<p>Our school uses a numerical scale for grading. Most people and college websites list a GPA on a 4.0 scale. Is there a standard conversion or even a ballpark conversion? </p>
<p>Thanks for any input.</p>
<p>is this what you mean?</p>
<p>That scale is as good as the typical product of Princeton Review meaning a step above worthless. A better scale is the CRS conversion scale found in the back of books such as A is for Admissions. However, in general terms, schools that have 0-100 scales are not doing their pupils any favors, especially the schools that follow seven or eight points scales. </p>
<p>Why schools cling to the flawed conversions that require a 93 or 94 to earn an A remains a mystery to me. Obviously, they do not realize that The College Board has published the startling statistic that more than 40% of high schoolers have an A average. </p>
<p>Long live the grade inflation in the land of easy schools!</p>
<p>Yes. I used to cringe when parents from my son's school would conplain when their darlings get only 1200. Oh but he gets all As in the school.</p>
<p>xiggi:
Can you please clarify your post? What does seven or eight point scales mean? How does all this translate into your discussion of grade inflation? You've lost me here. Thanks.</p>
<p>weenie let me take a stab. In our district APs and K level courses are worth 7 point, onlevel classes: 6, below level - remedial: 5, adaptive behavior, ESL: 4, life skills: 3.</p>
<p>So you can have 4.0 GPA while taking elementary or middle school level classes.</p>
<p>This makes us parents very proud that my Johnnie and little Debbie are A students.</p>
<p>simba:
Does that mean they add 7 points onto the grade for that class?!</p>
<p>for example lets say you took 3 APs got A. That equals 3*7 = 21. You take one below level get an A. (5). Your GPA is (21+5)/4 = 6.5.</p>
<p>Our district went to this system to pacify jock parents.</p>
<p>Not only that, our school will also give junk projects. The teachers had told me that their only purpose was to make other students at par with genuine high end kids.</p>
<p>At S's HS auto shop and AP Calc BC were on the same scale, no weighting at all. (The local flagship U does not accept weighted GPA's either.) Even so, there were over 40 straight A averages with most of those full of AP courses, and plenty of A to A- averages, close a third or better, I would guess. I'm not sure weighting GPA's makes much of a difference in the overall distribution. Colleges look at the transcript and can tell the rigor of the curriculum. For this inner city HS, 190 out of 405 went to top schools and 90% went straight to college, so somebody is doing something right.</p>
<p>My daughter's school gives four GPAs:
1)GPA with sports, band and shop etc
2)Weighted GPA (they have no APs but do have honors classes)
3)UC/CSU approved (seems to be a weighted GPA but without shop, sports and band)
4)Cal grant (seems to resemble the first)</p>
<p>"xiggi: Can you please clarify your post? What does seven or eight point scales mean? How does all this translate into your discussion of grade inflation? You've lost me here. Thanks."</p>
<p>Sorry, I did not mean to be nebulous. </p>
<p>The Eights System is the informal name for one of the three most common grading scales used at educational institutions in the United States. </p>
<p>The name refers to the fact that three of the four highest letter grades have a range of eight points, while the remaining one spans seven points. The distribution is uneven because with the minimum passing standard of 70% the system observes, there are 31 possible passing numerical grades from 70 through 100, all inclusive.</p>
<p>There are two common variants of the Eights System in use, each one encountered with roughly equal frequency. One features the "D" grade as the one with only seven points in it, while in the other the "A" range is shortest. The former variant is shown below:</p>
<p>93 to 100 = A
85 to 92 = B
77 to 84 = C
70 to 76 = D
Below 70 = F </p>
<p>The other variant is sometimes referred to as the "Sevens System" because the "A" grade is the one that contains only seven points:</p>
<p>94 to 100 = A
86 to 93 = B
78 to 85 = C
70 to 77 = D
Below 70 = F </p>
<p>Some are viewing the tougher grading scales as a reasonable response to the phenomenon known as grade inflation. However, in my opinion, it does not accomplish much except penalizing the students who attend schools that do not have well established relation with selective schools. The higher conversions can results in subtantial losses in scholarships that are simply driven by numbers. On the other hand, easier scales and easy grades are rarely challenged and accepted at face value. Hence, even more grade inflation follows as schools follow what works. I think that a statistic showing more than 40% of high schoolers earning grades of A speaks volume about the ease to obtain excellent grades in the US high schools. A feat that is hardly corroborated by performance in college and standardized scores. </p>
<p>PS There was an article about a Boston High School that has not changed its tough grading policies. While they USED to send many students to the most prestigious schools, they are currently facing tougher hurdles. For instance, a student might be competitive at the best schools in Boston, but irrevocably kept out of the University of Michigan because of the minimum GPA. The name of the HS does escape me ... alas.</p>
<p>OK, I found it. The school was Belmont High</p>
<p>Here's the past discussion on CC</p>
<p>And a link to the original article in the Boston Globe.</p>
<p>The numerical scale is even more fun when it's unweighted. Oh well.</p>
<p>bluejay - I assume your question is so you can get an idea of how your kid's GPA compares with the "average" or whatever for schools of interest. You do, though, report your kid's actual GPA (93 or whatever) on the app forms, just as your hs will report it on the transcript. xiggi has linked other discussions on cc re grade inflation. There have been others, as well, on the 100-point grading scale.</p>
<p>I don't think it's been mentioned on this thread, and perhaps you already know, but many schools ignore the hs's own GPA calcaluation and perform their own. Knowing that there are so many "systems" for GPA calculation - weighting, not weighting, how the weighting is done, what courses are included in the weight, etc. - they just feel that they have to do their own calculation to really understand each kid relative to the applicant pool.</p>
