Yes there is grade deflation. And yes it is deflation. Yes it varies greatly, greatly by BS and this variation is not based on prestige. For example at Choate 24% of the class has a gpa above 93, at groton 7% of the class has a gpa above 93. Just an example.
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And I am not sure how much it matters. I agree that the result is a bizarrely narrow band of grading because most kids also have an average above an 85.
I think the deflation wears on the kids and as has been said it matters if you’re going for merit aid or applying to a larger university that just does stats.
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And at Deerfield it’s 9% of students get over a 93% GPA, and just 1% of the class has a 4.0 GPA.
There is definite grade compression at Deerfield with a bulge at the 3.4/3.5 level.
I do wonder how it impacts students aiming for merit aid at larger state schools with GPA merit aid charts. Those type of schools don’t tend to be the destination of many DA students anyway.
Here’s an article from the Deerfield scroll a couple of years ago on the subject. As far as I know, not much (if anything) has changed:
Our college journey is going to be interesting since my kid will be heading down the athletic recruiting path. I wonder how many coaches will understand the academic profile and rigor. I do think that my kid will need to submit standarized test scores along with GPA in order to placate coaches at high academic institutions.
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If your son pursues recruiting at academically selective schools, they’ve all heard of these boarding schools and understand the grading situation.
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It’s funny. No matter how schools (public or private) try to doctor up grading by changing the long standards of something in the way of A = 90-100%, 4.0 etc to things like 1-4 ranking “mastery” or grading on competency or grading out of a 10 pt scale, whatever it is they think is going to ease the “stigma” of the old way of grading, these kids still will strive for the BEST and ones that don’t get the best will feel inadequate (regardless that often times they are no where near inadequate). It doesn’t matter what concocted grading system a school comes up with, if it’s not the top, there are kids who won’t be happy about it period.
You either had the over inflated ‘A’ throughout school then get to the real world and fail finding out your ‘A’ was truly worthless (and yes I have worked with MANY in this situation) or you learn early, that you may not succeed the first time, or the second time, or even the third time, but that effort you put into your learning will benefit you 10 fold down the line. No you don’t DESERVE an A just because you resubmitted your paper 3 times or retook the math test after getting a B. Your B will probably be worth far more than any A in a LPS could ever be! Over inflated grades cost companies money, businesses don’t want that. Schools are learning that they did a disservice to students with them, and it is about time they put an end to it.
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Agreed, many schools BS students aim for are not awarding tons of merit aid if any at all.
The coaches don’t all understand/know but your college counselor will (well, should, they did for us) provide you with the school’s profile. This will let the coaches who don’t already know see where your athlete falls and that should satisfy them. In my experience very few care much about scores anymore.
Also remember that if your athlete is really good enough for D1 they will be admitted with an 85 average no problem. It’s only if you’re aiming for D3 nescac type school that the grades really matter.
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I feel like, based on the level of incompetence I run into at many businesses, people are still trucking along getting their overly inflated A’s.
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I’m just starting to hear and see schools that friends and family (plus now here) talking about grade inflation impacts and changing the “you get all the time in the world and as many chances as you need to get it right” type grading. It will take awhile to trickle through of course when these kids are in MS and HS now. My father has many stories of his time as a professor where his private university would try to persuade him to “just pass Johnny”. My dad outwardly would refuse each and every time. Best story I remember is of said “Johnny” who was supposed to be graduating and getting an AF commission, however Johnny rarely showed up to class, missed many exams and papers, and failed the final. He failed the class, didn’t graduate, and most certainly is not an officer in the AF.
I often ask people who think kids should get all the time in the world to get their work right, should the guy installing the brakes on your car get all the time in the world to get that right, too?
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Agree - I do not want my child at this type of school. Surprised that some of these did that.
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A 93 = 3.7 grade points. 50-60% of the junior class at Choate has an unweighted GPA higher than that.
Choate saw grade inflation with COVID, but not nearly that seen in public or local private schools.
At least at my school, we don’t really have resubmissions or retakes—corrections etc. are either part of homework or done 
for the learning. Also no extra credit. It can make things stressful, but at the same time, they don’t give leniency to students who don’t try hard enough/etc.
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There is an objective argument on GPA inflation/deflation in athletic recruiting.
The information sheet above says “5 points added for overall school reputation and up to 5 more points added for rigor of academic program” meaning max 10 points are given as bonus to students taking tough courses at academically competitive schools.
