Eliminating Class Rank, Weighted Gpa--bad Decision?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi fellow parents. My daughter's high school recently announced its decision to eliminate class ranks as well as GPA weighting for college level courses. The principal has stated that such a move "benefits all students", but I am quite skeptical. First of all, I can think of no major change to any policy that does not have at least a few losers, even if the majority benefit. Also, I think it takes away an edge that students who don't test on an elite level can earn through hard work as a strong asset in the application process. I have a hunch a lot of kids now challenging themselves in honors classes would opt otherwise, if there were no competitive advantage.</p>

<p>Have any of you undergone such changes at your schools? Do your schools have ranks and weighted GPA's or not? </p>

<p>I'm very interested in your feedback, particularly as it regards college admissions. My oldest is now a freshman at the University of Notre Dame, and I have a hunch the admissions process there would not look as favorably upon the system our kids' school is proposing, versus the way it is now and when our son applied.</p>

<p>PLEASE SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS! Thanks :)</p>

2

<p>My school did not have rank or weighted GPA.........it did have a strong school profile however. Why did they eliminate weighted GPA at the same time? I guess they perceived it as a tie to ranking? What is it you are worried about?</p>

<p>
[quote]
Also, I think it takes away an edge that students who don't test on an elite level can earn through hard work as a strong asset in the application process.

[/quote]
</p>

3

<p>My daughter also attended a high school (NYC Public) that never ranked or weighed grades (they offered AP and college courses) because their philosophy was a collaborative approach to education . They also had no val or sal designations as the students voted on speakers. </p>

<p>However what I learned that even with schools that do not rank, some will rank confidentially for scholarship purposes.</p>

<p>Like Hazmat's school, they also had a strong school profile so that colleges were able to assess the academic rigor.</p>

<p>I don't think eliminating rank and weighing necessarily gets "rid of the competitive advantage" because students are still going to be evaluated by the colleges based on whether or not they have the most rigerous curriculum their school offers and if they have done well.</p>

4

<p>My children's high school (locally prestigious private) did not rank or weight. Colleges were sent profile of class so knew how each student's grades related to class as a whole. It seems to have had no negative effect. Deciles were generally reported as needed. I think it is fairly common among high schools of that type not to rank, and colleges often reweight GPAs according to their own systems in any case.</p>

5

<p>yes There is no problem. The rigor of your daughter's coursework and her personal achievements will be enough for college admissions officers. IF they want to know how well she does in relation to other students...Well, that's what the guidance counselor rec is for. On the common app there is a space for the counselor to indicate the relative rigor of your daughter's schedule compared to the rest of the school (is it the most challenging offered or is it average.)</p>

<p>Colleges really have no limit on the number of applicants they accept from one school. So if 10 people have straight As in honors classes, they can accept all of them, because rank is irrelevant--they're all high achievers.</p>

6

<p>getting rid of rank - meh, it only really hurts the top 2 or 3 students (and that really sucks for them). getting rid of weighted gpa sucks because people who don't take the hardest course load can end up being no. 1 in their class. however, i guess if you're not ranked it doesn't matter. in my high school, we weren't ranked, but there were no. 1 and no. 2 awards. also, our classes were weighted by actually adding points onto our grade for honors/ap. (our gpa was really out of 100) whatever you're average was you just add 3 points. more useful when applying to college as you're basicly bumped up a + in every honors class, as opposed to getting a meaningless 4.5 or 5.0 for an A that colleges just recalculate.</p>

7

<p>My son's high school recently stopped ranking, although they still weight honors and AP courses and still choose val/sal based on GPA. Due to a number of factors, it is possible to have a 4.0 weighted GPA and not be in the top 20% of the class at public high schools in the more affluent suburbs. Parents were complaining that such rankings were hurting their kids' chances at more competitive colleges, so the school joined dozens of others in the area in not publishing ranking information. Parents around here vote in decent numbers in elections that involve the school board and school budgets, so they usually get what they want.</p>

<p>The school administration did not try to justify it in philosophical terms; they came out and said that it had become a disadvantage for too many students in the college process. I think the jury is still out on who will benefit from this change and who may be hurt by it.</p>

8

<p>In contrast to Bassdad's school, ours does not weight grades but it ranks.</p>

<p>The lack of weighting does not seem to hurt students applying to top colleges. The grades are recomputed by adcoms; usually, only the grades for core classes are considered (e.g., not carpentry or band). The difficulty of the courseload is also taken into account.</p>

<p>Where the lack of weighting and/or ranking may hurt is at large universities which do not recalculate GPAs; it can also hurt when applying to scholarships since most selection committees do not appear to recompute and put a lot of emphasis on being val and sal.</p>

