Well well well...the Vals and Sals of last year.

Parents Forum
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<p>nedad: I don't have any problem with giving academic awards to kids. But after reading these boards for quite awhile, I am even more against weighting grades than ever. There is no completely FAIR way to do it. The example given by burlmom above illustrates this. Her daughter is ranked #2 by .01 points because she had the "luck" of being assigned to a more difficult math teacher. Kids who take a lot of APs but also want to be in orchestra and take a painting class are penalized because they haven't loaded their schedules to the max. And lets not even mention the fact that anything that seems related to a "vocational" class is looked down upon by many. And when it comes down to it, what is the real difference between a 3.97 and a 3.98? Should one kid be singled out as being better than another over hundreths or even thousandths of a point? </p>

<p>High school is a time that kids should be able to explore a class that interests them just for the sake of it. They shouldn't have to worry that it is too hard and might mess up my grad point, or too easy and might mess up my rank. If the kid is truly interested in oceanography, maybe they should take that instead of advanced physics. My current junior has room for another science class next year. He wants to take adv. bio. In actuality at our school, anatomy is a harder class than adv. bio but he is not interested in anatomy. I am glad I don't have to tell him that he needs to take a class he is not interested in over one he is just to keep his GPA higher. </p>

<p>I know that the elite colleges place a lot of emphasis on class rank. But rather than buying into a system that is wrong, maybe we should just reject it outright. (I know, way to impractical and idealistic.) I do know that our large urban school doesn't weight and we get kids accepted into elite schools every year. So the adcoms must figure it out somewhere a long the line.</p>

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<p>When I talk about the disadvantages of a rigorous prep school, I always say that there are schools out there, particularly the state schools that really do not care too much about weights or course difficulty, but go by class rank. Kids going to a school like my son's do get hurt sometimes. There is a young man who did not get into UVA because of this system--they want more A's than B's on the transcript, and that rarely happens at S's school, and they do not note any classes as AP. But the other way your student can get hurt is with the merit awards. Many scholarship committees have a formula that calculates rank or gpa that does not take much note, if any of school or load difficulty. Yes, you can lose out that way. But those are the tradeoffs you have when you select such a school or such a course load. If you are applying to schools that scrutinize the load and school difficulty, you make out.</p>

<p>Congrats to your younger D, Susan, for carrying such a heavy courseload, with the acceleration and the auditions and the ECs. There are people who are well aware of what that took.</p>

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<p>Quite frankly I think there is an art to stacking your classes for optimal advantage. Some folks will be surprised to find this is the way many survive professional school. I can't see getting petty or mean because one took a harder class than Joey and Joey beat you out by.004 of a point. I would say, go get a life! I mean, what is really going on? Is this how you want yourself valued? Is this how you want yourself seen? And to parents who think they can bend and change school policy to suite themselves, surprise, these things move back and forth. Maybe they took your idea this year, but will change it the year after next.</p>

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<p>lderochi, I have the same "issues" that you mentioned in your paragraph 2. It comes up because many State U's accept partly based on rank structure, which another posted alludes to. Since many applicants to private colleges often have high test scores (& since many art students are challenged in that dept!), that disparity can affect arts applicants disproportionately. (U.C., for example, definitely weights Honors & APs in determining class rank.) I know this will affect my younger D, impacting where she applies & where she is accepted. Yet in terms of ability & output & GPA, my educated guess puts her in the top 12% conservatively, without consideration to weighting. With weighting, she may eventually end up in the 33% category by fall semester of Senior Yr.</p>

<p>I'm only confused because I see 2 opposing trends being reported: Less ranking by high schools, + more consideration to ranking by colleges. Who is hurt more? Students at non-ranked schools, or non-AP students at weighted-GPA schools?</p>

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<p>There is not a fair way to do much of anything. You just can't take every little factor into account. College admissions is an excellent example of this as the timing of your apps, the other kids applying when you are, the needs of the school, the adcom who is the primary reader for your file all go into the equation of who is accepted and who is not, even with all things being equal. You would think that weighting courses would be an easy thing, but there are just too many ways to work the system until you get a complex matrix no one understands. Some schools flat out refuse to give the details on how they compute the class rank, because they just do not want to hear it. More ways to be unfair than to be fair, and I doubt fair is even possible. That is why so many schools are getting rid to the val and sal honors.</p>

