When I was in high school we used A-E to represent grades, with A being 100% obviously, and E usually being <50%. Even in my university, we use a slightly different one, but it still starts with A and ends with E.
However, growing up, I remember seeing TV shows use F as a bad grade for students. Shows such as Fairly Odd Parents and Ned’s Declassified, for example.
Are there actually schools that use F as the lowest grade? Do they still use E, or do they just skip it?
42 comments
We skip E
We skip E for F
It’s generally common for F to be the worst grade possible where letter grades are used, and “E” is very rare.
(Depending on context, “D” is often a failing grade, especially for any course to be used as a prerequisite for other courses)
Can’t speak for all American schools but to my knowledge yes F is the lowest.
Yes, most schools where I am use “F” as a failing grade, and skip “E”.
Although, my kindergarten report card uses just “E” and “S” for grades, but like, kindergarten back then wasn’t really considered “official” schooling yet.
F for failure.
D is the lowest passing grade.
Often C is the minimum requirement for advancement to increased difficulty. For instance going from lower difficulty math to advanced difficulty math. Or going from introductory foreign language to advance for foreign language.
Edit: it has been a long since I was in regular school. From what I remember, generally speaking.
A – 90% – 100% points possible
B – 80% – 89% points possible
C – 70% – 79% points possible
D – 60% – 69% points possible
never heard of grade E
A,B,C,D and F. Fis less than 60. Been this way my whole career as a teacher and admin.
I teach in the community college system and we still use F.
Def F for Fail
When I was in college (long time ago), there were also pass/fail classes. I never was in one so I can’t give specifics, but you either landed on P or F
If an American police person heard a kid say “I got an E at school” police would suspect extascy(I can’t spell it)
F for Failure.
We skip right over E because F- Fuck you, kid.
A, B, C, D and F
Elementary schools use E (but it means Excellent), however once you get into middle school then F is the lowest. It means you’re Failing the class. At least, that’s how it is where I am.
My school has A+ through C- and NP for anything below 70.
My high school only used A, B, C, and F. No D or E. Anything below a 70 was an F.
Yes. F = fail.
I’ve never heard of “E” being a grade within an A-F system.
IIRC, “E” (excellent) was a grade when I was in grade school. Along with S (satisfactory) and U (unsatisfactory). I think that was because it was based primarily on the teacher’s subjective observations rather than on a mathematical point system.
I always understood that A-D were grades on a scale, and F = fail. Yes, all the schools I attended had an F grade option (aside from elementary). Never seen an “E” grade anywhere.
My understanding is that there aren’t really five grades, there are four grades and one abbreviation. A, B, C, and D represent different grades of passing (usually D means you barely passed and can’t move on to other courses that have that course as a prerequisite, but you don’t have to retake the course.)
F is an abbreviation for “fail.” You have to retake the course if you want credit for it. If it’s a graduation requirement you can’t graduate with an F.
Yes. F is for failing. There is no E.
My Junior High and High School in metro Detroit used A-D and F. As did the colleges I’ve attended.
Depends on where and what grade. Elementary schools *usually* keep the E and skip the F … but even that’s no always true.
Nearly all higher schools skip the E.
Depends on the school. Mine graded like this:
A – 93% to 100%
B – 85% to 92%
C – 77% to 84%
D – 70% to 76%
X – 0% to 69%
We just used X instead of F.
Yes, to answer quickly.
A better question is does anyone know WHY we skip E generally?
Different schools I went to (Army brat) used one or the other. I’ve seen both.
Wow, guess I’m the odd one out here. In my school district E was a failing grade and there was no F.
Yes, A-F is our standard grading system.
Can’t remember where I read/heard it, but I believe they replaced E with F because parents were confused thinking E stood for excellent.
I have never even seen an E outisde of escuse in my 8 years of teaching. But I have given F’s
F = Failed either the assignment or the grade.
I’ve never heard of Grade E
We had the E in elementary school. In middle school that was changed to an F.
When I went to school (80’s-90’s) we had grades A-E. I got an E in one class, which is why I know. These days, I have no idea.
Ive seen e and f. They’re the same
My school had E as the lowest it must be a Michigan thing.
In elementary school, we sometimes use E for excellent, which would be the highest grade in that class. Otherwise, it’s generally A, B, C, D, F.
Yes
My school doesn’t do Fs, we use the 1-4 system with 1 being the lowest grade.
A is 4, B is 3, C is 2 and the last passing grade, and D is 1 which is a failing grade.
My high school and college both even only go down to C. Below that and it’s failure. My college in particular is known for the “NR” grade, so failing grades (ie below C) just don’t count for credit and towards GPA whatsoever.
Skip E, straight to F. I don’t know exactly why there is no E. The most common theory I kept seeing is that if the E grade existed then kids could just draw a line below an F grade to make it look like they passed.
As if parents can only go on what their kids have told them and have no way of independently checking assignment/class grades 🙄
My high school did, but my college uses A-E. It essentially means the same thing. An E and an F have both meant less than a 60% for me.
Short answer: **Yes**.
Long answer:
With different policies between states, school districts, and individual schools (public and private), it’s hard to make general statements about “schools in the US”.
My high school didn’t really use letter grades at all, with your GPA being calculated directly from your numeric percentage grades (with different scales for honors, regular, and special ed classes).
The school where I attended kindergarten and first grade used a different letter grade system of: **E**xcellent, **S**atisfactory, **N**eeds Improvement, or **U**nsatisfactory.
But the traditional letter grade system of A/B/C/D/F is still popular. [My university used it](https://registrar.tamu.edu/Transcripts-Grades/Grades#0-GradingSystem) (along with S/U grades for classes taken on a pass/fail basis, Q or W for dropped courses, and F* as an extra badge of shame for failure due to academic dishonesty). There are variations, of course. Sometimes D is skipped, leaving C as the minimum passing grade. Sometimes there’s an extra “E” grade between D and F. Frequently, the letter grades are modified with plus or minus signs.
Point is, “F” for failure, while not universal, is common enough that [a TV character’s reaction to seeing a big red “F” on his test paper](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfXdVooTgIQ) is widely understood.