This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in.
If you want to know the ramifications of such policy decisions head on over the r/professors forum on Reddit.
This is where the faux-outrage comes in. The article muddles a number of issues to try to create the false impression of some clandestine plot, but was the “information” intentionally “concealed” from the students? The students could have logged onto their college board portal and seen their score.
As near as I can tell, a current parent is mad because teachers “dropped the certificates unceremoniously on students’ desks” on Nov. 14, and apparently didn’t included enough pomp and circumstance to commemorate the achievement (no "special breakfasts, award ceremonies, YouTube videos, press releases, etc.), while a few past parents are mad because in the past the students were told instead of the parents and the information went to the school sanctioned email. After the outcry from the current parent, the school sent an email to the parents and contacted the schools by Dec. 12, so 
.
I don’t know what the numbers are for commended at the school I mentioned because the school doesn’t announce it, include it in its fact sheet, or notify the parents about commended scholars. (About 15% of the last class I checked were NMSF.) I don’t know why it doesn’t make a big deal out of commended status, but I assume it is because frantic, overzealous parents in the midst of the college application process tend to (and want to) believe that such honors have a much great weighted in the admissions process than they actually do. From my perspective, the most difficult job at high performing schools is managing the unreasonably high expectations of parents of high achieving kids. Judging from the oversized reactions to the date the certificates were handed out, parents from TJ are similar.
@hebegebe Your depiction of the interaction between parents and school at private schools is inaccurate.
The idea that not providing the physical certificates until Nov. 14 is “‘theft by the state’” is laughable and preposterous. Faux-outrage.
I have no idea where you think I suggested theft by the state, but I will leave it at that.
Early apps go out on Nov 1.
Reminder to posters that CC is not a debate society. Please make your point once and move on. If you find yourself repeating yourself, reconsider posting. Thank you.
However, admissions at colleges that have chosen to go SAT/ACT-blind probably give little or no weight to NMC or NMSF status that is purely based on the PSAT. If they do not think that the SAT is of significant value in making admission decisions, then a status based on the related PSAT is unlikely to be seen by them as being of significant value in making admission decisions.
Note the date, Sept. 14, 2022.
The only thing troubling here is City Journal’s editorial standards. It’s beyond bad faith to claim that any harm was done here to commended students applying ED or EA. It’s laughable.
We all agree that Commended status makes little difference for the most selective schools (for that matter, neither does National Merit Semifinalist).
But you seem to be saying that there are no schools that consider Commended as a plus factor for early admission. What is the basis for that statement? If you have a link to a study, I would be glad to read it.
For test blind schools like the UCs, the PSAT result is the only way to demonstrate your general test taking skills. I would be hesistant to conclude that a Commended result has no influence on outcomes there (especially given the high NMSF cutoff in CA).
good god. faux-outrage is the perfect term.
Yes, but if the college considers SAT and related test scores to be not worth considering in admission, it is unlikely to consider an award based on such a test score to matter.
To be exact, the UC regents forbade the UCs from considering SAT and ACT scores. There’s no evidence that the colleges don’t find test taking ability to be worthwhile as a predictor of whether potential students will be successful. In fact they use it for other purposes (such as exemptions from introductory writing). And CalPoly specifically asks about (and appears to give bonus admission points) to NMSF qualifiers.
And to be even more exact, the Academic Senate at the UCs found SAT scores to be highly useful as they described in their report (as was discussed in previous threads). They were overruled by the politicians.
Whether NM Commended status makes a difference in college admissions (likely does in some situation at some colleges) seems secondary to me. Why should a HS, that chose to participate in PSAT, not inform its students of their achievements, how ever meaningful they are in college admissions? If the HS thinks the test results aren’t meaningful or are discriminatory, why did it choose to participate in the testing?
Calling it “theft by the state” is certainly over the top. But TJ itself admitted that it was a mistake to not let students know about their awards.
i have no dogs in this race. i just read that article as i was interested in the situation. To me, its so over the top, privileged complaining. Sounds like frustration from the author that her kid wasn’t recognized publicly.
Compare that to my two middle children’s HS: - in the middle of the US. 75% low income, av 18 ACT; 2/500 NMF. My kids attended this school where basically no one is involved with NM; yet i knew enough to look up the details on commended status. I think that author has a very narrow view of what is going on in education on the other half; why not put that angst into helping our K-12 low end schools? And why not appreciate the obvious high level of education and peers her child has the opportunity to be around?
I think that schools should let students know, but I wonder if it is that unusual not to do so. Are we sure that most schools alert their students? My my children’s prep schools (often mentioned on CC) mandate the PSAT in 11th and I think 10th grade as well. However, I know from my kids’ experience that those schools don’t tell students of their commended status nor do they alert kids who are eligible for the national recognition (hispanic, african-american, rural, or Native American) programs. I don’t know if they say anything to individual national merit semifinalists or not.
I I have never asked, but my impression is that their schools consider the PSAT to be a useful test to practice for the SAT, which most students do take their junior and senior year. So they mandate it as practice but they don’t care about the outcome. Or maybe they don’t care about the awards/commendations, but they care about the scores themselves because perhaps knowing the students’ past scores might help the college advising offices with their work with the junior class.
Actually even way back in the dark ages when I was in high school, I don’t think my public school told me that I was a national merit semifinalist. I’m pretty sure that I heard directly from the college board. But it was many years ago and fuzzy in my mind. Plus everything was by postal mail in those days! Maybe the school did mention it, but I don’t remember it. And that was a high school that was very invested in student’s performance on standardized testing.
I think there’s a difference between a school that has a consistent policy of not informing its students of their PSAT results/awards and one that changed its policy in that regard but failed to inform their students of that change. If students (and their parents) were aware of the school’s policy, then they could find out the results on their own without relying on their school. I could be wrong but my guess is that TJ is in the latter category.
And that’s not the only thing troubling with the editorial standards. The article creates the false impression that NMSF were not notified, and that is not the case. Also, the big crime here seems to be that the kids didn’t receive their commendation certificates until mid-November, as if they needed the physical certificate to put it on their applications. Semi-finalists are not announced until September, and as the link above indicates these semi-finalists were announced in September. As for the commendation cutoff, it is publicly known from the May before, and colleges are well aware of the cutoff score.
Stressed out parents are mad because their kids didn’t get a parade for being a commended student, and this publication is trying to turn it into a culture war issue. GMAB.
A few posters have posted misleading information about the reasons for and implementation of the test-blind policies at the UC’s. Because the information is off topic, I won’t get into it here, except to say that it is mistaken.