Wondering if other high schools out there have similar policies or if my D20’s high school is unusual . . .
She received a D-plus in Accelerated Geometry one semester her freshman year, and she’s been told that she is therefore ineligible for honor roll or any other academic award for her achievements for TWO years (she was not invited to the ceremony this month that awards honors to current juniors for their work through sophomore year). Her overall GPA is in the 3.6/3.7 range, which is well above the school’s GPA standard for awards, which is 3.25. Since the D+ in Geometry she has never received a grade lower than a B-minus. I think this policy is outrageous for two reasons: (1) It doesn’t reward improvement and (2) it makes no allowance for students taking more challenging all honors/AP courses (as she does) versus students who are taking non-honors/non-AP courses. Would like to hear from others if your child’s high school has a similar policy. If it’s common across the country (the two-year exclusion), obviously it will be harder for me to get the school to change this policy.
All of my kids’ schools had different honor roll criteria. At one students wouldn’t receive honors at graduation if they had a single B- in 4 years. Guess who had one B-? Not a big deal.
I JUST found out that my son’s HS even has an honor roll. He’s a senior, and his older sister already graduated, and it occurred to me to find out, for college apps. Obviously it has not been important to us, at all. (Side note, yes they have one, I don’t even know the criteria, and he put it somewhere in the Common App under School Awards but it really seems like an incredibly minor detail).
Your DD’s GPA and transcript will speak much, much louder on applications than Honor Roll, which I imagine that college counselors see so much of, and know how much it varies, that they don’t really care about it much.
Guess I’m different. I agree with you OP. The policy certainly does not induce kids to improve. Strange. I am and never will be of the opinion, that excellence doesn’t matter. It does and we should always recognize it. Otherwise, everyone could just do the same amount of work. Grades are all about college. Before everyone went to college, grades signified progress. They still do. You get a written report of your work for a specific period, in each report card. That’s important to keep kids motivated. The kids won’t care in 2-3 years what they got a long time ago and only the college AO will look at it. So it’s a snapshot of a point in time and important to keep motivation going and hard work at the forefront of school.
Yes, it’s insignificant to all but the student. But to the student it can be VERY motivational.
Honor Roll as I’m used to it is a straightforward semester by semester acknowledgement of a student’s achievements. There are often different levels - just regular honor roll, gold honor roll, distinguished honor roll, etc. Different schools will classify it differently. But as it is something awarded in recognition of a specific semester’s grades I agree that it should NOT look at prior grades. But that being said, it means absolutely nothing other than I now have a bunch of paper “certificates” for my kids that I feel guilty throwing out but really have no emotional attachment to otherwise.
Honors at graduation are different than honor roll to me. In our school it is basically determined by a cumulative weighted GPA cutoff - effectively the top 20% of the class seems to graduate “with honors” and they get a special cord and a silver bowl when they walk across the stage to receive their diploma. Obviously in this context honors would be impacted by a D- only in the sense that it affects the student’s cumulative GPA. But done this way students taking more challenging honors/AP classes and doing well in them will have a higher weighted GPA so they are more likely to be part of this group.
At our school students didn’t know if they were graduating with Honors until the day before graduation so it was nothing they could include on their college apps. But I know many students appreciated the extra recognition.
Step back and ponder whether a kid should be on any honor roll if they are getting a D? My answer is no. I think at D20s high school the lowest grade you can get and be on the honor roll is a B- , that’s the very minimum.
It’s important to have high grades for college but being in NHS is not important.
My kid got in senior year and the only thing that had held him back earlier was something to do with community hours (I think–I don’t even remember now). And by senior year of course it doesn’t mean much because you’ve already sent in your apps.
But I made him join anyway because…because. He got to wear an extra gold cord around his neck at graduation.
Photos were nice.
As others have said, it’s not the club–it’s the grades. Keep up the good work and look beyond the HS stuff.
We tried not to focus on grades in our house. And they can be subjective and unfair anyway.
I figured that I knew who was working and who wasn’t. Of course the culture of the school was always an issue. I like Alfie Kahn’s books on this subject- might help you.
This will be a mere blip in memory unless you make a big deal about it. It really doesn’t matter.
agree with the OP on point #1. For some families, such as first gen, making HS honor roll is a step in the right academic direction, particularly after an over-reach on a class.
A two-year ban seems extreme to me. I can see a rule that says, minimum 3.xx, and no grade lower than a C- (or whatever threshold) for inclusion in this term’s honor role.
I realize this isn’t going to matter a ton in the long run. But I am more concerned about students who need motivation to succeed (my D probably would have worked hard to improve her Math grade regardless). What if you get a D freshman year because you had one bad teacher? Or one semester where you had to work extra hours at the ice cream shop to help support your family? I can see no award for that year, but for the next year too?
The school’s honor roll, the school’s choice of who gets it or what the criteria is. If you don’t like the standards, get them changed through the school PTA or school board or whatever. You aren’t claiming the standard is unclear, but just unfair. You need to change it
National merit finalists can’t have a bunch of C’s even if they are from freshman year or in a PE class or a mean teacher of in a hard honors class. NMF committee sets the rules, and a kid from NJ doesn’t get to argue that a kid from Montana had an easer time.
My kid got a B+ in a math class his freshman year. It put him out of the running for valedictorian which bothered me more than him. He was bothered by the fact of being a freshman taking a junior level class didn’t add any weight to his GPA because our school is unweighted. To the OP, our HS has several honor roll levels awarded the fall of the school year for the previous two semesters. Your schools system does seem a little harsh given that high school only lasts 4 years.
@twoinanddone, I’m not sure what the relevance of NMF is to this discussion. This is not that kind of award. But I have already followed your advice and contacted the principal to try to get this policy changed for future kids so it is based on GPA alone. If you can’t honor kids who have improved, that’s not good.
NHS at our youngest’s HS had mandatory weekly meetings after school and no late bus. In effect, only those from families that could afford a car for their child or with a stay-at-home parent were eligible.
It irked me mightily at the time but turned out to be a non-issue in the end.
@socaldad2002, I don’t have a problem if the low grade keeps students from getting awards for that year. It’s the two-year ban mentioned in my OP that is the issue. My D could have gotten straight As sophomore year and would still not have been recognized because of one D+ freshman year. Also one clarification from the school: D’s counselor thinks this policy may apply only to academic letter awards and not to honor roll, though we have never received any formal notification that she is on honor roll so we will have to investigate further.
