Should a teacher round up a grade?

It comes down to whether or not the A-/B+ cutoff is really where they say it is. If they say the cutoff is at 90% and they mean it, they don't round up. If they say it's at 90% but they'll actually round up if it's 89.95% or better, then the cutoff isn't really 90%, it's 89.95%.

There's no "should" about it: some people do it one way and some do it the other, and it's a reasonable call either way. Personally, I prefer that the cutoff be where I am told it is and I think that's a bit more reasonable than lying to students at the outset, but I don't think it's reasonable enough that my way is the way it ought to be done.

No matter where the cutoff is, there will be one or more people in the class who have the highest grade earned that is nonetheless below the cutoff. Sometimes there will be people very close to the cutoff, but below it.

These people will often want the higher grade; they want the cutoff moved so that they can say they earned a higher grade than they actually did, given the original rules of the class. They often have what seem (especially to them) like excellent reasons to move the cutoff: the grade *would be* the difference between graduating with honors or without, keeping a 4.0 average they have worked hard for or dropping below 4.0, retaining a scholarship they desperately need or losing it, being able to stay in school or finding themselves on academic dismissal, etc. Or else they have what seem like pretty good reasons to move it: the grade *might be* the difference between getting into college or being rejected, incurring parental wrath or skating by, and so on. (In your case, unless the school told you that it will, you have no real reason to believe that the difference between a B+ and an A- will actually make any difference at all. You're just speculating based on your belief that better GPA's improve people's odds. But it's entirely possible that applicants will be put into categories based on ranges of GPA's, and you'd be in the same category unless your grades were improved in 3 or 4 classes, or that for some other reason this wouldn't affect your chances at all.)

But if the cutoff is moved, then there will be someone else with the highest grade earned below the cutoff and sooner or later there will be someone with a grade very close to the new cutoff, but just below it. And one way or the other the same argument will arise again. Eventually, either grades become meaningless because cutoffs just get moved farther and farther down (it's a form of grade inflation, and it leads to colleges learning that you can't be sure that a student from your school who has an A- on their transcript actually did anything approaching A- work), or a fairly arbitrary decision is made about who is the first undeserving person below the original cutoff, or you just stick to whatever the rules were from the start (including the original decision about whether or not the cutoff students are told about is the actual cutoff).

I think there's a strong case to be made that, no matter whether the original cutoff is the one everyone is told about or not, the original rule should be maintained. I can't think of any fair way to determine where the new cutoff will be, once you start lowering it for the people who are at the top of the group whose grades are below the original cutoff.

In addition, I find it difficult to believe that there were no points during the quarter when you could have put in a bit more work and gotten slightly better grades on tests or assignments, and by doing so raised your class grade above the A-/B+ cutoff. It's just about never the case that there was nothing a particular student could have done to raise his grade in a particular class, because the student was actually doing every single thing possible to be earning a good grade. Every time you got a grade below an A- you could have said, "This A- is really important to me, so I'm going to work harder and smarter so that I make sure my quarter grade is an A-." I think that if it's true that the difference between a B+ and an A- is really as important to you as you say, you should have worked harder - making sacrifices somewhere else that isn't as important to you - especially given that it's unlikely you'd have had to work very much harder to bring your grade up by 0.17%. I think expecting students to work a little bit harder so that they earn the grades they want according to the rules of the class if they are capable of doing so is more appropriate than expecting the rules of the class to change because people who didn't work hard enough or who weren't talented enough to earn the grades they want think they should get them anyway.

By all means, you should feel free to go talk to the teacher. (I'm not sure why you want to discuss why you received the grade you did. You can do the math, right? You're really there to ask the teacher to move the cutoff so that a better grade is recorded for you than the one you earned according to the rules that were set out at the beginning of the term.) But don't try to suggest that she is doing anything wrong here, because she's not. Go in as if you are asking for a favor - which is exactly what you are doing. And if she turns you down, there's nothing wrong with feeling disappointed, but don't let your behavior show that disappointment: be gracious about it.

Ultimately it is up to the teacher but there is no harm in talking to him and her, asking why they did it, and making your case on why you think the teacher should round it up