<p>Ah, the margin tax....client's just LOVE to pay their lawyers to tell them, "Well, we really don't know the answer to that because the legislation was so poorly drafted."</p>
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Ah, the margin tax....client's just LOVE to pay their lawyers to tell them, "Well, we really don't know the answer to that because the legislation was so poorly drafted."
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<p>You hit the nail on the head, and this GPA law sounds like the same thing...</p>
<p>The law is changing the methods, we just don't know how yet. But, we'll let you know sometime!! ;)</p>
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The UC does not care one bit how high schools calculate gpa or even which courses high schools use for ranking thier students (altho less than half of Calif HS rank). Instead, the UC performs its own gpa calculation per HS, based solely on UC-approved academic courses -- thus, PE, health, football, driver's ed and honors baton twirling are out.
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<p>This makes so much more sense.</p>
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<p>A little specious? Specious as in "Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually being fallacious?" How many thousands do YOU need for the word to take the plural in your book? </p>
<p>There are thousands of students admitted at the Texas flagship schools EVERY year, and there have been MANY thousands admitted since the day the top 10% rule was implemented.</p>
<p>Continuing proof the current state legislature is one of the (if not the) worst ever. The problem is that it forces school districts to have two calculations of GPA - one for those students applying to Texas public universities and one which is calculated according to local school district policy. </p>
<p>From what I understand, a committee was formed to make recommendations on GPA calculation. When it was submitted to the chair of the THECB, he threw out the recommendations and created his own calculation.</p>
<p>Specious - true but misleading, as in "Don't worry, thousands of kids get into UT that are not top ten!"</p>
<p>I can certainly see why there ought to be a standard way of calculating GPA in Texas, if the citizens of that state wish to extend some kind of guarantee based on class rank, but please: leave the rest of us out of it!</p>
<p>It's bad enough that the Texas/California lockstep influences the textbooks available to the rest of us. We don't need to have our curricula dictated by you, too! Which is exactly what would happen if we all had to fit into some GPA-calculating method designed for Texas. Any course that didn't easily fit into it would be discarded.</p>
<p>So is this really about some few poor kids who won't be rewarded for their "A" in cheerleading? I can't see what all the fuss is about. If the kids were working on certain courses and not others for the explicit purpose of ensuring their class rank, well, as far as I'm concerned, they are getting what they deserve.</p>
<p>85% of students are going to remain in the bottom 85%. The top 5-7% are going to remain in the top 5-7%, with rare exceptions. So this seems much ado about very little.</p>
<p>"So is this really about some few poor kids who won't be rewarded for their "A" in cheerleading?"</p>
<p>At our high school, cheer, drill team, marching band and all sports are double blocked, regular weighted classes. Since they are double blocked, they are 2 of a student's 8 classess. If you take 4 years of sports, band, dance or cheer, a full 25% of your grades are in that class. Hundreds of students are involved in sports, band, cheer and drill team, most for all 4 years. To have 25% of your grades just disappear your senior year could pretty dramatically change a student's GPA and class rank. </p>
<p>I'm not saying counting those grades is right or wrong-it's just a very dramatic (and uncalled for) thing to do to thousands of high school students.</p>
<p>"To have 25% of your grades just disappear your senior year could pretty dramatically change a student's GPA and class rank."</p>
<p>So? Are you saying these students took cheer, drill team, marching band, and sports in order to pad their class rank? AND, do you think the University of Texas should care a ratspatooey in offering admissions based on 25% of grades earned in drill team and cheer?</p>
<p>"So? Are you saying these students took cheer, drill team, marching band, and sports in order to pad their class rank?"</p>
<p>Taking these classes has the opposite affect on the better students. Instead of having 2 more hours a year of weighted (pre-AP or AP) classes, they have 2 hours of regular classes, which is a drag on their GPA. The kids at the very top of the class typically drop their sport Junior and/or Senior year to add some AP classes instead. </p>
<p>I guess getting 100s or high 90s in these classes does help the kids who only take "regular" (unweighted) classes, but there is no way that anyone taking only regular classes would be near the top 10%, even if they got 100s on everything.</p>
<p>mini, you have it backward. The top kids are dragged down by that 97 in band instead of a weighted 107 in AP Psych (which involves fewer hours per week by far!) Mine would have been happy to not include fine arts/athletics grades! The problem is that nobody knows if that is what will happen. What if the leg decides that weighting AP's is wrong. What if they decide weighting honors is wrong?<br>
And this isn't just about UT. You don't think most selective schools pay attention to class rank? If a kid who would have been #3 in his class suddenly becomes #15, don't you think that will make him a less viable candidate? Merit money?
