29 August 2025
Josh
By email
: [FYI request #31520 email]
Dear Josh
OIA 25.302 400 and 600 Level Grade Distributions for Semester 1 2025
I refer to the Official Information Act (the Act) request dated 9 July 2025 regarding 400 and 600 Level Grade
Distributions. You have specifical y requested:
For all 400 and 600 level papers in the first semester of 2025, could you please provide the fol owing:
(1) The final grade distribution for the paper (broken down by letter grade, e.g. A+, A, A-, ... etc.)
(2) The number of students who passed the paper
(3) The number of students who enrol ed in the paper
(4) The mean and median final marks for the paper (percentage)
If the papers had anything notable that would sway the statistics, please also note that down.
On 16 July 2025, the Information and Records Management (IRM) team went back with the fol owing
clarification:
Kia ora Josh
We have been processing your OIA request. As Semester 1 2025 has recently finished, not all grades from the
Semester are finalised yet, due to processes such as Special Considerations as outlined [1]here.
To that end, are there any specific 400 and 600 course grade distributions that you are particularly interested
in?
On 20 July 205, you clarified:
Dear Information and Records Management,
Thank you for your response.
I understand that the Special Considerations process is stil underway. I would be happy to either receive the
current state of the grades distribution (knowing that some grades could change), or the omission of the grades
that are stil in the process of being finalised.
With the courses, I am interested in seeing all grade distributions for all 400 and 600 level courses in 2025
Semester One.
Therefore, please see attached the 400 and 600 courses grades that have final grades as at 30 June 2025. As
not al courses at this level fol ow the Semester 1 and 2 time pattern, this is the closest information that we
can provide to your request.
Where a course has five or less students in it, the overal pass rate of the course has been provided in lieu of
the grade distribution. This is to protect the privacy of those in these smal er courses under s 9(2)(a) of the Act.
It is in the public interest that individuals are not identifiable when providing information about course
numbers.
Where a course has six or more students in it, where there are five or less students in a particular grade, the
actual number is not provided, rather a range of less than or equal to five (≤5). This is to protect the
individual’s privacy under s 9(2)(a) of the Act. It is in the public interest that individuals are not identifiable
when providing information about grades.
To obtain the mean of the letter grades the Grade Point Average (GPA) value for each grade was used. The
median letter grade was determined by the order of the GPA value corresponding to each letter. Some courses
do not have letter grades, where the option are Pass, Fail or Withdraw. For completeness, these have also
been included. For further information about the grading scale at UC, please se
e here. To go get the
information on percentage final marks from each course would take substantial collation and research, as this
would include contacting the course coordinator for each course separately. This is therefore refused under s
18 (f) of the Act. What is held in a more central location is mean and median final letter grades, therefore this
is what has been provided.
There is no information held on whether anything notable swayed the requested statistics. Therefore, this
information is withheld under s 18(e), as it does not exist.
You have the right to seek an investigation and review by the Ombudsman of this decision. Information about
how to make a complaint is available at www.ombudsman.parliament.nz or freephone 0800 802 602.
Yours sincerely
Information and Records Management