<p>We got a letter from our school with a list of the kids who had taken AP exams and received some sort of paper award. For example AP Scholar with Distinction..There were like 5 different levels.
One level was for 8 or more exams. Another 5 or more exams etc.
Very interesting that several of the Vals had 0 AP honors ..indicating they did not take AP exams...indicating they may not even have take AP courses..but heck yes on Graduation night they were up there recieving the award for being #1 in the class ( our school ranks all 4.0 students as #1 weighted)</p>
<p>Angst, this is NOT odd at all. Our school has an unweighted GPA and rank. Kids who were ranked second, third, fourth....last year....were not in the harder classes. While my D happened to be val, she did indeed take the hardest classes offered in our school (including any of the AP ones offered) but by chance still ended up as the only 4.0 in the school but frankly kids with easier loads could easily have ended up ranked as number one with our system. She has written a policy to have weighted GPAs used for rank which is put into place for classes starting in '06 but right now kids can be at the top in terms of rank who took NO Honors or AP here. Your situation is not unique. </p>
<p>I would not be bitter. This is the system in place. Colleges will see if a school does not use weighting for GPA or rank and care that students took the most challenging courses. But if this system seems skewed, then those who are affected (students) can try to initiate research and change in policy. My daughter did and the school board adopted the policy she wrote after a two year effort of working toward this policy. It did not come from bitterness. It came from thorough research and articulating a rationale that dealt with encouraging kids to challenge themselves in the curriculum.</p>
<p>I suggest rather than complain or be bitter, work to effect change or raise awareness to these issues, by researching policies nationwide and forming committees to effect change (if others feel likewise).</p>
<p>What difference does it make? If they avoided taking a rigorous curriculum that was available at their high school, they missed out on some great learning opportunities, missed out on getting college credit while they were in high school, and they were less prepared for college than are students who took a rigorous curriculum. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, students who took the more rigorous curricula have the benefits of that education. Standing on stage as sal or val is as momentary glory that they missed out on. They have, though, many longterm benefits of the path they chose.</p>
<p>The system you describe is the one used at S's school. I don't have complaints about it even though S is taking the most rigorous curriculum possible in the county, something that most students at the school are not doing. I agree with the person who suggested not being bitter.</p>
<p>Wow! How unfair!</p>
<p>Our school uses the five academic areas for class rank, and weights honors courses by adding 20 points per credit (100-point scale) and 30 points to AP courses (MUST take the AP exam for AP weight; final ranking is determined in January of senior year, so I guess senior year AP courses are probably just weighted as honors).</p>
<p>With this system, there's NO possibility that the kid who took all general level, easy courses, with the minimum number of math, science, etc, and no honors or AP to be top ranked. </p>
<p>There are occasionally some minor glitches - summer college courses only count if the high school gives a similar course - but overall it has been very fair.</p>
<p>EDIT: NSM is right, except for one thing - RANK is satrting to count A LOT in college admissions. MANY colleges now list rank as "MOST IMPORTANT" on the Common Data Set, along with courses taken, because they want to have the highest number of kids in the top ten percent, since USNWR lists it.</p>
<p>Not being in the top 10% can be a problem. The top colleges (Yale, Stanford etc) may have 99% of the class graduating in the top 10% of their HS class</p>
<p>I agree with Soozie about not being bitter, but working for change.</p>
<p>Before my kids entered our high school, we had a similar system. Some moms got together and presented the issue to the Board and now we have a similar system to nedad's --- AP and honors are weighted.</p>
<p>I also think the top 10% thing is very important to a lot of schools, though I understand that the California schools don't consider rank....</p>
<p>Angst, now that I read your last line about how your school ranks all 4.0 students as #1 weighted...you do NOT have the system that we have and in fact, you have it WAY BETTER than we have. If I understand you correctly, the kids in the AP classes had weighted grades so were able to get a 4.0 weighted without straight As and "tie" in rank those in easier classes who achieved a 4.0. HERE, kids in AP and Honors classes get no weight and have a way harder time ranking above kids who take the easy classes and thus there are kids in the top five here who took no Honors or AP and are ranked over the kids who did. We only had one 4.0 last year (my D) who actually took the hardest classes. But the odds were against someone like her being ranked over the kids in the easier tracks because she got NO weight for taking such a challenging courseload. This year, I don't think anyone has a 4.0. Anyway, if you think something felt "unfair" at your school, just think, if you were at our school, the kids with the AP classes would not have had a chance to catch those other 4.0s who were in the easier courses.</p>
