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Maverage Grades

About This Project

This project, Maverage Grades, was created to benefit both the students and faculty of Minnesota State University, Mankato. Before this, there was no effective way to visualize the grade distributions of courses and professors at this school. Maverage Grades underscores the importance of grade transparency, empowering users with valuable insights for informed decisions.

This website encompasses the grade distribution data of all courses taught by all professors from Summer 2020 to Spring 2024, organized in the following structure:

  • Course Subject: e.g., "Accounting"
  • Course Subject Abbreviation: e.g., "ACCT"
  • Course Number: e.g., "200"
  • Course Section: e.g., "01"
  • Year: e.g., "2020-2021"
  • Term: e.g., "Fall 2020"
  • Primary Instructor: "Ferdinand Siagian"
  • Grade Distribution: A: 57%, B: 17%, C: 14%, F: 6%, W: 3%

After over a year of communication with school administration—including follow-up emails, canceled meetings, and some resistance—I successfully obtained this data. Initially priced at $244, it was provided to me for a discounted rate of $122.

To enhance the user experience, I also used a web scraper to gather additional course details from the school's Active Course List. This includes:

  • Course Number: e.g., "ACCT 200"
  • Title: e.g., "Financial Accounting"
  • Credits: e.g., "3 credits"
  • Description: e.g., "The accounting process, financial statement preparation..."
  • Areas of Interest: e.g., "Finance"
  • Programs: e.g., "Accounting (BS) | Accounting Minor | Actuarial Science Minor..."

I am proud to present this valuable data to you in a user-friendly format at no cost. I encourage all students who use this platform to do so responsibly, especially when selecting future classes. Remember: "Maverage Responsibly."

How Course Sections Are Ranked

The sections of each course are ranked from best to worst grades using the following method:

  1. Weighted Scoring System: Grades are assigned point values to emphasize higher performance:
    • A grades (A+, A, A-): 10 points
    • B grades (B+, B, B-): 8 points
    • C grades (C+, C, C-): 6 points
    • D grades (D+, D, D-): 4 points
    • F grades: 2 points
    The percentages of students earning each grade are multiplied by their corresponding point values. The results are summed up to calculate a weighted score for each section.
  2. Sorting by Weighted Score: Sections are sorted in descending order of their weighted scores, with higher scores indicating better overall grades.

How Professors Are Ranked

Professors are ranked within each course based on the performance of the sections they taught:

  1. Section Points: After sorting sections by grades, each section is assigned points based on its ranking:
    • The highest-ranked section earns the most points (equal to the total number of sections).
    • The second-ranked section earns one fewer point, and so on, until the last section receives 1 point.
  2. Total Points by Professor: The points for all sections taught by a professor are summed to calculate their total points.
  3. Average Points: To account for professors who teach different numbers of sections, average points are calculated by dividing their total points by the number of sections they taught.
  4. Professor Ranking: Professors are ranked based on their average points, from highest to lowest. If professors have the same average points, they are sorted alphabetically by name.
  5. Rank Display: Each section card includes the professor's rank, formatted as: Professor Ranking: 3rd out of 22 professors

Example

For a course with 10 sections taught by 5 professors:

  • Sections are ranked by grades, and each professor’s average points are calculated based on the rankings of the sections they taught.
  • A professor who consistently teaches top-performing sections will rank higher than those with lower-performing sections, even if they teach fewer sections.

About the Author

My name is Anthony Lopez. I graduated from Minnesota State University, Mankato in the fall of 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems. I would not have the technical knowledge to build this website if it weren’t for the fantastic professors who teach at the school. I am extremely grateful for the work they do.

During my time at university, I also had the opportunity to grow professionally through experiences like interning at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis as a software engineer. I’m thankful for the guidance and support of my mentors who helped shape my skills and career path.

More than anything, I am grateful for my skoldiers on the Minnesota State Lacrosse Team. If you have an interest in the great sport of lacrosse, go out and give the club a try. I’ve met some of my best lifelong friends through that club.

Minnesota State Lacrosse Team

Thank you to everyone for using this website, and I hope you find it helpful. Please feel free to check out my LinkedIn and connect with me. And in case you forgot,

ROLL MAVS