High School Grade Inflation: I AM SO SICK OF IT.

Applying to College
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<p>citygal55,</p>

<p>It is a FACT that private school students such as yourself have a snobby attitude towards ALL public schools as evidenced by your original post and your condescending and girly attitude in your subsequent post.</p>

<p>As far as your GPA, it is your interpretation whether that is good or not. From what I have seen, that is not good. There are some competitive programs that auto-reject 3.6s regardless of school or courseload. As a point of curiosity, what is your class rank/SAT score, and what college are you going to?</p>

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<p>I completely agree CityGal55 wit u about the whole grade inflation thing and people calling a B and even an A- an underachieving effort. but some public schools are not necessarily easier or worse than private schools.</p>

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<p>The reason I care at all about this subject is because I think students everywhere are getting cheated. I am proud of my education and my GPA within the context of my school. What I am not okay with is the way students from other schools seem to "look down upon" my GPA because in many realms, a 3.6 is not considered "good enough." It goes along with my disagreement with the competitive, cutthroat nature of college admissions these days. I care because I think smart students are not getting challenged in some schools, while those who need additional help are not being made aware of the fact because they are slipping by with undeserved B's. </p>

<p>And as for sus (I can't recall your entire user name), I do not appreciate your personal attacks on my "girly" writing style (which I seem to miss...?) and I am certainly not being condescending. Bitter? Maybe. Condescending? No way. I made it a point to address my belief that there are competitive programs in all types of schooling, private or public, and I do not look down upon any student, no matter where he or she attends. There are smarter kids than me who attend the worst schools in the country, unfortunately, and I do not deny that fact. </p>

<p>If anyone is being close-minded, it is you. I find it offensive and ignorant that you feel you can make such a broad statement about "all private school students" having a "snobby attitude towards ALL public schools." Did you have a bad experience with someone who attends private school? I am trying to guage where on earth you gained such hostile feelings towards those who do not attend public school. As far as I can see, you are the one coming off as ignorant and uniformed.</p>

<p>As I previously mentioned, my school did not rank, but if I had to guess, I would guess that I fell somewhere in the top 25-30%. My school was full of very, very smart people and I was definitely not in the top tier. There were some real standouts. I prefer not to disclose which college I will attending, but it is a top 30 school.</p>

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<p>So ummm..wait.</p>

<p>You make mention of how public schools tend to, well, suck. So obviously you think students in this country need more education. Right?</p>

<p>But you are also upset that more students are finding ways to get into college (by "grade inflation") and actually getting a better education.</p>

<p>So which is it? Because it seems to me you don't really care that public schools suck and our nation is uneducated as long as you get to be educated yourself. </p>

<p>I mean, don't we all deserve higher education? Really, why shouldn't these kids go to college, even if they are going on "fake" grades? People can change.</p>

<p>Your problem is, you want to be better off than other people. You want the better school, which leads to the better job, and the better life. You have somehow deluded yourself into thinking that studying all night for a test is a "deserving" quality for one day driving a Mercedes, and living in a nice house, and being able to feed your kids.</p>

<p>Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
It is a FACT that private school students such as yourself have a snobby attitude towards ALL public schools as evidenced by your original post and your condescending and girly attitude in your subsequent post.

[/quote]

You just lost all credibility with that statement. I could retort immaturely by saying "It's a FACT that all public school kids like to call private schools snobby because they're jealous they can't attend them" but I plain know that's not true. Take your ignorance elsewhere.</p>

<p>And Golden Bear: What were the SAT scores of you and your friends? However imperfect it is, it's still one of the few ways to decide if schools are inflating/deflating grades.</p>

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<p>I had 2300 SAT I, 35 ACT, 800 Math IIC and 800 US Hist. (I never prepped for these and half my APs)</p>

<p>Most student's UW GPAs take hits, but we are such competetors that due to APs and Honors Courses over 100 students get 4.0+ Weighted GPAs and that is what the "normal" students that try hard and aren't brillant have to deal with and therefore suffer.</p>

<p>Many 2.0-3.25 students from my school were having SATs from 1500-2000 range, one or two even hit 2100.</p>

