<p>Davidban - You may want to read my post #48 of this thread, as it discusses another way to address your issue. I have many complaints about the h.s. my kids attended, but I think that the way they figure GPA and class rank is very fair, especially after reading through this thread. At our school, students can take or not take music without worrying about its effect on their GPA.</p>
<p>My Ds school , they are required to take various religion classes- world, etc- each year, the classes are good, and not just a cake walk, yet many universities ignore those grades, which can be hard earned and those classes can be some of the best</p>
<p>not fair, yep...annoying, yep...because it does take away a class period for another AP or whatever...but rewarding, you betcha</p>
<p>*?Reserved in the name of Resha Kane,? the check reads, $37,200 from the Army College Fund and the Montgomery G.I. Bill. It represents her partial compensation for enlisting for three years and 22 weeks. She plans to study biochemistry someday.</p>
<p>....</p>
<p>[In high school] She took care of her siblings while her parents worked, and learned to make a mean baked chicken. She graduated in the upper ranks in a class of about 60. She was honored for her grades and for her abstract artwork of flowers and butterflies. She has yet to learn to drive.</p>
<p>She enlisted in April, the same month as her prom, because she saw the military as a way to further her education. Right after graduation she went through boot camp and some extra training. ...*</p>
<p>Ihave a different take on this situation</p>
<p>one is that this young woman feels that this is the only way she can get college paid for?</p>
<p>I think it is one thing- if she has always been interested in military- but I would hope that students from low income backgrounds are given choices( and information about) for further education, in addition to joining the armed forces.</p>
<p>For example- did no one tell her that if she was ready for college, that many colleges have ROTC programs, and that as a commissioned officer with a degree she will be at a much higher level, than coming right from high school?</p>
<p>My school was one of the crappy public schools that would probably be better off with class rank than without it. It's based on weighted GPA, where AP classes and equivalents get a full point added on, and then the other advanced track classes you'd take in the years leading up to senior year get a half a point added on. I think that's pretty fair, considering the courses that are offered and the relative difficulties of the half vs full weighted classes. We had one valedictorian and 2 salutatorians, and then a couple of other 2-way or 3-way ties within the top 10. I estimate that I actually had about the 6th or 7th highest GPA in the class, but because of the ties I got bumped down to 12th. I guess theoretically it's "unfair" that I was within the top 10 students, GPA-wise, but didn't get to put a top 10 rank on my applications, but I never really cared that much...I'd probably have taken more APs to begin with if I did.</p>
<p>I kind of wonder, at schools where they have the problem of having 40 valedictorians and whatnot, whether there is some sort of grade inflation issue going on. I don't think my school's val had straight As, and I definitely know that there were plenty of Bs gotten among the top 10 students. So it kind of makes me wonder what's going on when so many people get identically perfect grades.</p>
<p>scary thing is, that these days, the army doesn't always follow through with the promised money....</p>
<p>I personally like the way our rankings are done.
