<p>B.) Score a 4.2/4.0 and be ranked 30th/250 in your class?</p>
<p>Giving out extra points just for taking AP classes is stupid. Maybe teachers should stop being afraid to fail little Johnny and Suzie by handing out tons of extra credit on exams and after tests in order to allow students improve their scores if they are below average or to boost those B minuses up to As. Grading scales should be moved back to the 7 pt scale like it used to be.</p>
<p>This is completely possible at many competitive high schools where AP and IB programs are widely available and students are encouraged to take a rigorous schedule. Many of these schools weight their AP/IB classes so that students who select more challenging courses are rewarded for them. This sounds pretty accurate for D’s school— and there was no grade inflation there. Students worked hard for their grades and the grades were distributed across the spectrum.</p>
<p>If AP/honors classes aren’t weighted there is little meaning to class rank. Before our HS started giving weighted averages there were many years when the val/sal was a student who didn’t take higher level classes. Parents, and the school board, felt this created a disincentive for taking more rigorous classes.</p>
<p>AP courses are not the big problem; the problem in my view is the staggering disparity in ‘difficulty’ between high schools, even those located a few miles apart. </p>
<p>In my city’s (well respected and very competitive) HS, a 3.0, let alone a 4.0, is a good grade because of the competition, sheer size of the school, demographics, and the incredible amount of money spent on tutoring (very wealth suburb of a large city, 8-10% Tiger cub student body, 4000+ students), every AP and IB class ever taught and then some). In schools nearby, private or public, a 3.5 is all but guaranteed, and a 4.0 is not difficult, never mind how easy they are. </p>
<p>We still produce a lot of smart kids, but our ‘lower’ GPA’s compared to our neighbors do not fare well for the Ivies and the like. Out of 1000 kids a year graduating, maybe 1% end up in the Ivies and the like super competitive, and maybe 2% (20 kids total) go to CC-approved uber-colleges… </p>
<p>In terms of standardized testing & SAT’s for our state we’re between 1st and 3rd perpetually.</p>
<p>Go to the ACT’s research documents on its website. There, you will find some facts to back up the assertions. Grade inflation is very real; however, I’m not sure that the explosion of “weighted” courses is responsible. Weighting might inflate overall GPA, but not an actual course grade.</p>
<p>DS’ selective enrollment private college prep school GPA average is 3.30; no grad inflation there. At least 3 hours of homework/night, plus longer-deadline projects; hyper-involved student body. (33% acceptance rate) My nephew wasn’t accepted, attends a public suburban HS, is an honor student and never has homework to do at home. Our local 3500-student public high school enrolls about 1/3 of students as “honor students”, which probably means that selected student reads at grade-level.</p>
<p>I always think it’s interesting when a college or high school student pops into the parents forum and complains about something his or her school (or maybe another school he heard about) perhaps did and assumes that all schools across the US are like that. There should be some sort of auto- message required for new posters that says, “This is a National Forum. Each High School, each school district and maybe each state is unique in it’s curriculum and grading policy.” </p>
<p>It would be impossible in our local HS to have a 4.2/ 4.0 and be ranked 30th out of 250 students.</p>
<p>Here’s how it workd in D’s case. Public HS has magnet test-in gifted program in addition to IB and AP available to all students. Many kids have open enrolled from within district and out of district to take advantage of IB offering, so total cohort is not a random sample of neighborhood kids. It is our home school, however. Gifted group starts IB a year early and core academic gifted classes are weighted on 5 point scale for rank so they have more 5 point eligible classes over the course of their carreer. D (not in gifted program) started language in 6th grade at neighborhood MS and jumped head a year in math and schience, so was takeingh IB/AP as a sophomore and in full IB as Junior and Senior. </p>
<p>For those not familiar with IB grading, I will give an example. IB/AP Spanish 5 assessments: normal teacher classroom assignments and activities, AP exam at end of year, written IB exam at end of year with different content than AP. Oral presentations in Spanish that are recorded and sent off to international grading body. Oral exams where teacher in capacity as neutral proctor, student and tape recorder are in room and teacher admisnisters oral exam based on IB standard and questions - all in Spanish. Recording is not graded by teacher, but sent away to international body for grading.</p>
