What is the GPA distribution in your highschool? Do you need >97 for 4.0? I wonder how do they expect kids to get 97+ in every subject for unweighted 4.0?
At our grade inflated school you only need a 90.
Is there any disadvantage of having inflated or deflated GPA?
A 93+ for an A (or 90+ if they’ve done away with +/-) (4.0) is pretty standard at most schools.
I’ve never heard of a place where you need a 97+ to get a 4.0. That seems ridiculous. That would be an A+ at my old high school.
I know it’s ridiculous that’s why I’m surprised. It’s like your whole cohort in college has 4.0 and you have a measly 3.8, how many times you’ll explain your school’s stupid strict rules.
Grade inflation makes it hard to tell who the best students are, and it’s a bit unfair to kids who score substantially higher. Since some of the teachers curve/extra credit also, we’ve had situations where my kids got 10+ or even 15+ points higher than other kids but receive the same grade in the class so no one will ever know. It becomes difficult to stand out if many of the honor students get straight A’s, and class ranking becomes determined not by grades but by how many weighted classes and study halls you take. A kid whose actual average was 5-10 points lower than another kid could easily end up with a higher GPA because of this.
However, it also means that the kids are under a lot less stress over grades and I think it’s worth the tradeoff. I see so many kids on her freaking out over a point or two or worrying about whether they are .01 ahead of the next guy and I am so glad our high school is not like that.
Our school recently did away with letter grades. 60 is the lowest grade you have to pass a class. Anything above 90 is considered an A (but is only reported on transcripts as the number grade) and counts as a 4.0.
At my kids’ HS it’s 93 for an A. A+ isn’t clearly defined - teachers do anything from 98 to 100. (The other + and - grades are clearly defined).
I’ve posted recently on other threads, but at our HS only a 97+ is a 4.0 (A+).
97-100 (A+) = 4.0
93-96 (A) = 3.67
90-92 (A-) = 3.33
87-89 (B+) = 3.0
etc
So all “A’s” at our school, with a few “A-'s” thrown in, will give you a 3.5. At a school with no “+”'s and “-”'s and where an “A” is a 4.0, that same student would have a 4.0. How anyone can assume they are comparing apples to apples? And why do colleges publish an “average accepted student GPA” when it is clear that there is no common system for calculating? Maybe schools hesitate to accept students from my school because it lowers their “avg GPA” stat?! I have learned to mostly ignore GPA’s mentioned on CC and elsewhere.
Another poster wondered about why grades are changed anyway? And I agree.
At our HS, the teacher grades on a numeric scale (e.g. 96), but then must convert that to the letter grade (A) (losing any distinction between a 93 and a 96, for ex), and than that letter grade is re-converted to the 4.0 scale (3.67). Seems like a lot of effort for nothing. Why not just report the 96 and be done with it?
Our high school only posted number grades both on the transcript and as the GPA and WGPA, though they do tell you what the letter grade equivalents are, I never paid much attention to them. They never reported anything in a 4.0 scale. The transcript had the unweighted grades, only the GPA was weighted. Many colleges will look at grades in context. Even schools that don’t rank will usually let the colleges know what the GPA means - either by providing a grade distribution chart, reporting the highest GPA in the class or something else.
Well, this one’s easy. How many times do you need to explain? Zero. Let the GC explain the school’s grading policies.
I had no idea when D. was in HS. But, she happened the only one who had GPA 4.0uw in her private HS class at graduation, which earned her being at the top of her class. It may be different from class to class and may depend on the teacher. We never check into this as D. never had a single B in kindergarten thru graduating from college, while being at 2 different private schools in k - 12. Her HS did not weigh the GPA either, not for any Honors / APs.
87-89 B+
90-92- A-
93-100 A
My older son makes us crazy every term by consistently earning 90.2 in almost every class. He sweats it out until the last week of every term, ha. He hardly ever just gets a solid A or B. Just right there in the middle, all of the time.
No body cares about letter grades. It’s just that 97 isn’t easy to achieve in every single regular, Pre-AP, AP and IB subject. Even kids with 4.7 out of 5 weighted GPA don’t get unweighted 4.0.
95- 100 A 4.0
93-94 A 3.8-3.9
90-92 A- 3.5-3.7
88-89 B+ 3.3-3.4
83-87 B 2.8-3.2
A B kills you. UW only. Which in our case actually penalizes the Honors/AP students. You will have kids with very high GPAs that are taking all mainstream classes which messes up class rank. As a result our school doesn’t provide rank or percentiles which in some ways is good aside from the fact that it may make your child in eligible to apply for certain scholarships that require either rank or the percentile as part of the metrics measured.
90-100=A=4.0
89-80=B=3.0
79-70=C=2.0
anything below a 70=F, our school doesn’t give D’s (large public high ranked)
IB and AP classes get a 1.0 bump so an A=5.0 (and so on).
Honors are on a 4.0 scale (which I think is stupid for all the work they do).
My second kid has a 3.1 gpa with mostly honors and ap classes, and she’s in the bottom 25% of the class rank.
@MotherOfDragons that’s brutal! I get annoyed that the higher math tracks don’t get the honors designation, it just goes straight to AP.
I should’ve added the weighting to our school’s gpa in my post above:
Honors classes based on 5.0 scale. I think AP classes are 5.5.
My son, who took 1or 2 honors classes as a freshman, all honors classes as a sophomore and got mostly A- grades was ranked something like 140 out of 370 kids after sophomore year. Pretty darn competitive. He’s taking all honors again this year, 2 AP classes and honors as a senior. I look forward to seeing his new ranking.