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<p>Shennie, you may be surprised that I agree with you --- our school ranks to the THOUSANDTH OF A POINT (we grade on a 100 scale, so one student could have a 95.432 while another has a 95.431)! It's ridiculous, since so much depends on the subjectivity of the teacher - even in math and science, we have some teachers that mark a whole answer wrong if one tiny thing is wrong (say, minus 10 points) while another teacher will give partial credit and take off only 1/2 a point for the same error!).</p>

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<p>I will point out, as I have many times, that the correct use of significant figures (a scientific and statistical concepts that most educational administrators (being history and PE majors, not math or science majors) don't get) means that you cannot have more digits in a GPA then there are in the data source. Thus, if grades go from 0->99, a GPA of XX.YY is invalid, because STATISTICALLY the YY digits are meaningless.</p>

<p>Thus, ranking students based on decimal points is meaningless in most school systems.</p>

<p>Yes, even if it's widely used.</p>

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<p>Backhandgrip, just to clarify...since you refer to "changing school policy to suit yourself"....in my older D's case, she changed school policy but she NEVER EVER stood to benefit. She did this because she believed in it and wanted to affect change for those who came after her. She knew that if the new policy was ever passed, it would not go into effect until two years after her class graduated. </p>

<p>I also do NOT believe in the anecdote that someone shared about a family suing with a kid who was sal who took the harder classes in an unweighted system....while I'm not into that kind of ranking, it is what it is...you don't sue when you already know the rules. Work to change the rules if you feel strongly but you still gotta go by the rules. </p>

<p>As far as kids who might pursue the arts in college, I don't think the class rank is going to be as big a factor compared if they went for a regular academic program. However, often kids strong in the arts are also good students, at least the ones I know. </p>

<p>I do think colleges examine the rigor of the curriculum. Then again, some use very raw data. This past weekend at a college audition my child was at, she had to fill out a form that the judge was going to use and I was very surprised that right on the form, she had to fill in SAT scores, rank, and GPA (they have an entire academic application on file for her). I felt like it reduced the academic profile to numbers and here is an example where you would have no clue that that GPA was in the toughest courseload or that the ranks were unweighted. Hopefully they also read the application, LOL. This was NOT a big school.</p>

<p>My kids never selected classes with rank in mind. They selected classes to be challenged (they like challenge) and because these were the appropriate placements for them. There is no gaming or strategizing where we live over this, none that I have ever seen. I realize there are competitive environments where this is a very big deal. People don't go around discussing who will be val and all that jazz til late into senior year (it is decided after first semester senior year). </p>

<p>Someone asked about kids CARING if they are val....I can only speak of my own kid who has stated many times over...that she did NOT care if she was val and never had it as a goal. Yes, it was nice recognition come graduation and she was the speaker (we have one val and one sal and both speak). But her goal has always been to do the best she can and to have long term goals and aspirations. She just is not satisfied to do less than her best effort. </p>

<p>I agree that there is subjectivity in grading and so nothing that concrete or significant separates out kids ranked close to one another. </p>

<p>A main reason my D developed a weighted grade policy was to have the school encourage kids to take challenging classes. The system kinda worked against that. She researched policies throughout the US and in our own state and the policy she wrote had a rationale in it. The faculty eventually got behind it as a group (there were a few dissenters.....one teacher was against anything that was for the top students and wanted kids who took auto mechanics and the noncollege bound types to be able to be at the top). The school board obviously scrutinized the final draft of my D's policy and agreed with it and held a public hearing and I was at it and every single person in attendance spoken in favor of this policy. I am sure there are some who have a differing view but I happen to think this was a positive change there. My kids did not "benefit" but I think the academic achievers will be more recognized in the future there. </p>

<p>There is often an anti- top student atmosphere at our school (by faculty), almost TOO politically correct. As an example, my daughter was number one in the class and was given no academic awards on award night in senior year. In tenth grade, it seemed that the only academic awards given out were by teachers who taught the NON Honors classes and thus our very top students academically got NO awards that night. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

