<p>I'm a bit bruised and battered from recent discussions in my area reagrding grading scales, weighting, grade inflation, etc, and have probably already written more than most want to read on the subject, but since reticence has yet to be one of my faults:</p>
<p>Admissions officers are well aware that some schools have been very strict about course designations, only using honors for truly advanced courses, while at others the designation is rather liberally applied. This "Lake Wobegon effect" where all courses are above average, is very much in evidence, and in many of these cases the courses do have weighting in the GPA calculation.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned that we don't use those weighted GPA's, but I assert that many colleges do. What we attempt to do, in keeping the process fair, is weed out the bizarre grading scales, liberal course designations, and generous weighting systems from our decision processes. Realistically, however, many universities are seeking higher incoming class GPA. This is even more evident in scholarship systems, which may place greater emphasis on weighted GPA, rank, and scores than the admissions process.</p>
<p>That being said, in most cases where admimssions officers are reading by high school (which is usually the case) thoughtful guidance counsellors often provide, both on the school profile and in writing, some guidance to understanding their designations. Now always, but often.</p>
<p>My school is a specialized school that only offers honors, except for courses that by state law can't be honors (Algebra I, FL 1 and 2, PE etc.). </p>
<p>Our department of public instruction has tight guidelines for honors courses.
Our standard courses are taught at an honors level. But I have taken standard (where required), honors, and AP courses with the state online course provider.</p>
<p>I say this represents what each one means pretty well:</p>
<p>Standard: Course is concrete and based on rote memorization only. Creativity or more than superficial understanding is never required and frowned upon.</p>
<p>Honors: Course is based on independent learning, where many times the students will cover the information on their own time and have a discussion about the material. Assignments are never "worksheets" and are usually open-ended. "Busy-work" is a felony punishable by death.</p>
<p>AP: The kind of work that would earn a 100% in an honors class is almost expected, and rarely receives more than a 93. AP teachers expect that students will understand everything put in front of them, and be able to analyze it and understand automatically aspects of a problem that honors kids may get for extra credit.</p>
<p>Oh, and the highest level "track" in my state is college/university prep... which requires no honors classes.</p>
<p>My son's high school has over 3000 students and offers about 18 AP classes and at least as many if not more honors classes. He's taken all honors clasess in 9th and 10th grades, which the UC system does not weigh, 3 AP classes in 11th and 5 AP classes as a senior. His school does not weigh it's grades. He's taking these courses because the classes are more interesting and the caliber of students and teachers is much better than in the regular classes. He would have liked to have taken a regular or honors calculus class as a senior, but the only classes offered at his level were AP Calculus or AP Statistics. He also hopes that colleges will take the rigor of his courseload into account in the admissions process.<br>
The UC's will weigh certain honors classes and all APs, but most colleges will not. Most say the rigor of courses taken will help in the admissions process, but if you are applying with hopes of merit scholarships, you won't qualify if you have an unweighted 3.5 grade point average, despite the fact that they are all honors and AP courses. I personally have my doubts that schools will prefer my son with a 3.5 unweighted GPA over someone with a 4.0 GPA who took only a few or no honors or AP classes.</p>
<p>At my school we have several levels of classes the top three being College Prep (CP), Honors, and Advanced Placement (AP). For most classes, the Honors is far more rigerous, and in some cases is just as hard as an AP. (For instance, without changing the curriculum, our 11th grade honors english was just upgraded to AP Lit).</p>
<p>This is an interesting thread with so many schools doing it so many different ways. My kids go to a private school with 400 in the high school. They do have one AP for sophomores and that's for History. Sophomore year many honors courses from english and history to languages, math and science. AP starts junior year unless you're super bright. I met someone the other day whose son is at a Christian school and she was going on about him being in a "high honors" (as opposed to regular honors) class and I have NO idea what that is! Also, do AP courses count as credit for super selective colleges? Somehow I doubt it.</p>
<p>dke: Well, with AP courses (and actually the tests) often the thing is not trying to get the credit at the "super selective college", but demonstrating to those colleges that you took the most rigorous course load available to you. My son got 5's on all his AP tests, but his college granted him 1 elective credit for one of the classes, and that was it. They make clear in their course catalog and website which courses will count, and it isn't many of them. On the other hand, it's not like he could have taken any other courses, because the AP were the only things offered for those classes.</p>
<p>For basically every class at my school, we have at least four levels. Technical [they are just now getting rid of that one, because they want to challenge people more.. anyway grade inflation will abound. it's really just the slowest class offered], College Prep, Honors, Gifted, AP.
Some courses obviously don't have the AP class, but we offer most of the AP courses at our school [or at least the most popular ones].
And this isn't just a "name" for college prep - they really do challenge at different paces [although I shudder think how slowly a tech class moves...], and even honors is a lot slower than our gifted classes.</p>
<p>Interesting. When I was in HS, 'gifted' courses were more challenging than AP, because the coursework was basically individualized and ramped up to be challenging to each student, whereas the AP courses just used the College Board's AP curriculum. Gifted courses were also smaller, and impossible to get into if you hadn't been certified and admitted to the gifted program.</p>
<p>^^^
Gifted at our h.s. still refers to the group of kids identified w/ I.Q scores back in elementary and middle school. My d took gifted classes in the math and english disciplines (9th and 10th) where she had much smaller classes and more challenging work than the honors classes. Gifted is phased out after 10th because it's assumed those kids will go into the AP classes, which is true. </p>
<p>Well, the thing that happened in the state I was in HS for was "Quality Basic Educaton", a law that essentially cut funding for gifted programs to focus on the needs of the average student. Prior to that, we'd had access to individualized coursework into senior year. After that, there was more focus put on differentiated teaching within the same class. This was part of the whole larger struggle about creating a richer class experience for more students, by having multiple levels in the same class. Unfortunately, when I was in HS, it still wasn't being done well. </p>
<p>On the other hand, my daughter's HS uses it quite effectively. All students take the same coursework. As a result, my daughter's AP classes include high acheiving students who traditionally would have been split off into honors/gifted courses, as well as the kind of students who would usually be tracked into remedial courses. Every part of the school's structure and community is designed to make this work, and it does pretty well, in part because the entire student body supports and puts into practice the ethic "No student left behind".</p>
<p>Besides IB and AP I would take all these classifications of courses with a grain of salt. Remember: The SAT average had to be recentered a few years back because the scores kept dropping, and according to the ACT only about 25% of test takers are qualified to do college work in all four areas tested. Don't be surprised when the scores don't match the grades or the level of the courses.</p>
<p>My kids school has fundamental, regular, honors, and AP, but not necessarily all four for the same course. Fundamental is remedial and AP is directed specifically at the college board curriculum. One point that my kids used to make is the mindset of students who take the different variations - ie., if you want to hang around the academically advanced kids, avoid funda and regular courses like the plague..</p>
<p>PS:
J'adoube, I'm surprised you said:
"The SAT average had to be recentered a few .. " instead of "had to be adjusted a few..."</p>
<p>My school has concepts, regular, honors, and ap courses.
Concepts, regular, and honors leves are run for the same courses. AP courrses are generally second year courses for those that did well in the same honors course the first year.</p>
<p>I think 3 sets would be the most efficient set-up--my school has 4--because the difference is pretty huge between regular and AP; for students who don't want to take 6 AP tests at the end of the year (and many schools, including mine, require all students in an AP class to take the corresponding AP test), honors is a good in-between option with academically-oriented peers.</p>
<p>My school has 3,000 students and several ib/ap classes. Since soph year out of 24 classes(8 per year) I've taken all ap/ib excpet 1 honors, and 1 regular class.</p>