<p>thats ridiculous to say that public schools mark harder than private. It varies from school to school end of. At the private school I attended, it was commonly known that if you went to a private/seperate school your average could be up to 10% higher. Canadian universities for the most part, do know canadian high schools and their standards there. And standarized testing doesn't prove much either as I'm sure all the controversy about it in the states will show.</p>
<p>i think having a system with standardized tests is better simply because there is a greater transparency in the process.</p>
<p>"thats ridiculous to say that public schools mark harder than private. It varies from school to school end of. At the private school I attended, it was commonly known that if you went to a private/seperate school your average could be up to 10% higher. Canadian universities for the most part, do know canadian high schools and their standards there. And standarized testing doesn't prove much either as I'm sure all the controversy about it in the states will show."</p>
<p>I can't speak for IB program private schools such as UCC or private schools such as UTSC (which both I bet are extremely harder compared to the normal public school) but I can say for a fact that a majority of other private schools seem to think that their averages are 10% higher than their public school counterparts. This is definitely not true. I used to go to a private school downtown Toronto and recently transferred to a public school in Missisauga. My public school is actually a bit harder and it is not some well know public school such as AY Jackson. In fact my old private school actually grades a lot easier... especially senior year where teachers get extremely generous and boost marks up for the Feb and April report card submissions for OUAC.</p>
<p>and yes the "our average is worth 10% more than other pubbies averages" myth did exist at my old private school as well.</p>
<p>UTS is pretty hard, many students come from UTS have strong backgrounds in sciences and maths and they pick up new concepts really quickly. It's one of those private schools where they make you work :D (oh i wish i went there, but i was poor :()</p>
<p>Just so you guys don't forget, american schools also look at your awards/acheivements.
I mean if you are a CHEM OLYMPIAD and your chemistry mark is only 80%, then there's a problem with your school. Or that you are a Euclid Contest winner (top100 or something) and your calc mark is only 85%, then there's also something wrong at your school :D</p>
<p>so hopefully those will make the adcoms think about how F-ed up your school is and grant you admission :D (Be sure to remind them if this type of things happen, when i applied, i didn't send in anything to tell them about my school's grading system. I was in the top 2% of the biology competition and i held a mark of 80% in biology and that was the 3rd highest mark in my grade:()</p>
<p>as far as american colleges are concerned, i think they do have ways of dealing with grade inflation. they ask for the class rank which obviously can't be inflated (unless lol everyone in the class is ranked 1st). Plus in a lot of college websites they mention that "the rigor of the high school curriculum" is the most important factor in admission, which does mean that students willing to work harder benefit.</p>
<p>I don't understand why Canada doesn't move to some kind of "A-levels" system like the UK and all other Commonwealth countries. That would make it much easier to evaluate students' academic credentials and would add transparency to the university admissions process. Given however that Canada is a federal state and education is constitutionally a provincial matter, there could be actually different A-level standard exams for each province, as opposed to a single set of national tests.</p>
<p>"there could be actually different A-level standard exams for each province, as opposed to a single set of national tests."</p>
<p>That shouldn't be an obstacle though. Every German state has its own A Level standard exams too. It's just a problem if they are not equally difficult. Like here, there are states where more than 50% of a class do their A Levels, and then there's one state where not even 20% of students succeed.</p>
<p>Why do you people want standarized testing?! A-levels have lots of problems as well and quite frankly, I think the curriculum in Canada is just as intense, if not more so, so why do we need tests to prove it? If you want something that has more international merit to it, do IB. I did. </p>
<p>yayatime - that was my point. Some private schools are great, some are not. Some public schools are great, some are not. It just depends on the school. My private school was above the public schools, but certainly this doesn't apply to all.</p>
<p>Alberta has standardized provincial exams for all the major academic subjects. It's a good system, and the tests aren't very difficult if you prepare well, write practice exams, and have a decent teacher. I was in IB (at a large public school), and the Alberta diploma exams were a breeze after exams like Chem or History HL. These exams are worth 50% of your grade for that class. </p>
<p>I think systems like IB, CEGEP and the Alberta diploma exams have their advantages. They allow for better teacher moderation (especially in IB), and at least a system where discrepancies are noticed more easily. If your class average in Bio 30 is 85% but on the diploma your class average is 60%, they'll know something went wrong.</p>
<p>"yayatime - that was my point. Some private schools are great, some are not. Some public schools are great, some are not. It just depends on the school. My private school was above the public schools, but certainly this doesn't apply to all."</p>
<p>Right. and I'm trying to point out that private schools in general are overrated in Ontario. You said that some public schools are great, and that some are not. And yet you say that your private school was above the public schools. Honestly I hate it when people think that paying tuition makes their averages 10% higher than people who attend public educational institutions. Making generalizations are pointless but in the end for Ontario the only difference in the difficulty of marking is between individual teachers, not whether your school was a private or public school.</p>
<p>Um last time I checked I wasn't from Ontario so I don't see how your point is relevant. My private school IS better than the public schools in the area and maybe you don't want to admit it but sometimes paying tuition helps increase teacher salaries which can in turn recruit better teachers.</p>
<p>What I don't get is how Canadian unis are clearly more rigourous, yet still tend to get ranked alongside (and often lower!) than the likes of Mich-Ann Arbor, Tex-Austin, Wisc-Madison, etc. IMHO, Cal-Berkeley is the only public higher-education institution in the States that deserves its ranking.</p>
<p>I bet that middle-of-the-road secondary schools in, say, Winnipeg or Halifax can easily outperform top high schools like Stuyvesant in NYC and New Trier in suburban Chicago. The challenging Canadian curriculum continues in university, yet Americans would have you believe that their college-level studies are even more difficult. The only thing I can say is, "Does not compute."</p>
<p>^^^Because university rankings are based on graduate programs and research output, not the quality or difficulty of undergraduate education. </p>
<p>My sister was a TA at Yale and was scolded for giving out some Cs and Ds on an assignment. The prof then specifically gave her a grading range of A to B-.</p>
<p>^ which is why I choose to attend an high level American post secondary institution. There is no reason to become stingy with grades. It only decreases self esteem and motivation.</p>
<p>
I am sorry, which Canadian school do you go to? and which american school have you been to?