I have a big problem with this bill slapping kids who have been earning hs credits since 7th grade under one set of rules with new rules during application season. Only you won't tell them yet what the rules are....</p>
<p>So, in other words, the total effect is equivocal. Some kids do better, others do worse. (Some colleges these days are discounting APs as well, so if Texas does, they'll be in good company.)</p>
<p>I don't see how this affects more than a tiny sliver of students, and if messes up their (and their parents') plotting, well, so be it. I just can't get all exercised.</p>
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<p>From specious to misleading? What's next? </p>
<p>How can the TRUTH be misleading? Isn't it absolutely true that "Thousands of kids get into UT that are not top ten!"</p>
<p>The only things that are specious and misleading are the mythical tales of students being rejected at the Texas flagship schools in spite of "amazing stats." Again, all you need for Texas A$M is a 25% rank and a 1300 SAT --with which most students would also gain admission at UT Austin, especially via the CAP or summer admission. </p>
<p>UT Austin does maintain and publish great statistics that help separate the facts from fiction. Unfortunately, there is a lot less sizzle in plain old truth than in fantastic suburban tales about how Little Jack or Little Jill "just" missed the "cut" for Austin. </p>
<p>In Texas, more than in any other state, shouldn't we able to recognize the stench of horse manure!</p>
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Only you won't tell them yet what the rules are....
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<p>How can one evaluate or criticize a set of rules that does NOT exist ... yet?</p>
<p>Myssypie what you described is 100 percent what i did, i dropped football and band to get a higher class rank. To mini, i don't think you understand from a high schoolers point of view this works. I mean i am 16 in my class of 526, if i get back to school and someone tells me i am 43, don't you think i will be mad, yes. Bc i can't get into the schools i want being 43.</p>
<p>Xiggi, i think ppl should stop complaining about the top ten percent rule, it is not too hard to get into the top ten percent with work, and I live in the burbs.</p>
<p>Are you all serious? You get academic GPA credit for football and cheer? The schools I'm familiar with in California compute a total GPA (which I've never seen used for anything) and an academic GPA, which excludes PE, being a TA, etc. I'm thrilled we don't do the ranking stuff so that the chorus kids don't have to worry about the lack of extra weighting. For the ELC calculation, our school uses unweighted GPA, so the good folks at UC can calculate who is the top 4%.</p>
<p>The UC uses 2 rules: 4% ELC (rank is based on local school) and 10% statewide (rank is based on statewide schools). These rules don't guarantee a desired college. It only reserves a spot in 1 of the 10 UC campuses. Students still need to take SAT-I and 2 SAT-II.</p>
<p>California still wastes a lot of money on its own standardized tests. Students must pass the high school exit exam given in 10th grade which nobody cares about. Besides that, every year students must spend at least 2 days to take the STAR tests which are not used for anything and parents don't even know about the scores. They only use these tests to calculate the API (academic performance index) in each school in the neighborhood to help the real estate developers sell more houses and to satisfy the NCLB requirements.</p>
<p>Ah yes, the exit exam! And no one has ever explained why the 10th grade STAR test can't be used for the exit exam.
And we LOVE our API, as do our real estate agents.</p>