<p>I agree with Nedad about the importance of rank. That is the sad reality. See for example TX and CA. Some scholarships are also awarded to top-ranked students, in particular Vals. This was the gist of a thread last year from a poster whose child was not going to be eligible for a scholarship because s/he was not going to be a val (but would be a sal).</p>
<p>I should add that my second daughter would have benefitted from the policy my older D developed for her school that put a weight system into effect for the purpose of rank as it starts with the class graduating in 2006. However, my D is graduating a year early (this June) and thus is under the old UNweighted rank system. Indeed, her rank is not at the top as she is in the hardest courses available at our high school (not to mention acceleration too). It is what it is. I know she'd have a higher rank if she got "credit" for taking harder classes. But that never changed her curriculum plans. She always took the hardest classes because those are the appropriate placement for her. She also skipped levels to create further challenge. I would hope schools look favorably upon kids taking the most rigorous curriculum. I think they do. Unfortunately, rank comes into play but I feel schools do see that the rank is UNweighted and can figure that into the analysis. However, I do believe that weight should be given for class rank (not honor roll as all kids at any level deserve recognition for achievement and my D wrote the policy to keep that in place for Honor Roll). My kids chose courses due to learning needs, not to do with effect on rank. Rank just happened however it happened.</p>
<p>Sorry I miswrote...unweighted not weighted is used here. </p>
<p>Yes I am still a litte bit bitter about it. I admit it. Thought that was all gone.
I hadnt been thinking about it..but here that darn paper came out and churned it all up again.</p>
<p>I just remember the smug look on the face of this mom coming up to me and telling me her son was ranked #1. And I look at the paper and he is NOT on it. So he got the fun of the award and being ranked #1 in front of his peers. He also got a full ride to a decent school. NO APS...</p>
<p>OH WELL NEVER MIND!!! Thanks for letting me vent..I am over it again, and moving on.</p>
<p>Soozievt, your daughter should be proud of her curriculum decisions, and the fact that they were not driven by rank!</p>
<p>BTW our school, though using weight for rank, does NOT use it for the honor roll, so even kids in the easiest classes ("basic" or "general") can get on high honors or honors, if they do well at their level. This seems like a good compromise.</p>
<p>BTW our school system did finally figure out it was not fair..DUH! And they are changing it over the next several years. Too late for my kid though..</p>
<p>OK thanks for letting me vent. On to something else.</p>
<p>Marite, I do agree with you and am proud that my D worked to effect change in her school on this issue so that the school would encourage and reward those who sought out academic challenge. You are right that rank can matter with some things. For instance, because my D was val, she was offered a full ride at UVM which is a scholarship given to every val in the state. Also she was offered something like that at St. Michael's due to her rank but thankfully, she was allowed to pass that offer "down" to kids next in line who might have wanted to take advantage of it as she had no intention of going there. She was not allowed to pass down the full ride to UVM unfortunately. But clearly some perks came with the val distinction. She never, however, had being "val" as a goal. She just sets her own standards for achievement and let the rest fall where it did in this regard. We don't have a competitive atmosphere for "who is val" here. Students seemed to be pleased that she achieved it and felt she was deserving and she was supported...nobody was bitter.</p>
<p>Angst, I do not know where that val went to school but had he been aiming at a highly selective college, the fact that he did not take the most rigorous curriculum offered, would have hurt his chances. Colleges do indeed care about the curriculum students have chosen among the offerings available at their schools, that is, the most selective colleges do. I interview for a selective college and in fact, am conducting one today, and I ask students about the academic program they have chosen and I probe as to what levels were available and I definitely note if they took the easier track class when a harder one was available and put it in context.</p>
<p>the issue of class rank, and weighted versus unwieghted is a difficult one, flogged extensively in these forums over the past few years. I honestly don't think it ultimately matters, for several reasons:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>since ranking is a zero sum game, for every kid hurt, someone gains. And ranking only addresses the size of the fish in the local pond. We all know our pond here is not the same as your pond there.</p></li>
<li><p>many schools report both a weighted and an unweighted rank and GPA</p></li>
<li><p>many schools don't report rank at all. It is the college's problem to figure it out. And competitive ones have the history with many schools to do so.</p></li>
<li><p>Many colleges even go so far as to compute their own GPA for admissions purposes, to make a more accurate comparison - leaving out PE, for instance.</p></li>
