POL SCI 50
Introduction to Comparative Politics
Grades
3.04
Average grade awarded in POL SCI 50. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
44%
of the 1,065 letter grades
D, F or W
8.1%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
2%
88% of those passed
The registrar's own records: 1,065 grades over 11 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
2 of those terms are summer sessions, and summer sessions are counted here.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 11 terms ran 2.70 to 3.85.
Historical grades for all professors, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 81 · 7.6%
- A 249 · 23.4%
- A- 137 · 12.9%
- B+ 119 · 11.2%
- B 144 · 13.5%
- B- 77 · 7.2%
- C+ 46 · 4.3%
- C 81 · 7.6%
- C- 48 · 4.5%
- D+ 6 · 0.6%
- D 22 · 2.1%
- D- 4 · 0.4%
- F 51 · 4.8%
- P 23 of 1,100
- NP 3 of 1,100
- S 1 of 1,100
- I 5 of 1,100
- DR 3 of 1,100
Percentages are of the 1,065 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P), no-passes (NP), satisfactory (S), incompletes (I), and withdrawals (DR).
How the non-letter outcomes are counted
They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.
Withdrawals are the exception to "excluded": DR is not scored, but it IS counted in the D, F or W figure above, which is reported over the letter grades plus the withdrawals. Pass/no pass and S/U outcomes are outside that figure on both sides.
By instructor
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Summer Session A 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| THIES, MICHAEL F reviews ↗ | 2.82 | 2.82 | 763 | 8 | 33% | heavy | not teaching it |
| HOMOLA, JONATHAN reviews ↗ | 3.42 | 3.46 | 174 | 1 | 59% | light | not teaching it |
| ROSS, MICHAEL L reviews ↗ | 3.69 | 3.85 | 66 | 1 | 86% | - | not teaching it |
| FRIEDMAN, JACK reviews ↗ | 3.64 | 3.80 | 62 | 1 | 92% | - | not teaching it |
Why Predicted is not the Raw average
“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.
Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.
Workload and assignments
Work types reported in BruinWalk reviews of this course, across recorded instructors and terms. They may differ from this term's syllabus.
What the work looks like
- 2 exams, said by 4 reviewers
- Quizzes mentioned, no number given, said by 4 reviewers
- 1 paper, said by 7 reviewers
- 2 problem sets, said by 1 reviewer
- 1 project, said by 1 reviewer
- Group works mentioned, no number given, said by 1 reviewer
Read from 94 reviews about 1 month ago. dibs counts only what a review actually states, so a kind of work nobody mentioned is absent rather than zero.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 50R. Comparative study of constitutional principles, governmental institutions, and political processes in selected countries. P/NP or letter grading.
Sections in Summer Session A 2026
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking POL SCI 50 was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
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