<p>My youngest daughter will be heading off to high school in the fall of '15, and I've been searching for a high school for her for years that doesn't rank or provide letter grades on the transcript, as she is so focused on getting a 100% on every assignment that she hardly does anything but study. We would be willing to travel a thousand miles to make that transfer.</p>
<p>Do you know of any high schools in Kentucky, Ohio, or Indiana that fit these criteria, and if not, can you think of any way I could find this information?</p>
<p>Since u are willing to transfer 1000s of miles, you should consider a college preparatory boarding school. Many of the elite ones do not rank the students and use percentage grading instead of letter grades.</p>
<p>The elite ones have college-sized endowments which enable them to award generous FA to attract a socioeconomically diverse student body. The application deadline is mid-Jan for fall 2014 matriculation. </p>
<p>Have a look at the Prep School Admissions forum.</p>
<p>Are you sharing your SN with your daughter? Is she going to be senior or freshman in college? If both of you are posting on CC, you should each get your own Id.</p>
<p>Thank you for the suggestion, but we are not considering boarding school; we know someone whose son had a very unpleasant experience at a boarding school in New Mexico and cannot afford to put our child through the same situation.</p>
<p>If anyone could suggest public schools that show only letter grades and do not weight GPA, that would be greatly appreciated.</p>
<p>None of the selective private high schools in our area rank students, and very few of the public high schools do, either. This issue would not be a reason to move, in my opinion.
This information is very easy to check…just look at the high school’s website and check the school profile.</p>
<p>Let me clarify without going into too much detail. I started the account back in May, showed my rising senior the advice received with regards to her situation, she began posting and answering questions, and her two sisters (one going into seventh, one a sophomore) have followed her lead.</p>
<p>Newspapers often publish stories listing the area disticts that don’t rank when a school board considers changing the district (un)ranking policy. Have you searched for stories in the areas you are considering? But keep in mind that with time policies can change. My senior lived through three different grading systems in his four years. </p>
<p>You should think about running for school board too if you are one of the many who believe that rank can get in the way of a quality education.</p>
<p>Each person posting on CC must have his/her own account. BattleTrafalgar and her daughters will each create a new account if they wish to keep posting here.</p>
I doubt that switching to a high school that doesn’t rank will stop your daughter from studying. Instead of switching to a different school, I’d suggest focusing on why your daughter is studying. For example, if the goal relates to being accepted to colleges, it might be helpful to pass on information to your daughter about the criteria used for admission to selective colleges, including wanting students who do more than study all the time and instead are involved outside of the classroom as well. It could be a lot worse than having a child who studies a lot and gets near perfect grades. Many parents wish their children were like your daughter.</p>
<p>Not ranking (or at least not submitting detailed rank to colleges) is not at all unusual. Most admitted students to highly selective colleges did not submit rank. For example, at Princeton only 26% of the class submitted rank. If you check around with GCs at nearby schools, you’ll likely find some that don’t rank, but like I said above, I think this is a very bad reason to switch schools and is unlikely to have the desired effect.</p>
<p>Moving the family 1000 miles seems a bit drastic. Is it possible that you could instead consider counseling that might help her not be “so focused on getting a 100% on every assignment that she hardly does anything but study.”? </p>
<p>She’s still young - it would be a great time to work on this. Even if you found that non-ranking hs, she might fall back into perfectionist habits at college.</p>
<p>I finally had the time to read all of the OPs 31 past posts…in the spring, the OP said her husband was taking a job in Cincinnati and one of her older girls had the same issue…they were looking for a high school where GPA was not weighted and students not ranked. </p>
<p>So now I will be very frank with my response. </p>
<p>I do not believe the school GPA/ranking policy will make any difference to the girls. If they are the types that always strive to reach the 100% grade, they will likely continue to do so regardless of the school policy.</p>
<p>The OP got this same advice on multiple threads about her potential move…the bigger issue being she had one kiddo who was going to be a senior this fall. I wonder if the family actually moved?</p>
<p>If these kids are truly doing NOTHING but studying, I agree, sometime of discussions with someone about this should take place…perhaps counseling. But maybe there really isn’t any reason for concern. Some students are really driven…and that is that.</p>
<p>Of course, if the school doesn’t weigh grades, the GPA would not be adversely affected by taking easier, less challenging courses that require less work. Is that what the OP wants?</p>
<p>It sounds like there are some mental health issues to deal with here. The children are studying obsessive-compulsively for the external result of 100%, with no ability to withstand imperfection of any kind or level. </p>
<p>Aside from therapy and possibly meds, I would suggest finding a school that emphasizes intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation for learning, which may mean no grades at all, or may mean a school with good values regarding academics. </p>
<p>Focusing on grades versus what is learned is truly backwards: grades are simply a way to evaluate learning. Colleges don’t care about a 93 versus a 100: the family work habits are detached from any reasonable goal. And there are many schools that take kids with less than stellar grades, but offer wonderful college experiences.</p>
<p>I also suggest therapy for parents who are willing to move long distances in a futile and misguided search for some ideal school that will solve this problem.</p>
<p>Do the parents really not understand what is happening here? I think the OP needs to stop being in denial and face the problem, and get treatment for the whole family. I don’t mean to be harsh. Bluntness seems to be called for, but it is meant to be helpful.</p>
<p>I’ll ditto compmom’s view above, but want to add that a an eighth grader who “hardly does anything but study” is being ALLOWED to behave in that way. At that age, kids can and should be required to participate in a sport or other physical activity as well as at least one additional extracurricular, and their study time can be limited. The fact that OP seems to think he/she has no control or influence over how a young teen spends her time is another indicator of some serious malfunction in this family.</p>