<li><p>MOST IMPORTANT: if there were a clear best way to do this, you can bet HS would all be doing that. There isn't so they don't.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>I don't think the problem is with weighted vs. unweighted GPA's, it's with the universities that don't take the time to review an application thoroughly. Granted, the larger universities and those elite colleges that get a huge amount of applications are between a rock and hard place, but I would like to think that somebody, somewhere, will recognize the difference between a "soft" transcript and a "solid" one. This thread is a tangent on the recent AP thread where some college professors were decrying the use of APs for admission purposes. But given the situation described by angst, it makes no sense at all to simply ignore APs when admitting students. </p>
<p>This isn't exactly a new phenomenon. In the ancient days when I was in HS (70's -- discos, mirrored balls, the memories . . . ) our school was thrown into a tizzy when it appeared for a time that the Valedictorian would be someone who focused most of his classes in Industrial Arts and Vo-Tech classes. Ultimately he stumbled his final semester, probably from all the crap that he was dealing with, and was ranked third or fourth. But what an uproar, with several parents and students arguing that college prep courses should be weighted, etc. (my HS didn't have AP or designated Honors courses, but the arguments were the same). Honestly, I didn't care then and I don't care now. He went to HS. He took courses that would prepare him for his future career goals. He made great grades. Good for him. He would probably do better in my chemistry or physics classes than I would in woodworking or advanced drafting.</p>
<p>I feel the frustration here as well.</p>
<p>My son was Valedictorian at the local (read: easy) high school....never a B in his whole school life. But, he went away to a boarding school for grades 11 and 12 so he could take all AP classes and/or college classes on the campus where the school resides. Very rigorous curriculum plus being away from home on your own. Therefore happened his first "B", in an English class.</p>
<p>We've always been under the impression that colleges look at the "whole picture" and maybe some do. But two of the first three acceptances that have come in with scholarships, would have had larger (in fact full-ride) had my son stayed at the easy school and maintained his As, which he could have easily done.</p>
<p>Very frustrating for all of us. We wish these two schools would have looked at course load and the fact that he went away from home to be challenged, but they did not.</p>
<p>The admittance offices at many schools do seem to look at how you challenge yourself but sadly, many scholarships are still offered to Valedictorians, blind to what classes those Vs take.</p>
<p>If we had to do it over again would we? Yes, because my son is very happy being challenged in high school. He actually likes school now, something that hasn't happened since elementary school. But the fact remains, many of these scholarships are still unfairly handed out.</p>
<p>BTW, his school does not class rank or GPA because of the level the kids are working at and the selectivity to getting in the school in the first place, it wouldn't be fair. But what's the first thing a scholarship asks for?? your GPA and class rank and then the school has to create one even though that is against what learning is supposedly about.</p>
<p>Thanks for letting me vent :)</p>
<p>This sort of thing continues into college. Thiry years ago one of my classmates took summer school each year in order to spread out the load so that he would have a higher GPA when applying to Med School. Now there is another college whose Organic chem Prof. is particularly tough. All of the premeds take O Chem over the summer at state or community colleges.</p>
<p>angstridden, you are justified in venting & stating the inequity. However, adcoms can see through some of this. And even when students whose programs & GPAs are equally weighted, the top student doesn't necessarily run away with the college admits. My D says that one student surpasses her slightly. (Student has never gotten one B, takes an equally challenging courseload to my D.) This makes them like 1/100 of a point apart. Yet my D got into her EA college, the other student, applying EA elsewhere, did not. (Equally rated colleges.) Other factors were at play & figured into the mix.</p>
<p>But only weighting makes sense, so congrats to soozie's D for being a reformer.</p>
<p><<but only="" weighting="" makes="" sense="">></but></p>
<p>I just can't agree with that as a blanket comment, the issue is too complicated. What about those students whose talents lie in fine arts, music, etc. I'm not aware of any schools around here who offer AP or Honors courses in those areas, though there are AP Tests on these subjects. Is it really equitable to deny them a higher class rank (and possibly scholarships) because they challenge themselves in these areas rather than math, science and social sciences?</p>
<p>My kid's HS doesn't rank for val or for college reporting. They only use it to determine cum laude, which is a small and rather quiet award for a top percentage. I think this cuts down on some of the hype and competitiveness regarding gpas and encourages kids to challenge themselves. The ASB pres gives the address at graduation.</p>