Grading Systems in Middle School

<p>My daughter is currently in MS and thinking about applying to BS for high school. I have a question about grading. In our state's public shools, students do not receive letter/number grades that correspond to a percentage scored. Instead, they either don't meet,partially meet, meet or exceed expectations. I am not a huge fan of this system; especially in MS, as the students become much more motivated by concrete goals as far as grading is concerned. To further make this system more subjective, meeting expectations is based on the child's skill levels and aptitudes, i.e., a child in a HGT program has a much higher expectation level than a child in a traditional program. Has anyone else applied to BS with children who have this grading system? Even if you ace the state standards, you may only meet expectations in an individual class. I am assuming that a BS will take this into consideration when reviewing a child's records. Am I correct in my assumption?</p>

<p>Thanks.</p>

<p>Since BSs enroll kids from ALL OVER THE WORLD, from schools w very different grading systems, I think it is a safe guess that the BS admissions people can deal w it.</p>

<p>@GMT - I get that kids apply from ALL OVER THE WORLD to BS. My mother is English, my best friend is French and I went to school in Europe; so, I also realize that there are different grading systems in different countries. I also realize that BS AOs are intelligent people. However, I was referring to the U.S., where we tend to use numbers-based percentage systems. While the bands may vary for A’s, A-'s etc, we tend to have numeric systems that have a corresponding grade attached in the U.S… In our system, in no way shape or form does a 3 equate to a ‘B’. However, many people interpret it to mean that as it is a 1-4 system. I believe that I am a fairly intelligent person and I found the system very confusing when it was implemented. The administration and teachers not only had a hard time explaining the system to parents, but also had a hard time determining how to implement the system. My daughter receives threes on things that are competely correct. After many years, I still am not quite sure how that works. Therefore, I cannot imagine that an AO is going to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure it out. </p>

<p>It is not something that I am really worried about. I was just wondering if anyone else had a child who had the same system who applied. Maybe my question stems from the fact that we just received 1st trimester report cards and I am once again irritated by the system itself.</p>

<p>Maybe they care more about the SSAT in such cases?</p>

<p>Our middle school doesn’t give grades. They give extensive comments and sliding scales that indicate where your kid’s various skills are relative to where they should be. It wasn’t a problem for boarding school admissions. Many boarding schools use alternative grading so it would be fairly hypocritical to disregard it in admissions!</p>

<p>I like the no-grade system very much. We get much more meaningful feedback this way than we would ever get from number or letter grades. Even the best students have areas to work on and once you see the “A” on the report card you’re not inclined to look further into areas for improvement.</p>

<p>The transcript does not get sent alone to the BS. The transcripts are accompanied by a form that your present school’s guidance counselor fills out, w questions like :</p>

<p>Please explain your school’s grading system.
What is the passing mark?<strong><em>Honors mark?</em></strong></p>

<p>What percent of your students receive which grades?___</p>

<p>Does your school rank ❑ Yes ❑ No
Is your rank: ❑ Approximate ❑ Exact
How many students are in the entire grade?___</p>

<p>Does your school use a block of scheduling system? ❑ Yes ❑ No</p>

<p>This candidate ranks<em>__out of _</em><em>.
_</em>____other students share this rank.</p>

<p>Are students placed in sections to ability? ❑ Yes ❑ No
If yes, please tell us in which level the applicant is placed for each subject.</p>

<p>The purpose of receiving the transcripts is not so the AOs can rank the candidates by GPA, but simply to ascertain that the candidate is achieving at present school.</p>

<p>Then, there are standardized test scores (SSAT/ISEE) & Teachers Recs.</p>

<p>Our kid was homeschooled through eighth grade, and his transcript consisted of a long narrative of what specifically he’d read, studied, written in each subject area, with very little evaluation at all (I was avoiding “mommy grades”!). It didn’t seem to be a problem.</p>

<p>Your school’s system sounds like what is called standards based grading around here. It seems to be the latest thing in public education. My D had standards based grading in MS the year before she went to BS. She might have had part of her classes that way the year prior too.</p>

<p>It presented no problem in the application/acceptance process. I feel sure that AO’s are quite familiar with the system.</p>

<p>Like you, I disliked the new system and was very glad we didn’t have to continue dealing with it. Hopefully they get the kinks worked out because it was very confusing around here too when it was implemented.</p>

<p>I went back and looked at her old report cards. She got standards based grades only in her last year at MS. Each teacher gave about 10 subscores which were then averaged into an overall score. The subscores were all whole numbers but the overall scores came out to 2 decimal places, e.g. 3.17. Most of her overall scores hovered around 3 to 3.5.</p>

<p>FWIW, D had very high SSAT and standardized test scores. She didn’t have much in the way of sports and extracurriculars. She was accepted at 2 out of 4 BS, including her first choice which offered very good FA.</p>

<p>Oh, and D’s MS had no GT courses so the grades mentioned in my last post were in regular classes. I would have liked to see more 4’s to be more competitive for the acronym schools. In her case I did feel her grades were not what was expected for a school such as Andover which does state on its website that most of its successful applicants are straight A students.</p>

<p>We had the extra wrinkles of having recently moved and changed school districts to a school with no GT program, where no one really grasped D’s abilities or learning style, in addition to the brand new standards based grading. Teachers, parents, and students were all struggling with the implementation of the new grading system and trying to understand the criteria for achieving each level.</p>

<p>Incidentally, she is doing fabulously at BS, at one of the Hidden Gems that really caters to creative thinkers and is not so much of a Harvard feeder school.</p>

<p>Personally, I would be very skeptical about some of these “trends” in education. School systems are willing to adopt “trends” without any reliable data to back them up, only to find out later that it didn’t have the desired result and a generation of kids are cheated. There is a lot of grasping at straws to improve the education system in the US and a lot of these non traditional trends have yielded NO RESULTS, the US continues to slip. If you dig deep into the research, you will find that a lot of the traditional methods of education yield the best results. Do you remember the trend toward “Whole language” vs Phonics. Educators jumped on the whole language bandwagon based on a flawed study only to find out in the end Phonics is the way that people learn to read. The latest trend is replacing the textbook with an IPAD. The Ipad has an applicable place in some classes but it doesn’t necessarily work across all subjects. My son is attending a very well known Prep school that is fortunate to have at its helm, one of the leading expert digital technology. The school is taking a very systematic and thoughtful approach to determine how technology can be used to enhance the classroom experience. It is not an all or nothing proposition.</p>

<p>Thanks for the input. If my daughter decides to apply, I am sure that she will be a competitive applicant in a pool of many competitive applicants with only a small percentage gaining admission. In the end, I hold the firm belief that things that are meant to be will happen. </p>

<p>I agree about the trends in education. Before any one method has a chance to succeed (if it ever did in the first place), we seem to already have moved on to the next ‘savior’ of education which requires new books, training etc… In my mind it basically boils down to more $$$$ for the group/companies who are selling the method itself. Okay, I will get off my soapbox now! :)</p>

<p>momofmusician17, as far as I recall, the applications have a section for parents. In my opinion, it would be appropriate for you to explain your school’s grading system in the parents’ section. Your explanation in this thread is pretty clear, and I can see why you would be concerned about someone who hasn’t experienced the system being able to decipher the scale. </p>

<p>I would assume teachers should address the issue in their recommendations and the school report, but as you don’t see those parts of the application, you have no way of knowing if it makes any sense to someone from another state.</p>