<p>An important element of your own kid's app is that his school includes a School Profile with the transcript - this provides information for the colleges to see whether that schools is a grade inflation school or not, level of rigor offered in coursework (APs, Honors...). The GPA has to be evaluated in that context.</p>
<p>jmmom is right in that many schools do their own recalculation -- but my understanding is that the general rule is that this happens in proportion to the size and selectivity of the school. Large publics that are primarily numbers driven don't have the time and manpower to do this. Even with smaller schools, I'm not sure how much effort is put into this. I know that the one time I asked this question of a relatively small school (4500) with fairly high selectivity (45% acceptance rate) the answer was that they simply convert each number grade to the letter grade and then convert to a 4.0 scale -- with AP/IB weighting that adds 1 point to the number. Pretty straightforward, but it doesn't really adress the problems that Xiggi points out. A 92 in a non-AP class is still going to be converted to a B and then to a 3.0.</p>
<p>This is a confusing subject. Thanks for the clarification xiggi. I do wonder about my sons' high school, which is a competitive school and requires an admissions exam. They use a 100 scale but never mention As, Bs, etc. on anything. So it is hard to determine how our kids fall in the 4.0 scale.</p>
<p>We can get a print out of GPAs (no names) and college info. The top student at this school last year had a GPA of 96.94. The top 10% ranges from 96.94 to 93.0. Top 20% from 93.0 to 90.11. Over all range is 96.94 to 71.69 (below which the kid(s) are probably kicked out or flunked out). Median is 86.45. </p>
<p>This is a school that brags about no grade inflation. Would you say that is true? </p>
<p>Personally, I think it seems that the kids at this school are penalized a bit in the admissions/scholarship process. However, I'm not sure it matters because it is a wealthy bunch, which of course has its own college benefits. This school also does not rank (the figures I gave you are however handed out to parents upon request). </p>
<p>So I guess I'm wondering where you think this range of grades falls in the overall scheme of things. Thanks.</p>
<p>weenie, our school's grading system and profile of top10%, top 20% is quite similar to yours (with the exception that most of the second 10% bunch at 93-94GPA - that's how tight it is).</p>
<p>Our school also feels proud that it is not a grade inflation school and I think it is true. Our school profile does indicate that an A is 93.0 and above, so we have a smallish proportion of "A" students, which is why the school feels it can claim no grade inflation. Rightfully, imo.</p>
<p>I don't think our kids are penalized in the admissions/scholarship process in the sense that our small school (125 grads/year) sends a goodly number to the most selective. I do feel they are penalized in that (1) many schools consider a 90 to be an A, (2) you can have a 93.89 GPA and not be in the top 10%.</p>
<p>Would more of them get into "better" colleges if the grading system were different, or would more get more merit aid? I don't know.</p>
<p>"They use a 100 scale but never mention As, Bs, etc. on anything. So it is hard to determine how our kids fall in the 4.0 scale"</p>
<p>This is at the heart of the problem. As far as a measurement tool, the numerical 0-100 scale is vastly superior -and also less forgiving. However, the trouble starts when the high schools deviate from their own rules and try to convert grades to a "common accepted scale" instead of steadfastly REFUSING to provide a conversion scale that is inherently flawed, and in fact contradictory. Schools that use the numerical scale often pretend NOT to use letters at all. That is fine as long as the teachers KNOW that their grades are converted, a fact they usually deny.</p>
<p>Why is this contradictory? Assuming that an A is both the target and the basis for analysis, one could think that the school's individual class difficulty is considered LOWER at a school that believes a student needs a 93 to earn an A. Just as it is for the SAT, harder programs require ... easier scales. Not the opposite. Obviously, it also happens that many, many schools using a lower conversion typically tend to offer easier classes. Thus, the problem is again compounded. Illogical but real!</p>
<p>Further, in a day where school profess to engage in holistic evaluations, one has to wonder why it IS so hard to ACCEPT a numerical scale of 0-100 without having to convert it into a scale that lacks the elegance and subtility of what is being converted. With the difficulty to apprasise thousands of students, why colleges find it needed to box students into a "one-size-fits-all" remains a mystery. </p>
<p>However, the ball is still in the courts of the high schools. While competitive schools do not hesitate to play the non-ranking game, they are leery not to provide a conversion scale. In my opinion, both decisions are really shots in their own feet. The correct decision would be to provide the numerical list and the complete ranking, and this to the colleges and ... to all the parents and this after each semester of high school. Openly and fairly. </p>
<p>Simplicity always rules over games!</p>
<p>xiggi,</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, the trouble starts when the high schools deviate from their own rules and try to convert grades to a "common accepted scale" instead of steadfastly REFUSE to provide a conversion scale that is inherently flawed, and in fact contradictory. Schools that use the numerical scale often pretend NOT to use letters at all. That is fine as long as the teachers KNOW that their grades are converted, a fact they usually deny.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Are you saying that somewhere in my kids' high school there is a concept of what consitutes an "A" and that I should try to find out what that is? How would I know if things are being converted?</p>
<p>Sorry, I'm being dense here.</p>
<p>Weenie, you may find the answer by asking the guidance counselors at your school for the official school profile. If it does not contain a conversion scale, you may ask the GCs how they fill the applications, if a conversion is required.</p>