Hello,
My D attends a highly competitive public high school in California. Yesterday, we were told our school district is going to do “Credit/No Credit” for 2nd semester grades due to the COVID-19 distance learning situation.
Some background first. Our schools did not shut down until the last day of Q3 so many kids have an actual letter grade thru that point. In the case of my D, she currently takes 5 AP classes and is a Junior. She had A’s in all the classes and her plan was to finish the year with the A’s as well. We were just notified that the School District is planning to issue “Credit/No Credit” for all students for the 2nd semester grades. Many of us are obviously upset about this as it affects kids with A’s and who had B’s at Q3 but had hoped to increase to the A by Q4.
As a parent of a student who intends to apply to highly competitive colleges and universities, I’d like to hear what others are hearing and feeling. In addition, if any college admission personnel know how this will affect admissions chances if this change is not applied uniformly all over the US? The transcript/final GPA will both be affected for these students.
Parents are reacting strongly against this option and there is a chance they will allow students to choose at the end of the year (depending on the length of time school is closed) whether they want to use their Q3 grade or the “Credit” on their official transcript. Thoughts? Anyone else seeing these same grading policy changes?
I would lobby your school board to make it credit/no credit optional. I agree with you that strong students should not be penalized.
My D’s college just announced optional pass/fail today. They will allow students to decide on the last day of classes, right before finals, if they want to take a P/F instead of a letter grade. Any P will count as satisfying major requirements. They are also suspending academic probation and said they would note the Covid -19 distance learning on the transcript. No idea how that would impact grad school admission though and there was a footnote on the letter saying that all students should consult with their advisors before making any changes.
So our public high school in Massachusetts is giving grades based on work up to March 12 the last day of school. We were afraid of pass/fail and if that had happened we were going to have our daughter include her third quarter grades somehow through the guidance counselor or somewhere else on the application. I think this will be the case for many, many students and the colleges will be able to figure it out. I have a junior in high school so I do understand your concern. My daughter’s classes are now enrichment only so she is mainly working on her AP classes. Hard to know how this will all pan out.
I think it is too early to worry about this. Very nearly every student in the country is affected by shut downs. The colleges will be taking that into consideration at admission time.
College admissions have a huge amount of subjectivity and luck even in normal times. For applicants to the class of 2025 that will only increase, no way around it as there will not be a consistent policy across all high schools.
This was topic of conversation around our dinner table two nights ago. So far, neither our high school Student nor our college student schools have shifted to pass/fail, but they are hearing that it is happening elsewhere. The high schooler really is “numb” at this point. She’s a senior, and really can’t wrap her head around so much that has happened. She would be fine with pass/fail, thinking it would relieve some stress of trying to keep grades up. The college student would love it, because her current GPA allows her to keep her scholarship, but she has lots of friends freaking out about the possibility, because they need the higher letter grades for THIS semester to maintain scholarships.
I hope that schools at every level will remember that this school year has been seriously impacted by the pandemic. Only time will tell.
@massmom2018 Has your Massachusetts school closed for the rest of the year?
No, not yet but many of us are afraid of that. At this point scheduled to start up again on May 4. But the May date is the extension of another date in April so who knows.