On a 100 point scale
Regulars are a 100/100
advanced classes are 105/100
honors are 110/100
APs are 115/100</p>
<p>Rankings are based on weighted gpa's. And ranks aren't shifted for difficulty of classes or ec's. The weighted gpa's account for that enough.</p>
<p>At our state university, applicant GPAs are recalculated using weighting (.5+ for honors, and 1.0 for AP), and taking out all non-academic electives. This seems like a logical solution. I'd go a step further and allow students the option of dropping grades in "extra" academic classes (over and beyond the criteria) if they so desire, or further bumping up their GPA with some mathematical wizardry to take into account their final number of academic credits. </p>
<p>I can see that even with the extra weighting, sometimes it doesn't make up for the rigor of the courseload. A "B" in AP Chem is definitely worth more than an "A" in weightlifting, although in the end they both are valued as a 4. And someone who graduates with 28 academic credits has certainly achieved more than someone with 20.</p>
<p>
[quote]
For example- did no one tell her that if she was ready for college, that many colleges have ROTC programs, and that as a commissioned officer with a degree she will be at a much higher level, than coming right from high school?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Good question, emeraldkity.</p>
<p>Our tax dollars pay Army recruiters to spend many hours advising and counseling potential recruits. They can certainly tell them about ROTC but the hard reality is they currently operate under very heavy pressure to meet their recruiting quotas, and those recruiting quotas focus on the Army needs, not the individual's needs. </p>
<p>The Army desperately needs people to go to Iraq now (to relieve those who've been there quite a while); I would venture that's a much higher and more pressing priority than filling ROTC slots, since those people would stay in the pipeline for at least four years before they become available for deployment.</p>
<p>Current recruiting practices are such that an Army prospect spends far more time during his or her senior year with the recruiter than with the guidance counselor. Two close relatives of mine enlisted in the Army right after graduation within the last six years. Both got special "signing bonuses" for making the commitment and signing on the dotted line long before they were finished with high school. Their recruiters then met with them for a couple hours every week for the rest of the school year. Attending those meetings was a precondition for keeping their signing bonus. Ostensibly the meetings were for things like PT (physical training) to make sure they stayed in shape and would be able to withstand the ardors of bootcamp. Of course, an important unstated agenda of the meetings was surely to keep up a steady flow of pep talks to make sure they didn't change their minds before entry.</p>
<p>Talk about high pressure marketing...it's our tax dollars at work paying those recruiters to fill the ranks. (People complain about the unfairness of pressuring kids with ED decisions in fall of their senior year. They may not realize that other kids are being pressured into signing post-graduation Army contracts as early as October of their senior year!)</p>
<p>What are the alternatives, after all, given that the Commander in Chief is steadfastly committed to staying in Iraq? </p>
<p>I went to college at a time when there was still a draft--now THAT really puts the phrase "getting shafted" into perspective! </p>
<p>We are already keeping people over there beyond the terms of their original enlistment involuntarily, so we have a form of involuntary conscription right now. I doubt the Army recruiters go into great detail about the possibility that her enlistment period might extend beyond the three years and 22 weeks she thought she was signing up for.</p>
<p>Given the description in the article, it doesn't sound like her parents had the kind of lives that allowed them to spend a lot of time researching options on the Internet--nor did she.</p>
<p>You know I just have to say that my daughters school has one of the top high school music programs in the country and being in the top band is really a big deal! At our school "Concert Band" is really an amazing opportunity for students that get to participate. Very demanding and hard to get into. I think that being ranked higher due to placement in Concert Band at our school makes total sense! Most of the students in concert band play more than one instrument and are very involved in music regionally. I hope that I don't regret this post because I didn't take the time to read every page of this thread.</p>
<p>My brother retired from Air Force a few years ago- and received his degree while he was in the service ( however just a year or three before he retired)
Not early enough to have made a difference to his retirement to his disappointment.</p>
<p>I know why the military is pushing for recruits right out of high school, but especially for families whose children see the military as the only way they could go to college ( even if inaccurate), it could make an even * bigger* difference to them, than the students who already know about military schools/ROTC.</p>
<p>I am just thinking about the families whose children joined the armed forces, to earn money for school, didn't realize that many promises made by recruiters in time of war, aren't going to be fufilled, and may even get killed, before they are able to go to college. </p>
<p>While I didn't agree with the then head of our PTA, who didn't want the military to be able to recruit at Ds high school * at all*, I do understand the concern about pressuring students who are looking at the short term, and not at all options.</p>
<p><a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/224957_recruit19.html%5B/url%5D">http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/224957_recruit19.html</a>
( my oldest for example- took a year off with CityYear, earning an ed stipend, that didn't pay a lot for her college- but it was almost $5,000 still a big chunk)</p>
<p>But to get back on topic- my oldest Ds school didn't have Val/Sal, and everyone was "special".
