<p>There are many folks who live in VA who contend that Fairfax/NoVa already get a disproportionate number of seats to UVA and W&M. The larger issue, to me, is that in any area where there is a highly educated work force and excellent schools, admissions to competitive colleges is going to be tough -- there are many families in the area who value education highly and their kids are all applying to the same shortlist. I don't view the grading scale as the difficulty.</p>
<p>As a parent who lives in one of those highly competitive areas, I would take the tougher odds and better schools any day. My kids would agree even more vehemently. We have too many friends and family members who languish in schools (urban, rural and suburban, all across the country) that don't begin to meet their needs or have great expectations of students.</p>
<p>Excuse me while I put on my flame-proof suit...;)</p>
<p>My son's class in HS had precisely two kids with an A average, more with an A-. Roughly the top 10% of the class annually has an A or A- average in most years, with a few into the B+ range. (A 92 is a B+.) No weighting at all. Supposedly no ranking, although they do declare a val/sal and do release info that makes it possible to estimate percentile.</p>
<p>Kids with few honors/AP classes are frequently among the "Top 10" graduates profiled in the local newspaper. One year, a kid with not a single honors or AP class was declared the val.</p>
<p>The competitive HS in the next town weights for final GPA only, and they have at least twice as many grads with A/A- averages.</p>
<p>The kids who are hurt most by this are those who fall on the cusp of the top 10%, and/or those who choose to challenge themselves by taking honors/AP classes in which they might get a C or low B.</p>
<p>And I don't think it helps kids with highly rigorous course loads, whose class rank looks mediocre compared to competitor candidates from other schools whose rank is determined by weighted grades. Sure, I'm sure that ad comms try to take it into account, but when it comes down to it, you've got a kid who would have been in the top 5 at the school in the next town, but at our school s/he is only top 10%.</p>
<p>Consolation, the same thing happens to kids who attend selective admission programs that draw from schools around the district. Program may admit kids in the top 2% of the school system, but when the top 2% make up 20% of the class at the high school where the special program lives...it really bleeps up rankings.</p>
<p>Our school system doesn't rank, but they provide charts of XX% of kids had a 3.75+ UW, XX% had a 3.51-3.74, etc. Not too hard to figure out where a student falls -- but that chart doesn't separate out kids who are taking seven Honors/APs/IBs from kids who are not taking any advanced courses.</p>
<p>S1 was burned for a top 10% scholarship in exactly the above circumstances. S2, in a similar situation, will also have a rank that does not jibe with his courseload/scores. I don't think there's a perfect system, but I do think there are colleges out there that pay attention -- and not just small, selective ones. The trick is identifying those schools for each student.</p>
<p>Our school system uses 94% as an A. It is a very small public school, sending about 80% on to 4 year colleges. It is a "silver" USNWR school. I have decided over the past couple years, that colleges can get a pretty good idea of how the schools operate by looking at the GPA, the test scores and the rank. It seems to me that inconsistencies in those reports will "tell" if a school has grade inflation or deflation. I would like to see all schools report on the 0-100 scale. I think that would be more telling. I, too, had one child who consistently would receive 93...which in our system is a B+ and is reflected as such on the transcript and GPA. 0-100 would give a more precise comparison than GPA. Our school doesn't weight classes either...just a straight 4 point GPA scale.</p>
<p>Sry, Fairfax folks but methinks you are fooling yourselves if you really beleive that a bunch of B's will now become A's. The high school could just as easily toughen up the tests such that less kids earn a 90. Or, and just as importantly, class rank will become a bigger factor. But, even if those current B+'s now moves to A-'s, it will not change class rank whatsoever.</p>
<p>Gee no kidding it won't change class rank. No expectation of grade inflation from this 'rent. The kids will still be busting their chops just to keep up.</p>
<p>At my Ds' high school, there isn't that level of uniformity. The teachers get to decide what an A is. For most, it's a 93. For some, it might be higher or lower. Individual teachers decide what number equates to a letter grade, whether to round, whether to allow extra credit, whether to curve, what percentage the final will be, whether to count homework, etc. The only thing set in stone is the number of points toward the grade point that a letter grade carries once it's given. So whether it required a 92 or a 93 or a 95 to earn the A, the A is worth 5.0 (5.5 in an honors/AP course). I don't think it matters that much what the requirement at Fairfax is - the colleges get the school profiles and see what it takes to get an A. Even if all schools had a uniform grading system, not all schools (or all teachers) grade the same, so it's still hard to evaluate a grade or a GPA, especially at a school that doesn't rank.</p>
<p>D--we're in Fairfax County--went to a Catholic High School where the grading system mirrored the County. I wonder if they will retreat, also. Under that system, she'd have had a 4.0 unweighted, converting two B+'s in math to A's!</p>
<p>I actually think the move was unnecessary, but it's heartening that the elected Board was responsive to the parents concerns.</p>