Midterm 2. Your midterm average becomes (74 + 85) ÷ 2 = 79.5, and:

(20 × 92 + 20 × 78 + 30 × 79.5) ÷ 70 = 5,785 ÷ 70 = 82.6%

If your grades page is set up the way the syllabus says, it shows the same 80.3% and 82.6%. If it doesn’t, that’s the first sign something on this list applies.

When what-if grades are wrong

1. The weights aren’t set up in the gradebook

The syllabus weights the categories, but the gradebook adds up raw points. This is the most common mismatch, and it can push your total either way.

In the example, say homework is 200 points in all, the five quizzes are 20 points each (100 in all), and Midterm 1 is 100 points. Counting raw points: 184 + 78 + 74 = 336 of 400 = 84.0%. The syllabus weights give 80.3%. The grades page could show the higher number all term, and the professor’s final grade would use the lower one.

2. Dropped grades aren’t applied

The syllabus says your lowest quiz is dropped, but the gradebook doesn’t drop it (some professors drop it by hand at the end of term).

In the example, say your quizzes were 90, 85, 80, 75 and 60. That averages 78. Drop the 60 and the average is 82.5, and your grade so far becomes (20 × 92 + 20 × 82.5 + 30 × 74) ÷ 70 = 81.6%, not 80.3%. Here the course site undercounts you.

3. Ungraded work counts as zero

If the “graded work only” option is off, or the gradebook is set to count missing work as zero, your total treats everything not yet graded as zero. In the example, a zero for Midterm 2 and the final gives about 45%. That’s your floor if you never turned in another thing, not your grade.

4. The final, or other work, isn’t in the gradebook yet

You can’t type a what-if score into an assignment that doesn’t exist yet. If the final or a big project hasn’t been created on the course site, the what-if total can’t show its effect. Use the syllabus weight and our guide on what you need on your final instead.

5. Grades not yet released

Professors can hold scores back until everyone’s work is graded. A score you can’t see isn’t in your total, so your total can jump when a batch of grades is released.

There are smaller ones too: a letter scale on the course site that differs from the syllabus (a B+ at 87 in one and 88 in the other), rounding rules, extra credit added at the end, and participation or attendance grades kept outside the course site.

How to check your what-if grades in ten minutes

1. Open the syllabus and write down each category and its weight.
2. Write down any drop rule (“lowest quiz dropped”, “lowest homework dropped”).
3. On your grades page, average your scores in each category, after drops.
4. Multiply each average by its weight, add them, and divide by the total weight of the categories that have grades.
5. Compare with the total on your grades page.

If they match to within a few tenths, the what-if total is trustworthy for that class. If they don’t, use your own number, and use what-if scores only to see how one assignment moves a category average. Our free grade calculator does steps 3 and 4 for you: type your category weights and averages (or paste the syllabus’s grading section to fill in the weights), then try what-if scores against the syllabus weights rather than the gradebook’s.

If the gap is large, it’s fair to ask your professor which number reflects your grade. Keep it neutral: “My grades page shows 84%, but with the syllabus weights I get 80.3%. Which should I go by?” There’s often a simple answer, like weights that get applied at the end.

Where Coursebird fits

Coursebird does the check above for every class. It reads your score from your school’s course site, takes the weights and dropped grades from your syllabus, and shows your grade the way the syllabus counts it, plus what you need on the final. Each syllabus fact it uses shows the line it came from, so you can see why a number is what it is. Coursebird also says plainly that your professor’s final grade can differ, because only the professor decides it.

Coursebird is free and in beta, and you can join the list from this page. For finals season, our guide to building a finals study schedule from your syllabi is the next step. See how Coursebird shows your grades.