<p>My smart friends have stats like 2200+ SAT I, 2 or 3 750+ SAT IIs (Many have 800s), with unweighted GPAs anywhere from 3.5 to the crazy 4.0 (Harvard Bound). Most students have passed at least 5 APs at my school, even medicore students. </p>

<p>AP Scores of 5 are expected, 4 is not a good effort, with 3 & below a really bad grade at my school (Only Exception is AP Physics C, which has the lowest Pass Percentage). Some APs have 100% Pass Percentage with up to 75% of students getting a 5. That is why many teachers expect everyone even the worse students to get at least a 4 on their APs.</p>

<p>My school sends almost 10% of the graduating class to UC Berkeley including me. About 15% of my class attends one of the CC Top Universities/Ivy League Schools. Remember this is a severely underfunded and overcrowded public school.</p>

<p>Also am National AP Scholar. 8-5s, one 4 (Physics C: Mech) and one 2 (C: E&M, hardest AP ever).</p>

<p>My Public School is definitely not run of the mill. It has private school like admission policies. We give around the best 800 candidates for the freshman class that applies out of the entire city of San Francisco, CA an offer to attend and around 650 attend. </p>

<p>To make a comparison, a school like that in North Dakota or Vermont would have take the whole state's public school system's entering 9th graders and take the top 800 from the whole state and stick it in one school with about 650 matriculating.</p>

<p>As you can see that competition would be intense especially since these students would almost all be A students if they went to normal schools, but are fighting each other for the A, B or C, especially since some teachers set an amount of As, Bs and Cs.</p>

<p>Even though some particular classes are jokes, most classes are really tough.</p>

<p>In the BC Calculus class, everyone gets 5s, but a third of the class still gets Cs. That is how tough our school is and therefore grades are deflated and they get shafted.</p>

<p>Many English teachers are even worse. My last English class had ZERO As given out of 34 students. Many English classes have less than 10% of the class getting As as the teachers have such high expectations.</p>

<p>Basically, students who could have 4.0+ GPAs at any one of the other public HS in SF (except the art HS), end up having GPAs of 2.0-3.25 at my school. </p>

<p>This is because of GRADE DEFLATION at my HS and the normal to outrageous grade inflation at the other schools that typify other HSs, so parents and our school board won't complain that no one gets As, so it becomes that a C student gets an A, D goes to B, High F to C, Low F to D, and Really Low F stays an F.</p>

<p>I know this grade inflation happens at bad HS with 25% dropout rates, just so the school can actually have respectable amounts of As & Bs. I get this information from my uncles and friends' parents who teach at crappy schools in S.F.</p>

<p>Yeah, anyone who reads this and knows S.F. public schools knows where I graduated from.</p>

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<p>Here's a good joke (but true story):</p>

<p>I attend elementary school with a kid named, for the sake of confidentiality, Donkey.</p>

<p>Donkey is a bit naive, he's not too bright, but likes working really hard ocassionally. Out of the class of 50, it's obvious that he is not the brightest in the class. Or even one of the 10 brightest.</p>

<p>I go to the public school 5 min away with among the highest ACT/SAT averages in the state, while he goes to the private high school over an hour away.</p>

<p>Fast forward four years: I am the val of a class of 700+ students, and, as I hear and much to my surprise, Donkey is at the top of his class of ~300 kids. And yet, an even bigger surprise, Donkey has been accepted to MIT and Yale!</p>

<p>Now, I know Donkey, he may have worked hard to earn that high GPA, he may have take the SAT several times, but god help him, he's just not the sharpest tool in the shed. Now if Donkey had attended the public hs, he would certainly not have been ranked at the top. Hell, he wouldn't even be in the top 10%. Which goes to show: The kids that attend private hs are not a function of INTELLIGENCE, but of MONEY (and a certain other quality, since hordes of rich kids also attended the public).</p>

<p>In close, I'd certainly hate to be a kid who earned his way to Yale and be roomates with Donkey, who I'm sure after 5 minutes of interaction, the other kid will ask, "Are you a double-legacy recruited athlete or something?"</p>

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<p>CityGal, are you saying an A and a 5 on the AP test means the course is inflated? I'm one of those 4.0's, and I don't work that much, but I have 5's on every one of my AP tests. It's unfair to claim that everyone with a 4.0 that doesn't work hard is a result of inflated grading. Some people just have their strengths. Some people are just smart, I might add.</p>

