Exeter vs Wolverhampton on marking fairness

If you’re weighing up where to study and either of these schools is on your list, here’s something you might want to know regarding their assessments: my recent experience using AI to “pre-grade” my university assignments has raised some serious questions about Wolverhampton’s marking practices.

I’m currently enrolled at both the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Exeter. Before submitting my assignments, I ran them through AI grading tools-always uploading each university’s official marking criteria so the AI would judge by the same standards as my professors or at least as close as possible to a neutral assessment. The results were pretty revealing.

On average, the AI graded my assignments a full 20 points higher than the grades I actually received from Wolverhampton. That’s not a one-off fluke-it happened consistently, across multiple assignments and different AI platforms.

By contrast, when I did the same with Exeter, the difference between the AI’s scores and my actual grades was never more than 10 points. That margin feels much more reasonable, especially since the AI was working from the university’s own proforma in both cases.

So what’s going on here? AI grading, when fed the same rubric as human markers, is designed to be consistent and impartial. If there’s a 20-point gap between what the AI awards and what Wolverhampton’s markers give, it suggests that the university’s grading may be unusually harsh or inconsistent, something you may want to consider before enrolling.

Meanwhile, Exeter’s grading seems to align much more closely with the AI’s impartial assessment, suggesting their marking is more in line with the stated criteria and less subject to unexplained downgrading.

I actually reached out to Wolverhampton to express my concern and received a response that felt suspiciously like my email wasn't entirely read. This is just my opinion of course but either way, my concern was not taken seriously. To be clear, my overall experience at Wolverhampton has been positive. But if you’re someone who values fair, transparent, and consistent grading, my advice is to look closely at how different universities approach assessment.

As you might gave guessed Exeter is quite a bit more expensive than Wolverhampton so it looks like, with respect to fair grading anyways, you get what you pay for.

Reply 1

Vystopian

Newest grade received from Wolverhampton a full 35 points lower than AI based on their own marking proforma.

Reply 2

RomanticDream

Agree with you, mate. I feel horrible, wasted so much money to get this. It is horribly unfair and underestimated. Does anybody control what this University is doing?? (Wolverhampton I mean)

Reply 3

rpb41

I’ve experienced similar things. I’m curious to know how you phrased the email though and what response was given?
Funnily enough, my feedback reads like an AI response!

Reply 4

SolarianPunk

Original post

by rpb41

I’ve experienced similar things. I’m curious to know how you phrased the email though and what response was given?
Funnily enough, my feedback reads like an AI response!

I can't speak for him but I'm always really polite when I reach out about the same issues related to marking but I'm always dismissed with email responses that read like Chat gpt 3, not even 4.

Ironically, if they used artificial intelligence to grade assignments, the results would be far more fair than whatever hunch based system they're currently using.

(edited 11 months ago)

Reply 5

Vystopian

Original post

by rpb41

I’ve experienced similar things. I’m curious to know how you phrased the email though and what response was given?
Funnily enough, my feedback reads like an AI response!

I basically communicated the same thing I did here but like SolarianPunk, I received a dismissive robotic response. It's clear to me that they're completely unwilling to even consider the possibility that their own marking proforma's aren't being adhered to.

Reply 6

MtotheH

Original post

by rpb41

I’ve experienced similar things. I’m curious to know how you phrased the email though and what response was given?
Funnily enough, my feedback reads like an AI response!

What kind of things did you experience? Did you pretest your assignment using their criteria too?