9

<p>Our school has no weighted GPA. While I was on the school board, we were informed by a variety of education professionals that the "weighting" or course work was coming under scrutiny. We were told that, because school districts can structure the weighting as they see fit, there is no national standard of GPA weighting. In other words, one school could put a multiplier of 1.1 to a course while another increases the grade by 1 full grade (or the equivalent of 1.25). This is why our school elected to eliminate the Weighted GPA. It was our belief that the post secondary schools would have to do their own "filtering" and that they were in fact already doing it. While we still rank our students, I can see that coming to an end also. With students taking coursework which is not comparable to each other, it would be truely wrong to rank 2- 4.0 GPA's the same when one is a "Basic" track and one an "accelerated" track. For now.. we still have Val, Sal</p>

10

<p>our district does not rank, but does weight classes according to the UC formula. We do not designate a Val or Sal, but a GC no doubt writes in: 'Our school does not rank, but if it did, Sally would clearly be #1.' Transcripts show three weighted gpa's: 1) overall gpa (includes PE, health, basket-weaving); 2) academic gpa; 3) UC gpa (which is handy for parents).</p>

<p>As marite notes, most schools (claim) to recompute grades based on their own criteria, but I'm beginning to buy into Xiggi's skepticism. Given the thousands of apps that arrive everyday, and the need to process them rapidly, I'm not sure colleges can physically recompute them all -- just not enough time and manpower in the app cycle. Moreover, I've seen some school profiles for competitive schools and they are just plain horrible. Thus, IMO, unweighted grades hurt new and non-known schools; makes it difficult for those top kids to stand out. Obvisously, the top nationally-ranked high schools could do away with grades and still send dozens of thier kids to top colleges every year. </p>

<p>For an interesting discussion on this issue, see Michelle Hernandez book on college admissions.</p>

11

<p>if you're going to rank you have to weight the classes. but people in honors classes with 4.0s and who are ranked like...top 30% or something that isn't considered "4.0" range should stop complaining. honestly, if you're in all honors and APs, and you have a 4.0, you're getting B's. strength of courseload or not, you shouldn't be ranked really high if your only getting B's. Thats why top the 1,2,3 students always have something like 5.1, 5.0, 4.9. Not only is every one of their classes honors and AP, but they're getting A's in every single one of them.</p>

12

<p>I am so grateful for the response I've gotten to this posting, and hope this discussion continues!</p>

<p>As a little more background, ours is a Catholic co-ed high school in an exurb that was once considered a smaller town of its own and has now grown to be a very appealing exurb. Originally a parish high school, it moved quarters in 1982 to become a regional high school. To my knowledge, it has always weighted grades for AP-type courses and ranked students.</p>

<p>What takes many of us aback is the fact that such a drastic change has been undergone and introduced as virtually a done deal, without having sought input from parents and students at large. It has been presented to us from a "we know what's best" perspective, as if the parents who pay the tuition and the students who take the courses are somehow unqualified to comment, and too closed-minded to possibly understand. </p>

<p>Thus am I trying to find out as much as possible, from real people like you, how such things work, and how they might apply in college admissions scenarios.</p>

<p>A few concerns I have... (a) Those who take the toughest courseloads and excel in them often end up with high class ranks, an academic credential which might offset the fact they do not perform as well on standardized tests as they do in the classroom. (b) The disincentive for kids, both in the middle ranges and at the top, who, absent a weight advantage in GPA and rank, may well opt to forgo more challenging coursework--a problem experienced in our local public school district, which does not weight. (c) Competition is a strong motivator for anybody; GPA competition does, in fact, push kids to work harder in classes than they might do otherwise, thus raising the level of discussion and learning in a classroom.</p>

<p>I realize these may be dated, old-fashioned, Midwestern ideals, but as a former valedictorian from a prep school that did not then weight honors courses, I know that I took the path of least resistance whenever I had the opportunity.</p>

<p>Please continue this discussion--it really helps me gain context! :)</p>

13

<p>My S is a high school senior and the School Board voted to eliminate school ranking beginning with his graduating class (even though there was ranking for their first three years). I personally was against this as were many students especially the top ones. However, the School Board eliminated ranking (and added + and - to grades beginning next year). The top 10-15 students in the senior class fared very poorly in the ED college acceptance round but kids lower down and in the top 10 percentile fared better. Of course, since the school ranked till this year, the kids basically know their ranking -- plus they compare notes on weighted GPA. It will be interesting to see where the top seniors are accepted this spring. We generally have 5-10 top students accepted early to Ivies; this year 1 top student was accepted to an Ivy & 1 student athlete to a top LAC. One other student was accepted to Cornell, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins. I know that many schools have eliminated class rank but it seems that our first year of this experience has hurt some kids but helped others.</p>

14

<p><a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This link gives the 2004 entry stats for Brown. There is a 13% drop in admissions rate of 3rdin class compared to valedictorians. Is this because of the class ranking? Or is it because of some correlated factor?</p>

<p>But, if it is because of the ranking, then one would have to think that it was a disadvantage not to know that one was the valedictorian. </p>

<p>beprepn</p>

15

<p>My sons' school does neither, and I agree with their policy. I could go into a long explanation of why, but that's really irrelevant, as the decision is made. There are a lot of very good reasons.</p>