<p>My best friend hardly studies and has a 4.0. Is this grade inflation? He also has a 2390 SAT, 3200 SATII, 10 5's on AP's.</p>

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<p>CityGal55, in my experience there is actually more grade inflation at private schools, not less. After all, private schools are more like businesses than public schools are: they have to keep the customers, i.e. the parents, happy in order for them to keep paying those high tuitions. And a lot of those parents will get upset if their kids make anything less than perfect scores. Those parents will then complain to the teachers/administrators, who feel the pressure to keep the parents happy. So there is more pressure, at least in my experience, for grade inflation to occur at private schools.</p>

<p>Also, if you learn the same amount of material (or more) as a kid from a school that practices grade inflation, then what's the problem? CityGal55, I have no idea what you're trying to argue with your "students are getting cheated" thing. If they're getting cheated out of a good education, it has everything to do with the quality of teaching/how much the teacher cares about the class and nothing to do with grade inflation. All grade inflation means is that students receive disproportionately high grades for the work that they do, not necessarily that they aren't being challenged in a class. For example, I know that in my AP Physics C class this past year, a lot of kids were struggling to make Cs or Bs on tests, and studied for tests for hours. But they still got As in the class because they did a ridiculous amount of extra credit. (Edit for clarification: in this Physics class, kids can go to the teacher and ask for as much help as they want with extra credit. So even kids who don't understand the material can get perfects on extra credit. I would consider this to be getting grades disproportionate to their understanding of the material.) Were those kids challenged? Yes. Did the teacher try his best to help kids understand and clearly explain the concepts? Yes. Was the quality of education that was being offered any less because some kids probably didn't deserve As in the class? No.</p>

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<p>

Well those "hardworking students" won't be able to get into ivies leagues since a 3.5-3.6 definately is NOT an "ivy league" GPA...</p>

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<p>The point is that some schools it is really tough to get a 3.8, while at others you have 20 valedictorians with 4.0s</p>

<p>With that many Vals, kids arent getting challenged...</p>

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<p>NO. I am not saying that everyone with a 4.0 doesn't deserve it! I am saying that it seems highly suspicious that SO MANY kids seem to have very high GPAs. I believe you are smart. Many kids do deserve their grades; I am simply taking issue with any school program in which kids with 4.0's are not either getting corresponding SAT scores like you do, or working really hard (people often brag about the minimal effort they put into school to get a 4.0, but then wonder why they only got an 1890 on the SAT.)</p>

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<p>Anf fiddledd (I like your user name btw!)...I'm not sure I follow your argument. Yes, I think a lot of public schools in America suck. Not all of them, but a good majority of them. And before someone else attacks me, there are definitely a lot of horrible private schools, as well. But we as Americans are accountable for the quality of the PUBLIC education. </p>

<p>I do not think the way to remedy this is by sending unprepared kids into college, but I guess that is the only choice until someone realizes how much we need to reform the entire K-12 education system. </p>

<p>I'm really not sure how you turned this around to make it seem as though I only care about myself. That is very far from the truth. But do I think it is fair that some students can get into college on "fake grades" as you put it, while some of us are trying to compete based on "real grades"? No, I think that is VERY UNFAIR. Everyone should be evaluated equally. If fake grades don't matter, why not just submit fake SAT scores and AP scores, too? If our whole goal is to send unprepared kids into college hoping that they will "change" or get a chance to "prove themselves," then lets just send every random person who every showed up to one day of high school into college. That sounds very fair to me. </p>

<p>The goal here should be to create a system in which there is no question that an entire student body is prepared academically for college. How can you possibly argue with the fact that everyone should get a chance to be prepared? Instead of letting people coast through high school just so they can have a miserable freshman year trying to catch up, why not fix the root of the problem so they can go in ready to learn? </p>

<p>You want everything to be all lovey-dovey, but guess what, it isn't. It is cruel to let kids believe they are prepared for higher education when they are not. Sure, everyone has the right to higher education, but unless one proves themselves through honest work and evaluation of said work, then no, I do not believe college is the best place for them. </p>

