The following guidelines represent sound educational practices that are appropriate to most graduate programs. Graduate programs and their faculty manifest their disciplinary traditions and expectations differently. Such specific expectations may take precedence over the more general guidelines offered below.

1. Instructors are expected to explain to their students the grading policies, including the evaluation weights for performance expectations to determine the final grade in each course, during the first week of instruction.
2. Final grades assigned to graduate students should be based on demonstrations of competence by the student, which may include tests, examinations, papers, projects, recitations, experiments, skill development, etc.
3. Instructors should be expected to provide students with formative assessment of learning on an ongoing basis.
4. Students should be informed in a timely manner of their scores on exams, papers, projects, etc.
5. Final grades in courses should include evaluation of the student’s capacity to organize and communicate (in written and/or oral form) the principal concepts and/or applications of the course content.