<p>IB/AP Calculus: normal problem sets etc., IB math portfolios which are like term papers but in Calculus with embeded computations and commentary. These are graded by teacher then sent away for grading confirmation. (Teachers must meet acceptable margin of error for international grading standard and final IB grade is weighted based on teacher grading level.), Calculus AP exam, IB Math exam which happend to be scheduled on the same day as AP Calc exam and covers different content. Student sat for 3 hour IB exam before lunch and took AP Calc after lunch. College will end up with IB score on 7 point scale, AP score, class grade and SAT math score to corroborate validity of any one measure.</p>
<p>Science labs, History papers, world lit papers etc. are all graded by teacher then sent away for confirmation of standard. They are not on a curve but on a straight scale.</p>
<p>I won’t reveal exact rank, but D’s unweighted GPA is 4.0 and weighted is about 4.6. She is in the 20s on rank in a class size that is mid 300s.</p>
So the ranking includes out of district kids? That’s not really fair to the kids who live in the school’s zone, is it? (Never mind the kids from other schools within the district!)</p>
<p>This is one of the reasons why our school system doesn’t report ranks. We have several magnet programs where the kids in the magnet account for only part of the student body of the high school. These magnet programs attract extremely qualified kids from out of district, thus pushing down the class ranks of the local kids. At the same time, the absence of these highly qualified kids from their district schools inflates the ranks of the kids who attend the district schools.</p>
<p>My daughter attended one of the schools with a magnet program in it. They didn’t even have a valedictorian because the system was so obviously unfair. Instead, graduation speakers were chosen in an election.</p>
<p>On what basis do you conclude that this is a bad thing? Is there evidence that students who are getting A’s do not understand the material? Teaching and grading over the years has changed. Nowadays, if a student demonstrates that s/he has mastered the material being taught, s/he will get an A. This is how it should be. It is quite possible that teacher and student quality in many schools is excellent, thereby justifying an increase in the number of As being awarded over the old days, when a nonsensical bell-curve was imposed.</p>
<p>Plenty of straight A students struggle in college courses because those As in high school were not all that meaningful. My own kids went to two different hs (on different coasts) that were both considered academically rigorous, and yet there was a huge difference in what would have been considered A work at one school vs. another.</p>
<p>All kids in the magnet group (55-60 per grade with standard age score on entry exam of 144+ which is = top 99.7%) and non magnet are in the same pool for rank. However, this information is also detailed in the school profile. Grades are only weighted for calculating rank, but not reported weighted on transcripts. It would hurt kids on the margins if they were applying to schools that give scholarships or guarantee admission based only on rank or decile. D is about top 8% with a weighted 4.6ish - again, not in the magnet program, this is our home area school. At another school she would certainly be higher. On the flip side, she’s getting a great education and should be well prepared to succeed next year. And, again, IB gades are not curved. Portfolios and papers are graded on a standardized rubric and - cross checked for standard internationally, so it is what it is. It’s possible, if unlikely, for the whole class to get and A if they’re all working at that level. </p>
<p>In general with a “wholistic” application processes, one would hope that a student has corroberating measures of achievment that support one another and create a whole picture in the context of their school. One would also hope that savvy admissions reps take that into account.</p>
<p>My D’s HS had only one person with 4.0uw. This person had been challenged greatly at her state UG, but managed to continue having straight A’s and get lots of awards at college graduation. I personally am not impressed with any K-12 program, including the very top. Anybody who completes all homework assigned and completes it correctly and on time should be able to pull straight “A” at any HS in the USA. I told that to my kid when she was 5 years old, it worked!</p>
<p>ucba, I was not referring to getting Bs in college. I am talking about real struggle. I am an alum of one of the coveted Ivies and am actually on a committee that works on the fact that support services are overrun with student’s needing help because many admitted kids who looked awesome on paper really arent that well prepared for college and do struggle when they get there. Straight As are not always meaningful at least when it comes to college readiness/capability.</p>