Disappointed with my master's grade

[namechangedgraduate]

I know I am being very unreasonable posting this, hence why I have name changed and hence why I have come to an anonymous forum rather than tell anyone this in real life. I got my master's grades back yesterday and I am really annoyed at myself for being disappointed when the grades themselves are really good.

I got a distinction overall which I am happy about and all of my modules range from 72-90%. However, I am disappointed in my dissertation grade. The two assignments I submitted in the latter part of my master's got 85% and 90%. Then the final assignment was my dissertation which had a heavy weighting. I got 72% in my dissertation. I feel sad because it is >17% lower than the previous two assignments and that it is only "just' a distinction, it is also my lowest grade of the master's. I spent hours and hours in the lab and writing it up and I just feel like it doesn't show. I am also disappointed as my undergraduate dissertation got 78% and I feel sad my master's dissertation grade is lower.

I want to do on to do a PhD and I just feel disheartened that my research project was my lowest mark. I know I am being ridiculous and 72% is good and I should be happy about it in itself it is just when I consider the mark in context with my previous performance I feel like I have let myself down. I am also frustrated with myself that my response to a distinction has been tainted by my perfectionism and I feel like I cannot celebrate my result as it is tinged with disappointment. I haven't even told my parents yet which is ridiculous as 72% is good.

Sorry, I know this is ridiculous and I am embarrassed to post it but I already feel better haven written this. Like I said, I can't say this in real life as I know I am being ridiculous.

[HalfSiblingsMadeContact]

I'm glad to read you're coming to terms with this. I absolutely understand the gut reaction bit though, and the difficulty of being able to talk to anyone about it because you've still done excellently.

Some (cough) years back I got a 1st class honours degree. Our graduation was some months after finishing (funny system where I went), and I found it really quite difficult. Why? Because if I had maintained my performance through my 4th year, I should have been a strong contender for the university medal for my course. But for various reasons I wasn't. Still a great degree result but I knew it wasn't what it could have been.

Don't let your disappointment in something that may not represent anything "real" anyway, set you back. Good luck with the next steps!

[SarahAndQuack]

No, it's entirely my fault! I should have clipped the quotation in any case, to make it clearer what I was taking issue with.

I think the problem arises because students often assume HE is standardised in the same way schooling is, so that grade boundaries will be the same everywhere and a 'good' mark will mean the same thing to everyone.

[Pota2]

Oh, sorry for the confusion! Yes, totally agree that it’s not ‘harder’ if the boundary is higher. It’s just a different mark scheme.

[notmytea]

I would assume that either the essay grades were inflated or you're just better at structuring shorter pieces/writing essays rather than conducting an actual research project. Don't worry, PhD will be fine, it's all part of the learning.

[pota2]

www.hps.cam.ac.uk/students/mphil-guide/examining

This is from a hums subject at cambridge which has ‘first class’ at 70, although the ‘high distinction’ is 80. But I would say that the 70 mark is pretty much what everyone else recognises as a distinction/first.

[SarahAndQuack]

Oh, I'm sorry, I've confused daisy and doublebarrelled (who was one of the people talking about boundaries at 80), and you're quite right.

However, the point I'm trying to stress here, which does matter, is that different grading boundaries do not mean it is 'harder' to do a masters course where you have to get 80 to get a Distinction.

[Pota2]

Is it not 70 at Cambridge then? Because it was when I studied there, although that is over 10 years ago now. Not English lit (don’t want to out myself by saying the actual subject).

[SarahAndQuack]

Interesting!

I'm English Lit. Did my MSt at Oxford (where the boundary is 70); then worked at Cambridge. I'm out of the UK now, but it wasn't very long ago, so I doubt it has changed.

[Pota2]

Sarah really? Maybe it is subject specific because Cambridge is one of the institutions that I am familiar with. In humanities/soc-sci though so maybe different in other disciplines. Not studied or worked at Oxford but surprised if grade boundaries different for Humanities there.

[Mayday19]

I am now wondering why I didn't receive any grades for my masters work - neither for the assignments or the final dissertation. No feedback either. I definitely passed though!

[Snog]

It's a shame that you are making a huge success into a failure OP.
I think you should go out and celebrate wholeheartedly.

[SarahAndQuack]

Really? Oxford and Cambridge are different, just off the top of my head. Maybe it's subject specific, too.

[Pota2]

Sarah I have worked and studied at 8 different HE institutions in the UK and been external examiner for another 3. Other than the OU, I have not come across any place where the boundaries are not as outlined by Daisy above.

[Lweji]

This is all a learning process and I don't think it can predict your performance at PhD level.
In the same way that desk based assays don't predict lab based original work.
If you go on to a PhD thesis, you'll have time to learn and fine tune your research and writing skills.

