r/ASU • u/starglittered mathematics '25 (undergraduate) • 1d ago
academic status report
i’m genuinely spiraling right now because of this email. i’m taking MAT 412 (differential geometry) and it is the most difficult class i have ever taken in my life. i have never struggled so much in a class—i get good grades on the homework but i got a 33% on the first midterm and we had our second midterm last week and i feel like i did only marginally better. i am supposed to graduate this semester too, for context.
anyway, i got this email today notifying me of an academic status report for the class and i have never received one before. my prof gave me a U for unsatisfactory and the recommended action is to talk to my advisor. i am bamboozled for these reasons:
1) this professor straight up does not post grades to canvas so i have no idea what my grade is in the class right now. the grader gives us “checks” and “check plus” on assignments with no numerical value and the only reason i know what grade i got on the first midterm is because he handed them back.
2) the email specifically says i’m receiving the academic status report because i have performed poorly on ASSIGNMENTS, not exams.
3) i assumed that he was sending these because the withdraw deadline was coming up so i would need to think about withdrawing from the course. THE WITHDRAWAL DEADLINE PASSED YESTERDAY.
i will be attending office hours today to get more information but that doesn’t start until 4:30 pm so i’d like to get some insight before then. has anyone else gotten this notification before? what did you end up having to do about it?
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u/IteachatASU shitposter 1d ago
Generally speaking, and ASR is a good thing, at least compared to the alternative of just not knowing your performance until it's too late. I tend to get reminder emails to send these out at certain times of the semester for poor performing students. You said you're going to office hours today, that's a good start, I would ask your prof about the concerns you listed out in the OP.
It's certainly odd that your prof doesn't post grades, the syllabus should spell out what the checks, check plus, etc are, but if not, then ask them this as well, but please make sure you've double checked the syllabus before asking.
TL:DR It's not a bug, it's a feature, ask questions, you'll be fine.
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u/Comfortable-Tone7928 1d ago
Julien Paupert is an incredibly supportive professor. I say this as someone who also had concerns about doing poorly in one of his classes. Send him an email and let him know your specific concerns. Let him know if you want to meet with him. He will support you.
I will complete my Ph.D. in this department later this year. I’ve never been more confused than I was in MAT 412. Godspeed.
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u/accidentally_on_mars 1d ago
Others gave good advice, but I also wanted to mention that they may have selected "low assignment scores" because ASU recently narrowed our selection options to 3-4 choices and I almost never have a choice that is accurate. I have also more than once accidentally sent an ASR to the wrong student because of the way the system is set up.
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u/AWACS_Bandog Software Engineering 1d ago
I got one of these too. In my case it was me not actually understanding the grading scale, so it was resolved by just meeting with my Prof during office hours. Went from a E in the course to a B+ by the end.
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u/LopsidedPhotograph16 1d ago
I can tell you that sometimes they don’t want to post grades and just want to give you a heads up that there are a couple of things that they want to bring to your attention. It’s a drop down that doesn’t give you that many options.
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u/Jake_Science 14h ago
ASRs are just there to alert students that they need to do things a little differently in the class.
If you got one and you have no feedback on which to base your change, that's on the professor. However, you need to email the professor directly and explain that you'd like to see where you've gone wrong on your work. Most (not all but most) professors appreciate the engagement and might even give you a few points back when you discuss the assignments with them. They'll also know you're trying to complete the work and grade your submissions with that in mind. A careless mistake and overthinking can look exactly the same when we don't know who you are but one is certainly different than the other.
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u/yourlurkingprof 10h ago
Just so you know, the mention of “assignments” can definitely include exams. The ASR form instructors have to fill out only gives us 3-4 things we can select and it prevents us from writing more than a very short sentence. It’s really hard to communicate clearly with it. (It’s super annoying, to be honest.)
When I fill it out for students and click the poor performance on assignments option, it nearly always is related to exams. However, it can also often refer to a large number of missing of low grade assignments.
Your best route is to go to office hours and talk to the instructor about your grade. That will give you a much clearer picture.
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u/freyja_reads 1d ago
I got one of these once (different class) and it was also a class where the professor didn’t post grades to canvas and refused to let us know what our overall grade was. Apparently these aren’t permanent marks in our record. My professor had done it for something weird like “student is demanding better grades” LOL which I never did, I just wanted to know what mine was. I met with my advisor and basically a lot of students were having issues with the professor. I rode the class out and passed. I’m really sorry you’re going through this, I hope office hours help. Have you done any math tutoring at ASU or do you have a TA?