Sorry for the confusion. I think both @ucbalumnus and I agree that Caltech has arguably the most rigorous program. Because of Caltech’s size, it can’t afford to offer multiple sections of each course to accommodate students of varying academic abilities. So it has to scrutinize its applicants more deeply in their academic abilities to meet its high standards than probably any other school.
I also agree with @ucbalumnus that the current test scores are less useful for a school like Caltech. They primarily served as another confirmation. I believe Caltech puts more effort into analyzing holistically an applicant’s entire academic profile (which test scores used to be part of). We’ll see in a few years whether the missing test scores make any difference.
Remember, after all, that academia is small, and even within the large fields, all the players are only a couple degrees of separation from each other. That means that someone like me working at an open-admissions university has colleagues I know on a first-name basis at places like Penn, Stanford, Toronto, McGill, Michigan, Ohio State, Duke, NC State, Georgetown, Rice, and so on (all top-tier places for my field).
That’s undergrad to graduate (or professional) school. The mechanics, however, are different from HS to undergrad—but only mostly different.
That is, in most cases, you don’t have that tight connection between HS teachers and college professors, and certainly not between HS teachers (or even guidance counselors) and college admissions staff.
The exception, of course, is the very small number of high schools (mostly but not exclusively private) that have what I can only think to call an “academic brand”—the sorts of high schools that market themselves as places with a pipeline for admission to colleges that aren’t the open-or-effectively-so directional publics and community colleges that do most of the college-level educating in this country.
Those high schools, there’s an incentive for grade inflation, because they have a brand to protect. Most high schools, though? Nah. Maybe there’s other reasons, but remember, only a minority of high school graduates go to a college that requires anything for admission beyond a high school diploma regardless of grades (if they even go to college at all). At most high schools the only pressure for grade inflation is to help students end up above a 2.0 (or whatever the local minimum for graduation is).
Do you know many high school teachers? I do, and they uniformly claim the pressure from both irate patents and the school admin to inflate grades is intense.
I have to admit that I don’t understand your explanation. If you felt the pressure at the more selective colleges because they sent more students to graduate/professional schools, why wouldn’t a HS teacher feel the same pressure (presumably all HS’s send their students to colleges)? Knowing professors at other graduate schools well in your proferssion presumably will alleviate the concerns of those other professors as they would know that you’re a “tough” grader and that you can, if asked, write recommendation letters to those professors on behalf of the students in your class. That tight connection you described seems to lessen the need for grade inflation rather than increase it. HS teachers and the HS’s themselves, without that tight connection you described, would have greater motivation and feel greater pressure to inflate grades.
I know a lot of teachers albeit all locally and from my hometown district where I grew up - they are all public school districts. Admin really only cares about sports stars being able to play - which means not failing. Then they care about passing rate overall.
Some students and parents will care that their special snowflake didn’t get an A. In those cases there’s a meeting where the teacher has to bring in proof of grades (all tests, etc, are kept by teachers now after kids get to look at them) and the parents get to state their case. It’s really, really rare that parents win.
I saw a showdown a few years back where a sports star did not get the grade to play, and the teacher (a personal friend) even bent over backward against her personal desire to give him a break, but he simply wouldn’t turn in material. She held her ground and the admin reluctantly backed her.
Of course, word goes around among the slackers to not take her courses. These kids go to college (usually) with sports as their hook, so grades are only minimally needed. They also usually aren’t looking at top schools. Sports kids who want top schools aren’t slackers.
I guess I am glad some of you do not have grade inflation, but rest assured it is widespread in some places, and unfortunately, your kids may be put at a competitive disadvantage as a result. Not necessarily for admission to top schools, which may carefully review the school profile, but for the numerous merit awards at lower level schools which rely heavily, or automatically, on reported gpa.
i am feeling deflated for the kids at our local public school after reading this all. It’s 80% low SES; average act of 18; very few go to prestigious colleges. Lots of sports; very few academic clubs. Easy grading so kids can graduate. We are that school @itsallgood123 mentioned in #368 . (not literally!)
It’s going to be hard for kids from this school to go to top colleges because the school isnt strong and it doesnt have built-in opps for kids to shine. Except Sports. And for these kids, the only thing that might set them apart is top test scores and AP classes taken.
I am starting to appreciate what i’ve read about test optional and a more hollistic view point.
But it’s certainly making feel deflated for kids at schools which aren’t well known, well regarded, and offering academic opps.