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<p>Why do schools even bother to translate scores on a 0 to 100 scale first to letter grades and then to a 4.0 scale? Any grade above 96 earns an A+ at our school and is sometimes worth 4.33 on the report card. We also weight honors and AP (differently). I don't think anyone can even tell you what the highest possible GPA is because 'it depends'. When it comes to sending transcripts to colleges, our school assigns letter grades. Sounds more like a wacky carnival game then 'educationally sound doctrine'.</p>

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<p>My sons' school does not rank, and from what I can tell they are part of a growing trend to refuse to do so. This has not hurt their graduates' acceptances to elite colleges in the slightest, so there must be some way to do it.</p>

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<p>I'm grateful that our school neither ranks nor weights grades and thereby avoids the attendant insanity, jockeying for position, grudge-holding, etc. It's a competitive public hs with an excellent history of sending graduates to top schools. Our graduation speakers are the senior class president and the senior with the highest GPA. Somehow, this is ALWAYS a student who took a very rigorous courseload, with all honors and AP classes. </p>

<p>My d's GC told me that colleges will occasionally call to ask what the highest GPA in a given year is, and how many students have higher GPAs than the applicant in question. It surprised me that our counseling staff would provide this information. It would certainly never be made public.</p>

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<p>"Should one kid be singled out as being better than another over hundreths or even thousandths of a point?"</p>

<p>Well, the high schools might, but the colleges (or at least the better ones) don't. Because they don't "single out" kids at all, which is what is wrong with this entire discussion. They build a CLASS that meets their institutional needs - for prestige, yes, and for future financial support, and for the field hockey team, and for the orchestra, and for limiting the amount of money they have to give out in financial aid - counterbalanced by whatever commitment they have to economic diversity, and for pleasing guidance counselors at good feeder schools. </p>

<p>Single kids with their singular class ranks have absolutely nothing to do with it.</p>

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<p>Being valedictorian is not going to cut any ice wiht the more selective colleges, as many schools do not even know who is going to be #1 until the college decisions are made. But the top schools do look at the approximate rank, and unless your highschool is on that radar screen of that college, unfortunately it can make a difference. Not whether you are val or sal, but if you make the top 3-5 kids. And if the GC at the highschool does not make it clear that those ahead of you are not taking the same type of courses as you are, it can make the difference between an admit and waitlist or even deny. Chuck Hughes, former admissions director of Harvard wrote "What It Really Takes to Get into the Ivy League", and he is quite clear where you need to be rankwise to be considered.</p>

<p>And this is all very possible. I graduated from a large high school, as third in the class. #1 went to Slippery Rock as a PE major. She was not in any of my classes. #2 went to a secretarial school. There was a bit of an uproar about this as none of the AP kids that year made top 5 except for me. I did not participate. There had been discussions about this before, and my view was that if someone excelled in his field, whether it was college prep, business or general studies, then it should carry equal weight. It was my choice to carry AP courses. It was #2's choice to take the secretarial courses. It was #1's choice to be a female jock. Curiously, nearly 35 years later, #1 is a minor celebrity in women's college sports. #2 is a big wig in a company--personal assistant to a CEO, and I am a mom with a small business. Those two women certainly fulfilled their promise of class rank without going to top schools. They live better and are better known than many HPY grads, who would homage to them when they meet. But all three of us are friends, not close friends, but closer than we ever were in highschool. They have never forgotten that I refused to support the movement that would have had me named val 35 years ago.</p>

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<p>This is an interesting discussion, to say the least! Ranking is kind of silly, especially at a school where (like my daughter's ) hundredths of a point may separate 2 students. Her school does not rank, for all the reasons that have been listed. The CC is very aware of the impact of rank in admissions, and writes the recs for students applying to competitive schools in a way that benefits the student - paints them in the best light without ranking. The school does pick a val and sal, for the purpose of speechifying at graduation, daughter thinks she is #3, and is quite thankful, she sees it as a Pyrrhic honor - why on earth would I want to have to write a speech?! The proud mama would like to see her give that speech, but she won the real prize, she's going to her first choice school.</p>

