<p>At my son's HS, something like 40-50% of the grades issued are A's. Out of a senior class size of 300+ students, there are 24 "valeditorians" (students who have a 4.0uw average - the school does not weigh grades). What this means is that if you make a couple of B's anytime in your HS career, you are out of the top 10%, a statistic that is very meaningful for selective colleges.</p>
<p>The average SAT score for the senior class is a little over 1100. We had 2 semis and 4 commendeds this year. I know that the two semis would have straight A's no matter whether there's grade inflation or not, but the other 22? I don't know.</p>
<p>Is high school grade inflation rampant, or are kids just more dedicated and working harder that ever, or some combination of the two??</p>
<p>btw, grammarians: why does "A's" as the plural of "A" LOOK more correct to me than writing "As" - which one is correct?</p>
<p>The same is with our local high school. Also with the high schools I knew about in Pittsburgh and suburbs. The biggest offenders I have seen, however, are some of the Catholic highschools where 75-85% are "honor" students. The SAT1 averages are about 1100 there and ther aren't very many NMF at all. I would think "A"s would be correct as the plural of "A".</p>
<p>"Usage with regard to forming the plurals of letters, numbers, and abbreviations varies somewhat. In some cases you have a choice between adding -s or -s, although the trend is increasingly to add -s alone: three As or three As; the ABCs or the ABCs; the 1900s or the 1900s; PhDs or PhDs; several IOUs or several IOUs. With lowercase letters, symbols, abbreviations with periods, and in cases where confusion might arise without an apostrophe, use -s to form the plural: ps and qs; +s; -s; M.A.s; As and Is; 2s. Mainly your goal is to be as clear as possible and avoid confusion."</p>
<p>The way to check would be to look at what they are studying, in detail. Having lived overseas, where the standards set by the curriculum are higher, my guess in any particular case in the United States is grade inflation.</p>
<p>Doesn't make much difference. At my oldest son's highschool, they weighted every dang thing they could. The heck of it is that I do believe it helped a good number of kids. Not to the very top schools, but there are very few kids there with stats where they should be going there. But my son got better than he really deserved as did a number of kids I knew. Athletes and other groups that colleges covet really got a step up.</p>
<p>Before you automatically say that the number of NM semifinalists was low, here's some comparative data: For Massachusetts, the average number of semifinalists PER HIGH SCHOOL is about 1.1. In Colorado, the average number of semifinalists per high school is 0.66. Most of that can be attributed to the fact that Colorado has more HS's that Mass. even though Mass. has more high school students than Colorado. In Colorado the average enrollment is 635 students/HS; in Mass. the average is 955 students/HS. Normalized, there are approx. 1 semifinalist per 960 students in BOTH Colorado and Mass. But of course, that is how semis are defined and why the cutoffs are different from state to state.</p>
<p>Anyway, my son's HS has about 1600 students, so you would expect to see 2 SFs. Which is how many there were. If you had a Mass. HS with the same population, you would expect to see exactly the same number of SFs. So I'm not sure why you think the number of SFs in my son's HS is "low."</p>
<p>Unbelievable. The grading scale is really off. The school would have more cred if they graded realistically. For contrast, at dd's school, the boy's valdectarian last year (or year before) was only the 4th boy in the history of the school, since the 1920's to get straight A's all semesters over 4 years. The average SAT score is around 1350. It's a private school and enrollment is only around 350 students, so it's hard to contrast.</p>
<p>Since A is not a word, I don't think convention applies. Clarity does.</p>
<p>My daughter's school has the opposite problem (it's a Catholic high school by the way) - no grade inflation at all that I can see. Top 10% usually have weighted GPA's in the 3.6 and above range. In nearly all of my children's "core" classes, there are usually only two or three A's given out of a class of 25. My concern is that my kids will be at a disadvantage in applying to selective colleges because their GPAs will look paltry compared to other schools. The get frustrated hearing about friends at the local public high school who have little or no homework and get straight A's.</p>
<p>carolyn - because of these discrepancies, that is why colleges look more at class rank than they do GPAs. But when the grade inflation is extreme, it can hurt many good students. My son, for example, has a 3.9+ UW GPA, but is not in the top 10%!</p>
<p>I know the averages are as you state them, Digimedia. But let me tell you, when I lived in Westchester county, there were nice long lists of NMF and commended each year for highschools with about 300 seniors. Way over the average. Then you have the schools that hardly ever have any. My son's school has quite a few kids who are NMF each year and the average SAT there is in the high 1300s each year--don't know the figure for this year, but I know a number of 1500+ kids which to me is amazing. some ridiculous % get over 1500+ there. This is a private school. </p>
<p>When my kids were in public schools, the counselors felt that getting within the average range on the standardized tests was just fine. Well, considering what comprises some of the schools that use those tests, I was not pleased with this outlook. When the kids took the ERB, a test that the private and top schools tend to use, it was to me a more accurate measure of where I felt I wanted them to be in education.</p>
<p>40-50% As, what ever happened to the bell curve? That is just crazy! When the school sends colleges a profile, do they report this? How detailed are those profiles? So you get a lot of 4.0/1100s? I really wonder how colleges handle this.</p>
<p>That does sound like grade inflation to me too. I can only say what we have here. We do not have weighted grades (though that will change with the class of 2006 (my older D wrote that policy actually for future classes and the school board adopted it). But for my kids, there were no weighted grades. Anyway, getting straight As is not common at all. I think each marking period, a few attain it in each grade level. But for the entire four years of high school, only one person got straight A's or a 4.0 and thus there was only one val. It is particularly difficult to get straight A's in the hardest classes. The SAT avg. is 1039. I don't know the number of NM but I recall one year, there being two kids (have no idea the trend in other years). This year's graduating class has 169 kids in it. </p>
<p>I would say at our high school, getting straight A's is hard to achieve. While my oldest D was able to do that all four years in the toughest classes and was val, the kids ranked second, third, and fourth, who must have gotten mostly all A's but I guess not every single year, did not take the more challenging levels of classes. Of course the harder classes did not help with regard to ranking but it was surely harder to attain the A's in the more rigorous courses and also way more work. I would maintain that getting straight A's was not a breeze and it was a ton of work for my D. </p>
<p>I would say the same at my D's college right now too. The courses are very demanding and I think in some of them, getting an A is not common at all. I think straight A's there stands for a lot of hard work, and not like you are reporting. My D achieved this first semester in college but I am not surprised due to her work ethic but am a bit surprised given how challenging her college is and how likely most students who got in were high achievers in high school but they surely do not give out all A's to everyone at the college so I surmise for many, this was the first time they have not gotten all A's.</p>
<p>I once met somebody whose school had about 74 valedictorians because everyone there took the hardest courses and for some weird reason (def. grade inflation...A LOT OF IT), everyone had A's. At my school, nobody has ever been in and out w. straight A's.</p>