<p>Epiphany,
Responding to a few things you brought up. I can't say the same with my daughter regarding college being "easier" than high school. She goes to Brown University where she says the classes are very challenging and demanding and the kids seem brilliant to her. It seems that almost every kid she has met went to private schools, including well regarded prep schools, though she went to a rural public school where only 2/3s of the kids even go to college. However, even though our high school is not as competitive or full of AP this and that, her courses were demanding and she felt well prepared for college work. She says lots of what she learned in her courses, she is using in college. She placed out of some levels in math and foreign language. She had to write a lot in high school and now again in college but she was used to this kind of writing. While a very good high school or prep school prepares kids well, I also think it is really the student who makes or breaks how they do in college, not what high school they came from. My daughter happens to be self motivated and has high standards for herself and achieved straight As at Brown so far, though it was certainly NOT easier than high school. I would say the one thing that is easier is her daily schedule. In high school, she had more courses with many hours of daily homework often due the next day, had to attend school for seven hours and then about five hours of EC per day, plus a lot of travel time to these things, ECs most of the weekend, a part time job, and lots of homework on weekends. Pretty much every hour was accounted for. In college, she only has classes for maybe 3 hours or so per day. She is on a varsity sports team which involved seven sessions per week first semester and then in winter will involve two full weekday mornings and all of Saturdays and Sundays out of town, and might take on other ECs. But she has more hours to do the homework than before. She is doing way more social things on top of her activities than she ever did in high school. So, it is working out easier in some ways but definitely not easier school work. </p>
<p>You asked a few things about the valedictorian issues. In our school, I have not recently seen any ties for val. Only one kid had a 4.0 each year. The val and the sal gave speeches. There is not a competitive atmosphere here or any "race" to make val at all. I don't even think kids know who is ranked what til senior year when it comes up in relation to graduation and stuff. Here, val is chosen strictly by GPA. You asked about higher level awards or more difficult courseloads and any effect on choosing the val and here, the answer is no. It so happens that my daughter who was val, took the most rigorous courseload, which made it harder to be ranked so high because she got no "credit" for taking much harder classes. Actually the kids ranked second, third, and fourth, either took no Honors/AP or maybe just one. This means that often the kids who are not taking the hardest classes can be ranked higher than kids who are taking them. It only just happened that my D ended up being the only kid with straight A's even though she took the harder classes. However, the system does not "reward" those who take on more challenging coursework here. She researched and developed a weighted GPA policy in terms of class rank so as to encourage students to challenge themselves. It was a long process getting such a policy passed but indeed it was adopted by the school board and affects those starting with the class of 2006, which was to have been her sister's class but now she is graduating a year early and does not benefit from the policy her sister wrote. She takes the hardest classes as well, plus acceleration beyond her grade level, but I am sure there are kids ranked above her who are in the easiest tracked classes. </p>
<p>I don't know this for sure, but to be in the NHS at our school, I THINK you have to have over a 3.5 GPA (plus lots of other criteria) and I would say roughly 10% of the class gets in. </p>
<p>I already mentioned the avg. SAT score at our school (and not everyone takes it or is college bound) and it is 1038. I think kids at our school would think my kids SAT scores were really high and they were, compared to most at our school, but on CC would not stand out at all (at least when I read all those kids' stats posts). </p>
<p>I have read some students on here post that a kid who was val or who had straight A's in some unknown public high school (like ours) would likely not do so well at some well regarded prep school (supposedly much harder to get good grades at) but I beg to differ with that perception. I think the top students at our rural high school would do just fine in the best prep schools but just did not choose to attend such high schools. I think my daughter, coming out of such a high school, has fared quite well at her Ivy league school, among many kids who came from such elite prep schools. </p>
<p>Shennie, you asked an interesting question about grading. I think grades should be based on what you learned and the quality of the work and the effort and not be a comparison with others. I agree with you that if you do the work very well, then you earned the top grade. I think there should be grading criteria and if you meet it, you earn it. So what if many in the class achieve it? As a former teacher myself, having taught at five colleges, I certainly never came up with a system where I only gave a certain number of A's, B's, C's, etc. I had established grading criteria and used it to evaluate the work. It could be that lots of students achieved an A or only a few. It depended on their individual work but not any grand total or comparison with other students. A lof ot it just depended on the students in the class and each one's individual efforts. I can say that some courses I taught, particularly graduate courses, many earned A's. One college I taught at, the ability and effort of the students varied widely and some were doing A work and some were failing.</p>
<p>Susan</p>