;)
(not hard to do, with a class of 18- very small private school-)</p>
<p>I really didn't have any idea of her " rank" as classes weren't weighted, and while I imagined that had she attended a large public, with a greater spread of GPAs and possibly graded on a curve, I didn't know that for fact. Still I felt she was well prepared for college- although I admit, I knew nothing about the amount of APs that some students took in other schools, or expected her to attend a college that was so demanding.</p>
<p>Her sister ( the one who attends the school with the 44 Vals), had been attending a school where had she stayed, she would have been in the top 25%, if not the top 10%. However, that school also didn't offer any AP courses, and I felt that moving for high school to a more rigourous program, was more important than ranking.</p>
<p>She is taking AP/honors courses, but as they aren't weighted, she is barely hanging on to top 50%.</p>
<p>I still feel that the preparation is more important than ranking- although I also think that it may hurt her with a couple schools, and of course with some scholarships, but quibbling over numbers- may get some people short term satisfaction, but it isn't going to affect the education received.</p>
<p>Lost in all this is we now want our kids on the executive track eariler and eariler. If a kid takes a solid classload, but then also chooses a class or two for FUN... hey all, remember that about HS? Classes that were actually fun and not tied into college? Art, music, PE? </p>
<p>We made sure our D put some fun in HS senior year. She learned giutar both semesters. She was #1(658) by all of the methods used here so far, but because of the system we had she could actually enjoy her last year of HS too. She was one of 5 vals. This allowed us to enjoy the other families success too, rather than look at them as a competitor.</p>
<p>"I still feel that the preparation is more important than ranking- although I also think that it may hurt her with a couple schools, and of course with some scholarships, but quibbling over numbers- may get some people short term satisfaction, but it isn't going to affect the education received."</p>
<p>I agree. My daughter is not the kind of student who can take all honors and AP classes and get A's in all of them. Even with weighting, her GPA will be definitely be lower than what it would have been if she had taken regular classes in which she would likely obtain "easy A's". Her friends who are taking those classes rarely have to study or do homework. However, we feel that the preparation for college is much more important than top grades. Having both is ideal, of course, but not everyone can achieve that.</p>
<p>"However, we feel that the preparation for college is much more important than top grades. Having both is ideal, of course, but not everyone can achieve that."</p>
<p>"If a kid takes a solid classload, but then also chooses a class or two for FUN... hey all, remember that about HS? Classes that were actually fun and not tied into college? Art, music, PE?"</p>
<p>I agree with both of these posts. I also understood going into the situation, that my sons didn't have a shot at making val unless they put a lot of other things to the side, which they weren't willing to do. They got their satisfaction from being under the lights, from hearing the applause, from seeing their names in the paper dozens of times, from being voted MVP, from making all-state band, from getting superior ratings at solo and ensemble. They got plenty of pats on the back. They don't feel shortchanged in the least that they couldn't possibly achieve val status without giving up some of their electives and ECs. There's something for everyone. If the val sacrificed taking music or art or PE or whatever for four years, and busted his or her hump making A-pluses in all the highest weighted classes- all power to them! The rest of the students can also go off and do their thing- everyone is different, everyone has different goals, abilities, desires.</p>
<p>abasket: Check to see if the school has a written policy regarding class rank. If they don't, then you have every right to challenge it. If their policy is in writing, and has been approved by the Board of Education, then you simply have to accept it.</p>
<p>To me, however, is the fact that this is just one more case of college frenzy. We have to quit going to bat for our children every time something doesn't work out exactly how we hope it does. In my extensive experience in working with thousands of adolescents, 90% of the time issues like this are more of a concern to the parents than to the students.</p>
<p>I like doubleplay's idea in #127 about dropping certain grades from ranking consideration. Then the student can take some fun classes, or some that he wishes to explore but are outside of his comfort zone, or not worry about that time when he had food poisoning during his final.</p>