(** had the opportunity to read an LOR from a teacher for my son last year from this school. It had a spelling mistake and some grammar errors. UGH. Just shook my head on the portrait it painted of the school and my son’s education).
I think some type of grade inflation is probable at some high schools - most likely those in affluent towns, particularly in the Northeast where parents are super involved and hyper vigilant about their kids’ academic performance. That being said, there are still gradations of “A”. For example, about 35% of my son’s class had a gpa over 4.0 at the end of sophomore year, but only 15% of students were in the very top group (which was a gpa of 4.4 or more). There are always ways to separate out the best performers. The unpleasant truth is that when it comes to the tippy top schools there are far more qualified applicants who could be successful than there are slots. A friend worked in MIT admissions and told me that about 95% of the kids who applied could do the work - unfortunately, they could only offer a spot to a much smaller number. Nothing about super elite college admissions is completely “equitable” whether or not test scores are taken into account. There has been an underlying tone in this thread which implies that TO candidates are somehow less deserving than those who have a high score and that if one of those students is admitted over a high scoring peer, that some kind of injustice is happening. I disagree (and I have zero skin in the game as my kiddo isn’t going to apply to any of these schools). We have no way of knowing what factors came into play when TO students are admitted (for all we know they have some other wonderful talent that puts them over the top). The vast majority of these kids will do just fine at these schools (they graduate nearly everyone including some kids who are already admitted with lesser stats - athletes, major donors kids, legacies etc).
I don’t understand how grade inflation in high school affects students applying to test optional schools. As long as elite colleges offer “sympathy C’s” it’s not like underprepared students will fail out.
I agree with the poster who stated that applying test optional doesn’t make a student less qualified. Just because people like to think so doesn’t make it true.
I agree, I also use test scores as a shorthand for the chance me threads or in some answers.
For “holistic” admissions, it’s just one piece of the puzzle though, the more selective we go the smaller the piece of the puzzle.
Where I’m not sure is for not-that-selective admissions that used to use a modified formula where most of the decision was made by a combination of GPAxcourses takenxSAT/ACT score.
If they find they can accurately admit with just GPA*courses taken, they’ll probably remain TO, where test scores wouldn’t be required and only added in order to strengthen the application.
USNWR would also have to modify their criteria, upending their usual ranking with enough colleges moving up or down that they’d sell more magazines/“compass” subscriptions. :s
I am going to have to agree with this for my example of one. A friend of mine teaches high school and college math. Can’t get lots of kids to log on. Some don’t “show up” for virtual tests. He has to call 10 families a day to ask where their kids are and the parents say “he says he’s in class”. Can’t fail any kid regardless if they take the test or not. Everyone “has” to pass due to funding etc. My friend is looking for more opportunities at the college so he can quit the high school. So that is my example of one.
LoRs are usually invisible to posters here and are widely ignored when discussing chances and college admissions. But this example indicates the difference the quality of the recommender (which is mostly outside the student’s control) makes at colleges that use LoRs.
Quality of recommenders may be part of what one pays for at an academically elite high school where recommenders have plenty of practice and probably help from well connected dedicated college counselors.
Err… What colleges are giving “sympathy Cs”? My son would love to know… Lol… At least at Michigan engineering their work load was intensely increased and tests somehow became harder since when everything went online. It got so hard they actually had a Townhall about this very subject. Like the professors just piled on work for like 5 hour tests… Like the kids didn’t have other classes or activities… No one was getting “sympathy Cs”… Maybe it’s just engineering that wasn’t?
Probably meant “gentleman C” grades that were more common when HYPetc. took a larger portion of SES-but-not-academically elite students (e.g. 1960s and earlier) from SES-but-not-academically elite private high schools. Development and legacy admission are vestiges of such practices.
Interesting stereotype, @UCbalumnus, but actually, legacy students have better high school academic qualifications than non-legacy students at Princeton, and probably at similar schools as well.
Eons ago when I was in an Honors English class freshman year, our prof told us the minimum grade she gave anyone who attended and turned in the work was a B because she felt if we qualified for Honors we’d have easily gotten that or more in a regular class. She didn’t teach any regular classes, just graduate classes and honors classes.
I got a B and was quite happy to be done forever with English. It could have been a “Lady’s B.” I didn’t care TBH. My major/minor was Physics/Math.
If these things are still happening it only means nothing has changed.