Fairfax Goes to Fairgrade

<p>This will change the look of some chances threads.</p>

<p>[url=<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012203959.html%5Dwashingtonpost.com%5B/url"&gt;http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/22/AR2009012203959.html]washingtonpost.com[/url&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/p>

<p>This is a good move, but I feel sorry for those people who have already graduated and have had to endure the unfair grading system.</p>

<p>I'm not sure any grading system is unfair. It is what it is. </p>

<p>I think school districts are right to use grading systems that work best for their population. The only thing that concerned me during the Fairgrade debate was that some people said the old grading system hurt students in the college admission process. As you all know, colleges receive a school profile with each application that lets admission officers know about the system in place at that school (grading scale, weighting, curriculum restrictions, grade distribution, etc.).</p>

<p>The school in New England that just uses Hs for grades (H, HH, H+, etc.) isn't putting their students at a disadvantage. The ones that use 6.0 GPA scales aren't confusing us. Their profiles spell out their methodology and we read the application with that system in mind.</p>

<p>We get calls fairly regularly from people who want to know our opinion of different grading scales and I can honestly say that we don't have a really strong preference for one specific scale. Whatever system works for the district is fine with us, as long as we are provided adequate information about it.</p>

<p>This is much ado about nothing, IMO. An A is whatever a teacher (or department) makes it out to be, and if a teacher only wants 10% A's all s/he has to do is to toughen up the test such that only the top 10% score 90+ when under the old policy they had to score 94+. Parents are fooling themselves if they think that magically a bunch of B+s will become A-s....And, Admissions folks are a whole lot more savvy and can easily figure this out with the school profile.</p>

<p>Quite frankly, I can't figure out why the Super didn't be a smart politician and just recommend the change years ago and then let the high schools adjust grading scales accordingly.</p>

<p>"as long as we are provided adequate information about it."
That's the issue. I am not entirely sure that some schools provide adequate info. Some school profiles are pretty sketchy.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
That's the issue. I am not entirely sure that some schools provide adequate info. Some school profiles are pretty sketchy.

[/QUOTE]
I've been doing this for quite some time and I haven't run across any "sketchy" profiles. If a school neglects to include data that we need, the information is just a phone call away.</p>

<p>Fairfax's profiles contain all the information needed.</p>

<p>What do you consider adequate information? Yes, I remember my D's school profile being sketchy. Nothing about grade distribution and other useful items so each student can be compared with others in school context.</p>

<p>Some profiles, for those interested:</p>

<p>WT</a> Woodson High School (Fairfax County)</p>

<p>Deep</a> Run High School (Henrico County)</p>

<p>I was going to go find profiles from different parts of the state, but I think you get the point. Happily, the Secondary School report also asks for grade scale and rank information. It also asks a few questions about curriculum.</p>

<p>Dean J, you may be very familiar with Fairfax Grading standards but not all Universities are. The University of Michigan being one. One of the people who founded Fairgrade was an Admissions Dean for Georgetown and she and her associates must have done some killer research to get this system changed in one year.</p>

<p>Two reasons for this change, that were news to me, were helping keep low performing students from becoming so disengaged that they dropped out of school, and the other which I can personally attest to is the disadvantage created in the scholarship hunt. Large national awards like Toyota and Coca Cola use ETS's (aka The College Board) computerized system in the early rounds. All GPA's are treated equally. As a result an applicant with a 6.5 and a student with a 4.3 are judged solely on the basis of those numbers without regard to grading scales.</p>

<p>vistany:</p>

<p>I would not be so sure that UMich is un-"familiar" with NoVa high schools and in particular, Fairfax high schools, which are some of the tops in the country.....</p>

<p>
[quote]
helping keep low performing students from becoming so disengaged that they dropped out of school...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That, of course, is pure speculation.</p>

<p>Good point, regarding scholarships. This change will definitely help in that area. Keep in mind that the very large public universities (Texas or California, for example) aren't the norm. Most admission offices use the school profile to interpret the transcript. Admission Officers will adjust their reading...but I guess that's a conversation better had a year from April.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
Admissions Dean for Georgetown

[/QUOTE]
A dean, eh? Are you sure about that? ;)</p>

<p>These school profiles are indeed exhaustive. But I opened the school profile on my S's high school website and all it had was stuff about the community, student diversity, diploma requirements etc. Nothing about grade distribution or SAT averages. Maybe adcoms get a different profile than us parents. Why? I don't know.</p>

<p>Vistany is right. It was a former admission Dean from Georgetown. That's from the Post article.</p>

<p>I believe she was a temp reader at Duke and a counselor at Georgetown for a few years. She was not a dean.</p>

<p>I am not diminishing the effort...I applaud the parents for being involved and lobbying for change that they felt was needed in their district.</p>

<p>guillaume:</p>

<p>ask your GC for a copy of the profile sent to colleges.</p>

<p>Thanks Blue. I'll do that.</p>

<p>I wonder when its coming to VA Beach... we still have the 100-94 = A. And you need a 70 to pass.</p>

<p>Yep, my son would love for Chesapeake to switch to this grading scale....we also have the 100-94 = A and you need a 70 to pass. Fairfax was definitely not the only school system in Virginia to have the tough grading scale.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I would not be so sure that UMich is un-"familiar" with NoVa high schools and in particular, Fairfax high schools, which are some of the tops in the country.....

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I guess my question would be is if UMich is so familiar with FCPS grading, why do they take a B+ (including AP/IB) which is 90-93 and recalculate it to be a straight B which could be as low as 80%?</p>

<p>Dean J,
Megan McLaughlin spent six years as an Admissions Officer at Georgetown University according to the Fair Grade Bio.</p>

<p>Very useful discussion indeed. My S goes to Broad Run in Loudoun county (nebor of Fairfax) and it has the same issue with grading scale. Dean J mentioned Woodson High and their profile is right on their home page. I dont think it is the case for our school and plus our school does a pretty unfair job for class rank too where rigor of the schedule is not considered at all - a A is a A and a B is a B irrespective of whether it is multivariable calc. or Algebra.</p>