<p>Rick, your post brought back memories.... math teachers who counted the neatness of the math binder more than accuracy in computation..... English teachers who didn't care if a kid loved to read as long as the "interactive exercise" was punchy and colorful; social studies teachers who constantly paired the lazy and disinterested with the highly motivated so that the "whole team" could get an A.</p>
<p>Reminds me of why we put the kids in a private school with zero grade inflation ("grades aren't given, they're earned"); emphasis on academics and character; dress code. Not a perfect choice, but your T-shirt story really resonated with me as the parent of the kid most likely to forget or ignore any assigned arts and crafts project!</p>
<p>The arts and crafts grade thing reminds me of another really ridiculous grading process...grading by personality/outgoingness, or "class participation" as it is usually called. I keep encountering these classes in college (all required classes, all taught by the same professor, incidentally). A large chunk of our grade is based on "class participation", which as far as I can tell, is merely how often you like to raise your hand in class (or call out comments without bothering to raise your hand first). I am very shy and have never yet been able to raise my hand in a class in all my 15+ years of school, so needless to say these classes kill my gpa.</p>
<p>I remember, in my 11th grade advanced English class, our teacher based 50% of our final exam grade (which was 20% of our grade for the year) based on our performance of a dramatic monologue - most of the weight of the grade was based on acting ability and proper costume. I am not an actress and I do not have boxes full of costumes. She informed us that if it were up to her, the entire exam would be based on two of them, but alas the school administration woefully forced her to give a written exam. I got an A on the written part and nearly failed the acting part, which brought my grade for the year down by an entire letter.</p>
<p>Son was a student who had a 4.0 the first three semesters of HS then his grades deteriorated, especially senior year, despite a 2400 SAT and 6/9 5's, rest 4's on AP tests- homework counted in the grades and he was able to learn the material to get excellent test scores in his classes- he survived the artsy-craftsy 9th grade honors lang arts teacher with an A, thank goodness it was when he was a more compliant student- it is easy for gifted students to be bored and not get the grades, even with parental nagging (how often have other parents repeatedly told their child they have to do the work???). I understand why colleges emphasize grades and showing you do the work over higher ACT/SAT scores than grades. The exception comes when high schools can't/don't challenge gifted students enough and they rebel against what for them is busy work. Son may have blown his chances at an Ivy type college (he still only would have had a 50-50 chance with a 4.0) but thank goodness for the public flagship honors program- he's doing the work now and enjoying it. The students with the highest class rank are not always the best students, nor the ones who have the most education/knowledge and skills base. Let's hear it for the teenage boy's mindset...</p>
<p>BTW thanks for the SAT conversion link, my verbal scores would have jumped much more than my math scores (don't remember the exact scores- 700-750 including achievement tests 30+ years ago; I also remember my ACT/SAT verbal/math scores were higher/lower on one and the reverse on the other- as if it matters now). Yup, my verbal scores are close to son's, and I know he's better in math; but he was about 2 years younger when he took the tests... Too bad husband wasn't in the US to have taken the tests for an additional comparison. I might add that, like everyone else in my area/day I took no prep courses and only took the tests once, and that was for NMS finalist reasons (got $ so it was worth it). Son also did no prep other than the booklet/online material (and that at the insistence of mother). I am glad they still have the national, standardized tests, despite their problems; I wish there were no prep materials/classes et al other than the materials to familiarize one with the test. I have always felt it best to learn as much as you can in school and spend your time at that instead of test preps. Needless to say, you won't find me on the test prep sites...</p>
<p>PS someday I'll learn how to do the face icons...</p>
<p>hey wis75-- just so you know... u make those smily faces by putting a colon followed by the closing-parentheses, and a frowning face by putting a colen followed by an opening parentheses .... [ : ) and : ( with out the spaces ]</p>
<p>My kids' 9th grade honors geometry teacher had a "homework test" each marking period which counted for a considerable percentage of the total marking period grade. The kids were expected to keep all of their hw for the whole marking period in order in a notebook (after it was graded and corrected). The test consisted of the teacher asking questions like, "What is the answer to problem #17 on p. 357 which we did on March 4?" The kids were supposed to look in the notebooks and write down the answer to the problem on the test. My son excels in math but was very unorganized (like the other boys discussed in this thread). He would calculate the minimum grade he could get on the hw test and still get an A for the term (with high 90's or 100% on all of the tests and quizzes). On the other hand, my daughter's strength is not math, but she is very organized, and she used these tests to bring up her grades. The whole thing had really nothing to do with learning geometry more thoroughly, although I really like the teacher otherwise - he is a great teacher.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My kids' 9th grade honors geometry teacher had a "homework test" each marking period which counted for a considerable percentage of the total marking period grade. The kids were expected to keep all of their hw for the whole marking period in order in a notebook (after it was graded and corrected).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>My son had your son's teacher too. After the first marking period he did learn to keep a neater notebook. It worked out well for him as he often made carelss mistakes on real tests.</p>
<p>Tomorrow we're going in for parent /teacher conferences. Six teachers and mostly a love-fest, but in AP Calculus he is limping along. (I should qualify this; maybe a B plus, not a failure). He's only taking it because for a great college it seems you have to take 4 years of math and AP Calc if it's offered. The teacher is ok but doesn't understand work done in a different way than what she was trained to understand. I think I'm whining at this point. We're lucky to have an ok AP Calc teacher. Our son says to keep our smiley faces on for the conference. We will.</p>
<p>A thing I'd like to note about the orginal article is that, in CC terms at least, a 97 percentile ACT isn't that high--about a 30. A good score, yes, but not an outstanding one in top admission terms UW being a reach for him makes more semse in that context, I think.</p>
<p>If Scansmom is correct about the quality of this High School and Frazzled1 is correct on the estimated GPA of 3.5, I am not surprised that he is in the middle of his class. In our local high school students can take weighted classes beginning in 9th grade (usually Pre-IB) in all core subjects. Therefore it is theoretically possible to graduate with a 5.0 in core subjects which will be pulled down slightly by mandatory non-core subjects (like PE) which are not weighted. If this is a highly competitive high school I would expect that the school would offer significant numbers of AP/IB/Honors classes and that these classes would be weighted. If this student has taken only 3 AP courses he will be significantly behind the students that have taken as many AP classes as they can. If his unweighted GPA is 3.5, his weighted GPA is probably about 3.7 (assuming 6-7 classes/year 3 AP classes is not much of a boost). That is not very high for a competitive high school and his class rank appears to me to be right where I would expect it. (And if he has taken only 3 AP classes when he could have taken more, that will be a major negative with any competitive college).</p>
<p>Our district doesn't weight either, but you can take AP courses when you want, usually some will substitute AP US History for the sophomore version while others will do both or take the junior social studies courses soph year and the AP one as a junior. Most freshman won't be ready/have room in their schedule for AP classes. The state flagship U also doesn't use weighted grades. Also, fortunately you can choose phy ed as a grade or pass/fail (but you have to decide before taking the class). With all the ways to run schools it is no wonder standardized tests exist. BTW Wisconsin has a gpa/test score chart which lists admission chances- a 3.5 gpa and ACT 30 is given a 70% chance of admission, there's also a class rank line that I'm not sure of- a gpa of 3.5-3.4 is listed over a 85-76%ile class rank.</p>