I vouch for a more international 5-star system.

Yep. Especially since A/B/C/D/F is confusing to non-Americans. Here in Britain there's the Scottish and English systems, with different A-F or A-G scales.

actually the original inspiration was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label

If stars, then with the lowest grade as zero.

A-E seems appropriate to me, as an English speaker. For others perhaps not.

The stars are crucial: if we used numbers instead it would fail (some countries use 1 for best, some 5 for best).

I went to high school in Virginia where a failing grade was an E.

I'm not from the US, but doesn't F have a different meaning than A-D? I.e. it means you failed and have to do the test/project/whatever again?

A-E is logical I'd say.

Yes, Fail is right. Seems appropriate here too. I agree with the OP, A-F would work better.

Though, is colleges (at least in Minnesota), D is also usually failing grade.

Wait the US doesn't have an 'E'? (Is 'F' short for Fail? I thought it was just the continuation of the sequence). Regardless, at least A is best, B is worse than that, etc. which makes sense.

> Wait the US doesn't have an 'E'? (Is 'F' short for Fail? I thought it was just the continuation of the sequence)

Well, apparently it's more complicated than that. I always assumed that the lack of E was so that there would be no confusion with the ESNU system (which a number of students used to have in elementary school, but then they switch over to the A-F system in middle school). Also, many countries outside the U.S., including non-english speaking ones, use the A-F system. Still researching the origin.

I had previously believed that the A-F system was universal across the US college system, though apparently University of Arizona has the 'E' grade.

At the University of Utah, we have the 'E' grade also.

Dartmouth has E as well.

Where is the 'E'?:

http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/07/how-i-would-unschool-my...

Well I think "it Depends." At my school we had E's both E's and F's where failing, but the difference was that with E's you could make up the class in summer school, with F's you had to repeat the class the next year, multiple F's would mean you had to repeat the grade.

If what you are saying is correct then it seems like the British a-level system is almost exactly the same in terms of grades.

A* to E, and then an actual failure is a U, so as to not just be a continuation from E I assume.

In Poland, high schools have 1-6 grade scale (6 is the best), but universities have 2-5 scale (5 is the best, 2 is a failing grade). Decades ago, high schools also had 2-5 (or maybe 2-6) scale. I have no idea why the 1 grade is nonexistent.

> why not change to the more recognizable (for US audience at least)

Because most internet users aren't in the US.