<p>In order for there not to be "losers" in this scenario, your school needs to develop a "school profile" which describes the school accurately to college admissions committees. This is sent with all of the kids' college applications, and contains all kinds of stats about the schools, lists of where grads are attending college, the curriculum available & graduation requirements, requirements for athletics, community service, etc. It also includes sample curricula for standard, honors, & AP tracks that makes comparisons easy. Also, the transcripts must be very clear and easy to read so there is no guesswork about a class being standard, honors, AP or IB. (I know this sounds silly but you should see some of these forms--it makes a difference). Our school also sends with each application a personalized "catalogue" description of every class the student has taken, so that when the transcript says "English 9" they know exactly what that means compared to "English 9 Honors." This is something that really makes a difference, and wasn't really feasible before computers.</p>

<p>Believe me, I know how irritated and disappointed you can feel when decisions like this are presented without any consultation (especially when you're paying tuition!). But my advice is to concentrate on making sure they do it right so that everyone benefits. They should be willing to show you the materials like the ones I've described that they intend to substitute for the weighting & rank. If they won't, or if they haven't prepared any, then you really should scream bloody murder.</p>

16

<p>Our school, which eliminated class rank beginning with my S's senior class, has a detailed class profile which was revised when ranking was eliminated. The profile shows the high and low weighted GPAs for each decile. However, there is no bell curve to show how many student(s) have the top GPA, next GPA, etc. When the school profile was being revised, I researched on line how various school profiles presented GPAs, etc. I suggested something different to the Guidance Counselor in charge but he said the Board didn't want to include #s of students with each GPA weighted rank. I think that would've more accurately portrayed each student so that if top GPA is 4.64, colleges would see there is 1 student at that level not 10; one student
at 4.6, one at 4.59, one at 4.57, etc etc. I do agree with you that the school profile is important and parents should review it. A few years ago, a top student interested in sciences was questioned by an Ivy re: why he didn't take all the AP science courses listed in the school profile; all AP courses were listed but were often cancelled due to underenrollment or perhaps offered every other year. In essence, the school profile was inaccurate and no one had picked that up previously.</p>

17

<p>Even schools that do not rank can have a val and sal (ours does, at any rate). The lack of ranking mainly serves to avoid a cut-throat atmosphere in what is already a very competitive school. I think that our school does in fact know how the kids rank, but chooses not to publicize to students ot colleges beyond the top two for val/sal, then the more general top decile, second decile, and so on.</p>

18

<p>my D1 high school didn't have weighted classes-or rank.
Very small school- fairly rigourous and the description of where students generally attended college probably gave info to adcoms.
No val/sal but students regularly attend Ivys and other competive schools like Barnard and Wesleyan as well as join the armed services and enter arts academies.( this was private prep)</p>

<p>D2s school does rank- but classes are not weighted- at least all students with 4.0 av are validictorians- something that has earned them ridicule elsewhere.- ( urban public)
Im not sure how I feel about it- I know colleges are not just going to go on GPA they also consider what classes were taken-but why should only the students who have taken college prep classes be recognized?
Students who are going into the work force but who have gotten straight As for four years with a full load of classes should be acknowledged as well.
It hasn't stopped my D from taking difficult classes- she is taking AP euro as a sophmore, even though two years ago she was in special education. Yes it has destroyed her GPA- but she wants to stay in the class, and as long as she does, I will encourage her- even while I cross my fingers that colleges wont totally write her off.</p>

19

<p>Our school weights, but doesn't officially compute rank. But even though there's no official ranking, the school profile gives the GPA range of the top 1%, and the top five deciles. Since the transcript shows the student's GPA, it's pretty easy to figure out where he or she "ranks" - at least approximately - from the available information. I doubt that more precision than that would be of any real value. Given a class of 500+, there's only 5 kids in the top 1%, and the GPA spread for that 1% is just .06 points. I certainly don't see much reason to distinguish between the top five students based on that small of a grade differential, although if you really wanted to, you could figure that a student with a GPA at the top of the reported range is probably #1, and a student with a GPA at the bottom of the reported range was #5, and those in between are probably - in between. (The weighted GPA at the 90th percentile cutoff is 3.95, by the way - grade inflation doesn't seem to be a major problem here.)</p>

20

<p>Son's school has no ranking or weighted gpa. There are only 40 kids in the class. Plus, it is a new school, which means it has no track record. At first, I was a little "nervous" about all this since son takes tough classes and generally does well, and I thought he might fare better under a traditional system. Plus, I was simply more used to it. </p>

<p>Boy, was I wrong! Their first graduating class had acceptances at many top tier schools--Ivies, LAC's, large state universities, and everyone in the class seemed to find a college that fit their needs. This year's senior class is also off to a good start. The school does have a great profile that shows the unique aspects of its program (and there are many), the grade point spread, and, this year, the type of schools where they've had acceptances. An admissions person could easily plug in son's gpa to get a general idea of where he stands. But at the same time, it does minimize the preoccupation with minute differences in the gpa, which really isn't very helpful. The kid's vote on the class val., but this is in the spring so it has no bearing on college acceptances.</p>

<p>Oh, yes, we do have an overall gpa and an academic gpa.</p>