Grades ~ Roadmap To An A

If you’ve ever been to school or college (which I’m guessing most of you have) you’ll likely know the stress it can put you under. With all those target grades to remember for each of your 10-15 subjects, things can get a little messy sometimes.

Developed by Tapity, Grades ~ Roadmap To An A aims to solve this issue by giving you a visual way to manage your school or college grades.

Here’s how it works. Opening the app you’ll be presented with the ‘Classes’ screen and if this is your first time launching the app, this will obviously be empty To add a new class you simply tap the ‘Plus’ button top right. Here you can then add your Classes name as well as proceeding to enter syllabus items. To add a new syllabus item to a given class you simply tap ‘Add Syllabus Item’. On the ‘Syllabus Item’ screen you can then add entries for each item on that classes syllabus.

For example if your biology course consisted of 60% coursework and 40% hanging on the final exam, you’d create two syllabus items. Each syllabus item is entered in 3 stages. The first input box is optional and houses the amount of tests needed to be completed in order to achieve the maximum percentage towards your final grade. The second input box is for the description of each item and the last box houses the given percentage of grade assigned to each item within the syllabus.

Once you’re done with adding syllabus items hitting ‘Save’ will the app will save your items accompanied by a very slick aeroplane animation (not sure why they choose an aeroplane, but its all good with me). Once you’ve inputted your syllabus items the ‘Class’ screen will then show you the percentage of marks you need to reach that particular grade. Tapping on each arrow next to these will give you the option to add your predicted or real grade, then allowing the app to calculate the scores needed on the other items in the syllabus.

Combining these elements, you are able to work out just how far you have left to achieve your grade. It’s worth noting though that the app tends to relate to grades in percentages only .. and so far, I haven’t been able to get it to show me what ‘grade’ those percentages relate to. On the details screen however, the developer has added a note which states:

“Coming soon in update: Find the average grade for items like quizzes and assignments.”

Hopefully this means the next update to the app will bring this added functionality.

On the whole, Grades has a light and inviting interface that is sure to capture your attention. While I felt the interface could be improved in some areas to add more polish, the overall feel to the app was acceptable and more than usable. As it stands, while the app does calculate the work needed to achieve future grades, it only does so in percentages. In my opinion, the general user also needs to know how and what these percentages relate to in as far as specific final grades (A, B, C, D .. etc.).

A strong effort for a 1.0 release and definitely an application I’m going to be keeping my eye on, as subsequent updates are released for it in the future. The app is currently available at the introductory price of 59p, with no word on final pricing once this introductory period is over.