🧳 General Course Information

2024/25 Autumn Term

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Are you a General Course student at LSE? First, welcome to LSE and London, and we are glad that you took this course! We hope you enjoy your time here.

This page contains specific information about your two grades for this course.

LSE Regulation

As you probably know from the General Course webpage, this is how your grades are determined:

Your General Course academic assessment comprises two components:

A class grade for each course. This is a summary letter grade obtained from your class teacher at the academic year’s end and is often used by home institutions in determining credit transfer. The class grade provides an overall assessment of your work over the course of the year. Class teachers award class grades based on attendance, class participation (engagement and quality), presentations and marks received for essays and/or problem sets.

An exam grade for each course: This is a separate letter grade based solely on the marks your receive for the summative assessment (exam and/or assessed essays) for each of your courses.

Both grades will appear on your LSE transcript. The LSE does not average them into a single mark and it is up to your home institution how they will use them in determining credit transfer and whether they will be factored into your GPA. The marking scheme for converting LSE marks into letter grades for is as follows:

LSE class of degree % mark equivalent Written Work/Exam Class Grade

First 75+ A+ A+

First 70-74 A A

Upper Second 65-69 A- A-

Upper Second 60-64 B+ B+

Lower Second 55-59 B B

Lower Second 50-54 B- B-

Third 45-49 C+ C+

Third 40-44 C C

Fail 0-39 F F

LSE class of degree	% mark equivalent	Written Work/Exam	Class Grade
First	75+	A+	A+
First	70-74	A	A
Upper Second	65-69	A-	A-
Upper Second	60-64	B+	B+
Lower Second	55-59	B	B
Lower Second	50-54	B-	B-
Third	45-49	C+	C+
Third	40-44	C	C
Fail	0-39	F	F

What does that mean for this course?

Exam Grade

It is the same as everyone else, and you can read more about how you will be graded on this course on the ✍️ Assessments page. At the end of the academic year, LSE will convert your exam grade into a letter grade (Written Work/Exam in the table above).

Class Grade

On the other hand, your class grade is tied more to whether and how you participate in class and engage with the assignments. Your class teacher determines this grade – not the course lecturer – and it will not necessarily match your exam grade.

Class teachers of this course are instructed to use the following criteria to determine your class grade:

an A+ student never failed a class without a valid reason, frequently participated in the class, contributed to a good environment with everyone, engaged with all the assessments (graded or not) and got a good enough score on the summatives (say, close to 70). This student also showed up to drop-in sessions when they needed help.
an A student was super engaged too, but might have missed a few classes, not participated as much as an A+ student, or might have gotten a good enough score on the summatives (say, around 64). This student also showed up to drop-in sessions when they needed help.
a B+ student is a good student who might have gotten a good enough score on the summatives overall but is not super participative. Or conversely, a student who although participative, did not do well on the summatives.
a C student is one who barely engaged with the assignments and was not participative in class.
an F student is someone who failed to get a passing grade on the summatives and did not engage with the assignments or the class.