<p>I have no idea why you brought driving a Mercedes and living in a nice house into this. My goal in life is to become an educated individual, and if someday I feel like purchasing a Mercedes and a nice house, then you know what? I will. But anyone else who wants to buy a Mercedes and a nice house...be my guest!!!! I could care less about being better than other people. I do not feel entitled to anything. But if I work for something, then yes, I do believe I deserve something from it.</p>

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<p>Out of 200 kids, around 20 I believe are going to various Ivy league schools, including the val who had I think a 4.0. The rest had about 3.6-3.9??? </p>

<p>My school prides itself on the tough grading, and I can't really explain the mentality, but since the school has such strong tradition on tough academics, I don't think the parents mind the grading (which actually seems like deflation) that seems to go on.</p>

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<p>Hm...yeah, getting that 4.0 junior year was pretty easy...</p>

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<p>Oh great another private school kid telling us about how much public schools suck, and blah blah. I think about 75% of private school kids have these attitudes, just because thats what they hear from there parents. From my experience I'd rather being at a public magnet school than at a private school, and I've been to both. When I was at a private school, I always saw the rich kids paying for A'S and the jocks getting them for there "hard" efforts. The school themselves would pad the students just to be able to say look how many students we got into harvard.
While public school are notorious for slack, bad teachers, and overall a distinct environment its still very easy to get a good education, my school is great-in my opinion, i'm at an Ib school. Our academics are really good, and you're getting a ton of life experiences at the same time. Unlike the sterile environment which is a private schools.</p>

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<p>FYI, my school is more diverse than many of the all-white suburban schools. Yet another misconception about private schools...yaawwwwn. Unless you attend IB or Magnet, many private schools are MORE diverse because there are no geographical constrainsts. </p>

<p>I don't know what private school you went to, but at mine, everyone had to test in and therefore deserves to be there. </p>

<p>Funny that a public school proponent is accusing a private school kid of going to school where the jocks are getting A's just so they can play. In my experience, many public schools treat their athletes like pieces of rare artwork. </p>

<p>I agree that one can get a great education at private school. But many public schools have issues, so stop denying it. </p>

<p>You never see news reports entitled, "Private Schools: State of Emergency," do you? </p>

<p>Wahhh wahhh wahh...life experience, public school kids loooove to rub this in our faces. Like they are going to school in some gang infested, diverse, rough environment where they might need to dodge bullets at any moment. Please. Most of the kids on this board who attend public school are in a more "sterile' environment than I ever was. We pulled from the poorest neighborhoods in the city and everyone seemed to cohabitate peacefully. So enough already.</p>

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<p>Hehe. Well, first, I am a huge supporter of education reforms. Our public school system is lacking, and not on the fault of the students. (That being said, as a public high school graduate, until things are changed it would be nice to have a bit of respect from colleges and others). I also don't believe in supporting slacking and not preparing students for college.</p>

<p>I was trying to point out a larger picture here. You said "The goal here should be to create a system in which there is no question that an entire student body is prepared academically for college."</p>

<p>And I completely agree. But in a system where we are all prepared for college, grades aren't going to matter. We would ALL have really insanely high GPA's. And even if you did manage to adjust it so that grade "inflation" evens out and even amazing students might get a 2.0, then the difference between the 2.0 student and 4.0 student really shouldn't or wouldn't be very big.</p>

<p>I guess my point is, if public high schools changed and magically everyone in America was prepared, then the idea of having fair grades would be completely pointless. You wouldn't be able to decide between the good and the bad because there wouldn't be any bad students.</p>

<p>So do you want everyone to be qualified or do you want things to stay the same, even with this "grade inflation" because it means you can go to Harvard or somewhere else great.</p>

<p>Because you really can't have it both ways. So maybe stop complaining about all this "undeserving" competition, when you could be competing with every high school student in the country.</p>

<p>:)</p>

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<p>I worded that wrong, you're right! I meant to say...the goal should be to even out the students so that getting an A means something. Not everyone is meant to go to college, but those who are CAPABLE, should be prepared to do so. There should be a proportionate amount of students getting A's, B's, C's, etc.</p>

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<p>Maybe your school is just too tough on the students.</p>