<p>What percent of your classmates can get straight-As? I heard the grading system is extremely hard in prep schools, so how is everyone doing?</p>
<p>I don't go to a boarding school, but I go to a competitve prep school and I cannot think of a single person in my grade who gets straight As. There are definitely people who get As/A-s, but they work very hard to maintain there. (trust me, I know!) but I would say the majority of people have at least one B+ or below in a few classes.</p>
<p>No one at my son's prep school gets straight As
The highest unweighted GPA is about 3.65-3.7</p>
<p>My son goes to Lawrenceville and recently there have been approximately 5-10 kids per year with a 3.9 or higher GPA.</p>
<p>It can be very hard to get an A. It can even be very hard to get a B. You have to recalibrate for the new environment. In many middle schools if you are smart and do the work you can get an A. A top bs is not your middle school.</p>
<p>But to add some perspective, you can look at the college matriculation at <a href="http://www.lawrenceville.org%5B/url%5D">www.lawrenceville.org</a> and see that 25% of the kids go to Ivy League (not Ivy-like, but actual Ivy) and about 50% to another highly selective school. So clearly the colleges know what the grades mean and how to assess them. My son had a straight-A average in middle school and has around a 3.5 at Lawrenceville with at least 5 times the effort.</p>
<p>I was assuming 90 as an A and a 4.0 GPA, maybe your guys count 90 as a B and a 3.7 GPA?</p>
<p>I don't know about all prep schools, but mine doesn't consider a 90 an A. For most classes it is a 95+ to get an A. (I think for english it may be a 93+ but I've heard differently from different people on that).</p>
<p>However, I don't think my school officially calculates GPAs so I can't really tell you any averages or anything like that.</p>
<p>Every school is different. At Lawrenceville,
90-92 = A minus = 3.7
93-97 = A = 4.0
98-100 = A plus = 4.3 (extremely rare)</p>
<p>Even the public schools and the jr preps around here don't consider 90 and "A" it's an A- and quite different on the "scale" from a 95.</p>
<p>At public school, you can get a 4.0 GPA if you have all A-'s. But at a boarding school like mines, you get a 3.7 if you have all A-'s. The grading scale is different.</p>
<p>nervousmommy, it depends how hard the course is</p>
<p>I have an a+ in music for theatre. it's a class where you hang out with the music teacher and watch pippin on vhs</p>
<p>Exeter grades on an 11 point grading scale, if anyone is curious.</p>
<p>11 = A
10 = A-
9 = B+</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>My school has
94-95 A-
97-98 A
99-100 A+</p>
<p>etc.</p>
<p>Our public school gave the 4.3 for an A+ (98-100); the bs just has 4.0 as the top GPA and an A is 97-100. There is no weighting of grades.</p>
<p>Blair uses a 6.0 scale. I think Andover and Taft use the same scale. At Blair, there is no class ranking and no grade weighting. I think a 5.0 would put a student among the top and a 5.5 would be truly exceptional. Colleges will have to read the grade distributions by subject to place an applicant.</p>
<p>Yes, Andover uses a 6 scale. The average is around a 4.5. A 5 or above is considered honor roll.</p>
<p>I have only anecdotal info about SPS. The grading scale there is</p>
<p>HH (High Honors)
H (Honors)
HP (High Pass)
P (Pass)
and I guess.... NP (Not Pass)</p>
<p>To the untrained eye, this looks different than the standard A-F. :-) But I think we can pretty quickly see what's an A and what's a B, etc. There are no pluses and minuses though, so the range is pretty broad within any one category.</p>
<p>My daughter (and her advisor) said that entering Third form students have an "adjustment" period and that it is not uncommon to see lower marks than usual. Daughter gave us examples of many people who are "HP'ing" all there classes and even a couple of people who were "P'ing" there classes. She has done exactly as she did in middle school - As and Bs.</p>