<p>I do think, though, given DH's public school experiences, that val and sal are academic honors, and they should remain so. If a school chooses to give out these honors, they should be given on the basis of achievement in academic classes, and those who challenge themselves in more difficult classes should get "extra points". There are plenty of awards for sports, and at his high school, where the single largest department is not English, it is Special Ed, there are awards for every level of achiever and every type of class. People traditionally think of val and sal as academic awards - of you keep the title, it should mean what is intended, not another "feel good" award.</p>

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<p>Our H.S. does something mind-boggling (to me). Every student's gpa is computed based on all grades received by the student while at our school. Thus, if you spent 4 years in our H.S., you have all your freshman and soph. classes included in your gpa, and there are no (weighted) AP's in those 2 years; while a student who arrives from Yugoslavia, and spends only Junior and Senior years in our school, and takes all the AP classes available, has a much higher gpa, since only those 2 years are used. So 2 equally bright and hardworking students, who get the exact same grades in J and S years get very different gpa's. </p>

<p>Besides, many students are immature in 9th grade, and may not realize their full potential until later. The playing field is not level. The excuse from our H.S. is that it is impossible to compute all these grades from other countries.</p>

<p>The school has stopped ranking this year, but instead places student in deciles. But obviously, since they count 1,2,3 or 4 years , the system is flawed.</p>

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<p>As in many hs the music and art kids get ranked lower at our public hs. The points scale gives four points in the calculation for an honors or an AP class but band(and art) get only three points in the calculation. This is very unfortunate since many of the kids in the band are also top students. In order to address this issue a professional committee was brought in by the town to make some recommendations in this area and came up with what they think is a plan. All current sophomores, freshmen etc are now required to pick two classes from a certain block of courses in the course selection guide. These courses include cooking, woodworking, art or music. My S is a freshman and he would like his electives to be computer classes, he's not a music/art kid. He took visual basic this year and would like to continue the sequence with C++ and Java. Under this new "plan" he will only be able to take these classes during the summer($).I understand that they are trying to achieve a level playing field but I am not sure if this is the best solution.</p>

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<p>Chocoholic, neither of my girls were ever under consideration for val or sal because they switched schools and at their schools, you had to be there for all 4 years. So, I don't know what is fair. If you include kids from other schools, you then have apples and oranges for grades if you count the grades from the other school.</p>

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<p>This is all so Byzantine.
I wonder what affect grade inflation has on all of this. Our daughter went to school in Canada up to middle school when we moved to the States. In most Canadian schools an "A" is an "A: and a "C" is really a "C", and I don't recall there being many of the problems mentioned in this forum.
This year our daughter applied ed to the school she loved, in the States, and was accepted to it. She was 1st in her class and I suppose benifited from it. However, the rank itself, meant nothing to her other than the fact that it seems to have helped her get into the college she wanted, Dartmouth. We did not even know she was ranked going into her senior year and only found out when she recieved her transcripts in September. However, at that time, we were informed that this could make or brake it with college admissions and were happy to see that she had fallen in to it. She had only taken AP and honors courses since 9th grade, other than band and gym, and her school wieghts up to an A+ = 5.3, so to have a higher rank you will have likely had to have taken the most difficult course load. As to Val-Sal no one in our house cares, as a practical matter she's already in the school she wanted to be in, all the rest will be forgotten.</p>

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<p>True Jamimom, it could hurt or help you, to have moved in the middle of H.S. years. But it really shouldn't. If only a school admitted students based on the "packaged person", including overall grades, difficulty of coursework, activities, interests, thoughtful essays, and not really need to know how many people did better than you. After all, the other students who did better, but did not apply to the same school, are but shadowy figures, who may have only done academics.</p>

<p>Anyway, I did not mean to complain, there is no equitable solution. And my DD has some wonderful school acceptances to consider, while we await the rest. And ofcourse, I will have long sleepless nights come April, as I will be storming these boards for advice from sages such as you.</p>

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<p>Thats just the point Woodwork..."meant nothing to her other than the fact that it seems to have helped her get into the college she wanted"</p>

<p>and for others it means scholarships, free rides and more.</p>