It is easy to name the letters of the alphabet back and forth. But have you ever wondered why at times D follows F, not E? The letter grading system in most institutions is A, B, C, D, and F an omission of the letter E in the grading system.

The history tickles down from the 1800s. To be more specific, “In 1887, Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts was supposedly the first school to continue the use of a letter-based grading system. An A was equivalent to 95-100%, a B was equivalent to 85-94%, a C was equivalent to 76-84%, a D was 75%, and an E was anything below 75%—which meant failure.”

In the 1930s, as the letter-based grading system grew more and more popular, many schools began omitting E in fear that students and parents may misinterpret it as standing for “excellent.” This led to the introduction of the F letter as a grade to simply imply a fail. Different institutions incorporate both E’s and F’s and also E’s or F’s alone. There is no set consensus on this system of grading. It is heavily dependent on institutions that also pick the criteria of percentages to represent each grade score.

At present times there has been an ongoing debate on whether the letter grade system is useful, with parents and other stakeholders calling for proper evaluations by the teachers. These evaluations are specific per student to help them grow in their studies. The capacity to implement this still raises eyebrows.