I don't think you are really fit to make a comment like that if you are still a high school student ;)</p>
<p>Why is the avg class avg at UofT(a canadian University) all Cs and B- at best? and why does Harvard(an american university) have higher avg?
Common, it's simple. The quality of the student body determines the avg! At UofT, it's difficult to do well, just like any other rigorous institution, and since the students at UofT, on avg (there are many exceptional students who excel), are less competitive compare to students at better institutions, there is a low avg. It's not really grade deflation. If you take a class here, you'll know it's easy to get a C+ to B- in most courses, and difficult to get anything higher.
Good school such as Michigan Ann Arbor/Berkeley/Harvard all have high standards in accepting students, so their student bodies are stronger! and therefore they deserve higher avg, it's as simple as that. :D</p>
<p>
[quote]
Grade inflation? I'm quite sure that this occurs frequently at UBC. There is no way I could end up with an "A-" when my final thesis only scored a "C+" (and the two other assignments I got also received "C" range grades). The TA definitely scaled the grade (actually she admitted the fact on our last day in class).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think this is true. I'm a freshman at UBC and I can say, with few exceptions, that it does look like Canadian schools--both high schools and universities--seem to mark harder than American ones. I can't make this a generalization for all such schools, but at least it has been the case in my experience.</p>
<p>The class you took, was it with full-time UBC students as well? It's possible that the prof/TA was less stingy with giving out better marks because you weren't a full-time student, and that UBC probably wanted to encourage you to consider them full-time or something. I hear it's different in second year though, in that profs mark harder first year to discriminate between the harder working ones (and the ones who just managed to get in), while in second year, they are more generous.</p>
<p>In my limited experience, good grades aren't given out like candy. UBC policy tries to maintain class averages at 68-70%, with 72% being an above-average class, as a B- or so. Particularly in science and math courses, many profs scale the grades down or use a bell curve to ensure that one-third of the class fails. Even in the arts and humanities, profs don't hesitate to give lots of Cs or B-s. The percentage of a class allowed to get As is from 5-20%, but usually in the 10-15% range or so. All this information is on the UBC website if you want to check it out.</p>
<p>A girl I know who did grade 12 in the U.S. got 86% or so in English there, which was converted to a 78% or so in the Canadian system. She had to take the LPI (Language Proficiency Index) to demonstrate her English proficiency.</p>
<p>While clearly my experience doesn't speak for everyone, I think the Canadian system in general still seems to be harder than its American counterpart.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The quality of the student body determines the avg! At UofT, it's difficult to do well, just like any other rigorous institution, and since the students at UofT, on avg (there are many exceptional students who excel), are less competitive compare to students at better institutions, there is a low avg. It's not really grade deflation. If you take a class here, you'll know it's easy to get a C+ to B- in most courses, and difficult to get anything higher.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's one possibly explanation, but is it correct? Take a look at these articles concerning grade inflation in certain Ivy League schools: <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002/02/08/edtwof2.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002/02/08/edtwof2.htm</a> and <a href="http://www.ncpa.org/pi/edu/feb98j.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ncpa.org/pi/edu/feb98j.html</a></p>
<p>Just because a student manages to get into Harvard or Yale doesn't mean that they're guaranteed to get As and Bs once they're actually in, but some top universities seem to think so simply because they believe that the best students automatically deserve to be recognized with good grades, even if their actual work does not necessarily reflect that. In one particular instance, one guy forged his transcript to get into Yale, and he did, after which he went along to get a B average for two years until he was found out about. His actual transcripts reflected only a B/C or so average.</p>
<p>"A girl I know who did grade 12 in the U.S. got 86% or so in English there, which was converted to a 78% or so in the Canadian system. She had to take the LPI (Language Proficiency Index) to demonstrate her English proficiency."</p>
<p>Well, that's comforting news indeed, since it's always rumoured here that it's much harder to get an A in the states than here in Canada. My "regular" course load here is killing me... and it's so hard to get an A here in courses like physics/English honours.</p>
<p>Well considering Canadian high school system and American high school system I find the American curriculum much harder. In BC, we have standardized testing (provincial exams) for courses such as math, chemistry, physics, etc., and to be quite honest, these exams are a joke (esp. the math). The AP exams are so much harder than the our exams and the AP material is much more challenging. As for the fact that its harder to get a good mark in Canada than in America I find it very hard to believe. I have a 95-97% average in my school (I have teachers that mark much harder than the provincial average) and I have to believe that if I went to school in the states with a course load of AP courses my average would be much much lower.</p>
<p>common, Ap is harder than standard American tests too, its university level man</p>