It is the end of the quarter and your grade is on the border between two letters. It all comes down to hundredths of a decimal. But after the exam and worksheets flood into Skyward, the 0.49 still remains. In a panic, you run to your teacher begging and pleading for extra credit or another worksheet, but they refuse. The next step is to run and cry to your friends about your awful teacher.

According to math.uh.edu, grade-grubbing is defined as “the act of a student going to a professor and asking for a grade to be raised for no legitimate reason.” This act also involves “wearing down the professor by arguing, begging, and pleading until they finally relent and increase the student’s grade.”

Not only is it childish and immature,  but grade-grubbing causes your teacher to look at you as a different type of student. Instead of being a student who cares about the information and learning, you become one who is only concerned with the grade.

Teachers already give students many fluff grades in the gradebook, and many teachers give at least one extra credit opportunity during the quarter. If you think about it, your grade should reflect the amount of information you retain during the quarter. Meaning, if on the test you get a 75 percent, in theory, you know 75 percent of the information taught. However, with the grades from homework and classwork, you earn an A or B.

Expecting teachers to make special accommodations just for you is selfish and unfair to other students who have worked just as hard or even harder than you in the class. Everyone has excuses. It is wrong to put teachers in a situation where they have to pick which excuse is ‘better.’ Psychology professor Samuel Veissière wants his students to “consider that there is a difference between fairness for all and fairness for each.”

There is a difference between justification and clarification. It is absolutely alright for a student to go to a teacher and ask why they got points off on an assignment. But the line is crossed when that said student begins to question a teacher with over 20 years of experience about their grading skills.

Although it may seem so, your grades are not everything. As long as you are trying your best and absorbing information, that is all that matters. Don’t diminish yourself by begging and arguing with a teacher. Look at any bad grade as chance to learn and improve.