10 points of Academic Index can be worth .7 point on 4.0 gpa scale; gpa of 3.3 at academically competitive school is equivalent to 4.0 at an average school.
My conversations with people familiar with NESCAC/Ivy recruiting from Tens and ISL schools overall confirm the math above.
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I don’t want to derail this thread into an athletic recruiting tangent. But this isn’t our experience.
Firstly, yes, we have the School Profile. It’s easily available to students and AOs. Kid has attached it to their communication with college coaches along with YouTube highlight videos, and athletic resume. But, based on tracking clicks, it isn’t getting opened (don’t know if that’s because coaches already know about the school or are just too busy with their real job of coaching the current team).
Secondly, BS counselors aren’t much help because there isn’t a D1 athletic recruiting track. Everyone just gets herded through the same hoops at the same time. A good friend was recruited to multiple schools (Ivy and top D1) this summer after Sophomore year. This athlete was done with college recruiting before even starting Junior year (well, technically isn’t completely done but they have ‘committed to the Ivy League recruiting process’).
And finally, the 85% average may be true for some of the high profile sports but that’s not what we have found. A peer student was being recruited this past fall. Ivy and D1 coaches were circling. Ivy school offered a spot but requested a specific increase in SAT scores and needed the student to submit school report every term for the rest of junior and senior year. This was not an 85% average GPA student either. Athlete finally signed for a top D1 school (which has an admission rate of 9%) because they didn’t want the stress of worrying about every little test and quiz for the last two years of high school.
This is obviously n=2, but in our world, which is not basketball or football, it looks like grades and test scores still matter.
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Secondly, BS counselors aren’t much help because there isn’t a D1 athletic recruiting track.
Our school had one counselor who handled athletes because timeline and process were different. Obviously, every sport and situation is different, but the families I knew who were pursuing this route were supported differently. Not sure how grades were handled as my kid was not in this elite cohort.
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Ah yes. I think there is a difference amount sports. Squash and tennis v basketball or any helmet sport.
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Indeed. But the counselor is pretty good at their part for all. It is their job!
And totally agree that a highly desirable D1 basketball player will travel quite a different path than a fencer to signing.
With that said, I would guess that a school that has D1 football or basketball recruits probably has a few every year, just given the nature of those sports. Players at that level are less likely to be coming from weak teams. And that gives the CC some experience and perspective. It’s probably harder for sports a kid might be doing outside school.
I don’t recall the OP asking about athletic recruiting. Since D1 recruiting from BS is uber-niche, can you move that conversation to another thread if the 7 million previous threads on the topic were insufficient.
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The overwhelming majority of boarding school kids want the SAT to remain relevant in admissions due to the relatively tougher grading standards at BS.
We have heard from BS counselors that grade deflation, and its close cousin, grade non-inflation, mostly hurts unhooked boarding school applicants to some elite schools. We can’t empirically prove it, but it does seem to be an issue over the last few years from outcomes we’ve observed.
Increasingly, elite colleges are not setting aside a predictable number of spots for boarding school kids, who are now competing more than ever with non-boarding school applicants. This especially affects unhooked applicants. The unhooked kids at Groton are not competing for 4 annual unhooked slots at Dartmouth anymore - one year it could be 0 or 1, another year, 3 or 4.
So yes, your class rank or relative standing at Groton does matter a lot, but the relatively lower GPA outcomes do seem to hurt unhooked applicants. It also impacts BS applicants at stat-oriented, less traditional destinations like Vanderbilt, Rice, and UCB/UCLA. It hasn’t hurt admissions to Chicago and Georgetown, which understand very well the different BS grading standards and have strategically allocated a lot of admissions slots for prep/BS kids.
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My guess is you won’t have to placate coaches at all, and it will be the coaches who placate college admissions.
We know a lot of Deerfield recruited athletes who have gone on to elite colleges, and grades and scores were never an issue for them - but the ones we know were always top 50% of the class. Some were A band athletes at HYP. The coaches will be on your side in “fighting the fight” with admissions, and as @cinnamon1212 suggested, admissions will adjust for DA’s harder grading. The AI formula even allows for this.
It’s harder for unhooked BS kids - they don’t have a coach advocating for them, the AOs and committees are processing applications at a rapid pace, and it’s simply a bit more complicated for AdComs to adjust for harder grading and compare apples to oranges in grading between highly rigorous and other schools.
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