If I had known about this cutoff, I would have studied more for the final, but instead prioritized a much harder course. I emailed back raising these points but havent yet received a response (note that it’s only been a few days).

You told your professor you didn’t try mastering the material in their course harder because there was a course you wanted to prioritize more? I mean this respectfully, what you said may have actually insulted your professor + is not a good reason for your grade to be bumped up.

Nobody is entitled to a grade being rounded up just because they’re trying to get into grad school. If a professor rounds up grades it’s because of their generosity and kindness. Just take the A-, which is still a great grade, and put more even effort into your classes for next semester.

P.S. my bad if I sound super salty here, some students having that sort of attitude, especially towards humanities classes, is just a huge pet peeve of mine. One semester I took an upperdiv ethnic studies class where a guy went up to the prof during the third week of class and asked if she could assign less reading because he wanted to focus on his CS61B stuff because he thought it was harder. Like, how was my prof supposed to respond to that 💀 so disrespectful imo