Grades and their statistical aggregates (e.g. GPA) have long been used as both predictors and outcomes in studies of academic progress and decision-making. Yet there is substantial empirical variation in how grades are assigned and how student make sense of the grades they receive. My work offers a systematic examination of how students in the same classes make sense of curved grades, which are norm-referenced to the performance of other students. Drawing on sequences of interviews with first-year students before, during, and after their enrollment in courses with curved grades at a selective private university, I identify a range of iterative sense-making strategies and find considerable variation in how the same grades in the same courses are interpreted by different students. Findings encourage researchers to be cautious about attributing causal weight to the influence of high or low grades on course consideration, decision-making, and academic progress.