[SarahAndQuack]

Grade boundaries are different at the OU and in non UK universities, but my understanding is that in the UK they are as @daisychaiins states.

This is meaningless. They just vary from place to place. And if you are somewhere where the distinction class starts at 80, that will be the same level of work as a 70 somewhere where it starts at 70. It really irritates me when people assume it is 'harder' to do one than the other. It's got nothing to do with that! It is simply to do with whether or not the markers use the full range up to 100. Having marked plenty of MPhil papers, I can say this with confidence.

FWIW I was over the moon to average 70 for my own, which just squeaked into the Distinction category (we didn't have Merits, just Distinction, Pass or Fail). I knew one person on my course who got 75 and he was considered absolutely exceptional. It's just because the markers there didn't use a very wide range of marks, so virtually everything fell between 55 and 75. They never awarded over 80.

And that person who got 75? Did two months of a PhD then decided it wasn't for him, and went to re-train. I did my PhD and went on into academia, and loads of us weren't the people who got the highest marks early on.

[loseyourself]

the dissertation is what most closely matches a PhD in terms of it being a lab-based research project with a written dissertation

This is true and forget about the grade boundaries in different universities (which sorry, I brought up, ignore it). The truth is you lost 28% on that final paper when you were scoring really high. It's only a blip on your road to where you want to go and the standards you set for yourself. Those grades won't matter in a year or two but that grade is telling you, get the feedback, trust your own research more, have novel ideas, but back them up and project or analyse some data that nobody else has, even if you are unsure - run your ideas past people in the field - that's what a PHD will require, something new or a new approach, but you will be fine, you obviously have the smarts, just step ping out of the academic box is very difficult

[F1rstT1meMummy]

I finished my masters six years ago. I got some awesome grades for my assignments and then a lower grade for my dissertation. I was gutted. It also pulled my overall grade down.
Now... six years on, I can't even tell you what the grades were. I am just pleased I did it.

[grandennui]

Grade boundaries are different at the OU and in non UK universities, but my understanding is that in the UK they are as @daisychaiins states.

[doublebarrellednurse]

At MSc level @daisychaiins that makes me feel like mines really hard 😭😭😭😭

[daisychaiins]

@doublebarrellednurse That may have been the case at your university but at mine the grading is:

70% - Distinction
60-69% - Merit
50-59% - Pass

[PerpetualStudent]

Post doc here (with only 74% on my MA dissertation ) I echo the advice above about academia needing a thick skin, and to expect rejections.
Also, academia is about entering a conversation, publications are not just judged and accepted/rejected, they are peer reviewed and you have to respond to your reviewers comments and develop your work accordingly. This is very different to the finite handing over of masters-level work and you need a particular kind of resilience to sit down with a paper for the second, third or even forth time and continue to edit and improve it.

[doublebarrellednurse]

MSc level

70 = merit

80 = distinction

[namechangedgraduate]

Thank you so much, everyone. I have had a few days since I found out my grade and I now feel content with it. I think it was just a shock for a piece of work which involved so much hard work and e.g. 10-12 hour days in the lab for weeks on end to be graded lower compared to essays which I have written in just a few weeks comfortably at my desk getting high distinctions. However, I am happy with my grade now.

Also, I know obtaining grades in the 80s and 90s is rare, I have been told that and when I received the 90% grade I was called into the lecturer's office and they told me it is rare. I was told by one lecturer that my work was nearly equal to what she herself would have produced and that is what justified the high grade.

I think the reason I had taken this grade so personally is because out of all the assignments I have done, the dissertation is what most closely matches a PhD in terms of it being a lab-based research project with a written dissertation. For it to be my lowest piece of work makes my self-doubt come to a surface and causes me to think I'm not a good scientist but just good at academic writing. However, 72% is still good and I am now happy with that and to be honest as soon as I had written the OP and gotten it off my chest I felt better.

@loseyourself my university, and I think most universities apart from the OU(?), define distinction as anything above 70%.

[Auberjean]

The key academic virtue is persistence and not to identify too strongly as a Clever Person. This because you will constantly experience threats to your core sense of who you are - which gets in the way of getting on with things.

This is excellent advice.

[JangoInTheFamilyWay]

A distinction for a lab based masters dissertation is excellent, research projects are simply not like other assessments and should not really be compared. Well done. Stop overthinking it and celebrate your success.

However if you do want to go into a lab based PhD, consider very carefully how you cope with failure because you will face it , a lot! Frankly, that you consider this any kind of disappointment is worrying.

PhD projects are very different to masters projects (which are usually much more likely to work). Most PhD projects change significantly from beginning to end simply because they don't work as expected and you find a more interesting aspect to pursue. It is not unusual to feel as though you are banging your head against a brick wall for significant periods of time. If you are not the kind of person who can pick themselves up and carry on you will find this very hard.