<p>I was just reading the HS Grade Weighting Thread, and it reminded me of a source of irritation for my oldest son (recent UW-Madison graduate). He has a cousin the same age. Son went to competitive high school in north shore suburb of Chicago. He has a cousin the same age who went to school in the sticks of Michigan. Growing up the boys were always compared. Cousin skipped kindergarten, was always thought of as a super genius, and graduated #7 in his class of 400 students with a 3.7 GPA. Son graduated in top 25% with the same GPA in a class of almost 1000 students. I know this sounds small, but the comparisons over the years were grating, so it gave me great satisfaction, which I kept to myself, when I learned that cousin had scored a 24 on the ACT, while son got a 32.</p>
<p>Welcome to my world HockeyMom. “I don’t understand. I got an A+ in my AP Calc class, but only a two on the AP test. My cousin didn’t even get an A in the class, and she got a five!” Our NE branch of the family … and DW’s rural Midwest branch. I mean, what can you really say to the biggest fish in a small pond?</p>
<p>A common experience, I think. There’s no doubt that the 100th best student at a large, academically rigorous high school is often a better student than the valedictorian of a small high school with few resources. Nevertheless, the valedictorian will often get into top colleges while Mr. 100 will not. Neither one, however, can be assured of success at the next level; it depends so much on an individual’s ability to excel in a given environment.</p>
<p>This is exactly why standardized testing is important. It just stinks to be the big fish in the small pond AND test poorly. I have to disagree with Mantori - unless that small, rural, non competative VAL has outstanding AP/SAT/SAT2/ACT scores, they aren’t getting into top colleges. Admins know HS’s, it is their job.</p>
<p>Wow, I’m glad neither my family nor husband’s family feels a need to compare (or even state) GPA’s, test scores, or rigor of high school for our kids! That may change when SIL’s kids hit high school, but thankfully I’ve already learned to tune her out.</p>
<p>Yea, at our HS, our kiddo was the middle of his HS class but still a NMF & got a nice merit award at a good U. He had no trouble with the EE curriculum and graduated in 4 years with honors to a great job that he should be starting----sooooon!</p>
<p>Quality of HS can vary a great deal. It is a rude awakening to many when they find HS did not adequately prepare them for college. Many in our public HS end up having to take remedial courses in college. S could have contested & exempted out of many of his college engineering courses but chose to sit through them & had a nice, easy transition to college.</p>
<p>snoozn - we didn’t compare the boys out loud. Whenever there was a holiday or family get together, it was always the in-laws talking about the cousin’s accomplishments. “Cousin is so smart, he just did this or that. Cousin is #1 is his class (freshman year).” It made my kids feel very inadequate - obviously they’re not that smart, or they would have skipped kindergarten too! And I’m not saying my nephew is not a bright boy, but he is definitely in a much smaller pond than my kids. As for college, he did get a merit scholarship at the top200 regional university he attended in the midwest.</p>
<p>OTOH, I got a little tired of folks telling me that my kids’ top ten graduations meant nothing because they went to a decidedly non-competitive urbanish school, so I will admit some satisfaction in them getting higher SATs than just about anyone in the private school slash highly competitive publics that the comparers’ kids went to. Not that it means anything, really, in the scheme of things. But yeah, in my experience it’s the kids who don’t go to the “right” HS that get dissed more.</p>