High School thinking of making a change - need opinions

[orjr]

I am on a focus group at my child's school where policies are discussed. This is a title I, large public school with about 65% graduation rate, and about 50% college attendance rate (including CC) for graduates. BUT they are the only school in the area with an IB program - so it acts as a bit of a magnet program. The school offers NO AP classes, only IB , regular, or "basic" (below HS diploma level).
Right now IB parents are upset because the school does not weight grades either for GPA or for rank. That means that often the val and sal are not IB students, and IB students are often ranked lower than many students who have never taken difficult classes. In addition, the IB diploma program is very narrow due to budget issues (no choices of HL - history, english, and science - either Bio or Chem. SL possibilities are foreign language, music, theatre, psych) TOK - a required course - is offered only outside the school day either super early in the morning some years, or after school / saturday other years.
Due to these constraints many kids take 5 or 6 IB classes both junior and senior year, but don't have the IB diploma. The school says these students are NOT taking "the most rigorous schedule".
What are your opinions on valid changes we should look at making?
Does it really make a quantitative difference in admissions or scholarships if the rank or GPA is not weighted?
What about 12 or 14 IB classes over two years, but no diploma being not rigorous?
What changes would actually make a real difference for our graduating students - if any?
Thanks for your time.

[midmo]

Does it really make a quantitative difference in admissions or scholarships if the rank or GPA is not weighted?

I believe it is possible for this approach to have negative consequences for some students. We came across a number of schools whose "by the book" merit scholarship rules required a certain rank, e.g. top 5%, etc. This could easily be a factor at the public schools in our town, which are mixed income and serve kids who never take a single honors course as well as many children of college profs/doctors/lawyers who take all honors and AP courses. And yes, there is a big difference in those courses. There are no corrections (i.e. weights) made to gpa and gpa alone is used to establish rank. Hence, rank is not a reliable indicator of relative readiness for college work, and certainly not a reflection of the rigor of the course choices. There is a reason the administration sticks with this system, but there is no *good* reason for it.

[nngmm]

The school says these students are NOT taking "the most rigorous schedule".

This can hurt the students applying to top schools. What DOES the school consider to be "the most rigorous schedule"?

[Kelowna]

^^ yes, what IS the most rigorous schedule at this school?

[orjr]

Only a full IB diploma is considered "most rigorous" and so if you take all of the classes needed, they still know if you're not doing full diploma because you have to pay for your IB tests in October before the May when you take them.

It seems crazy to me that math, science, english, foreign language and history - all IB for two years running - isn't counted as most rigorous. But I personally know this can make a difference as one college last year actually sent my son an e-mail asking about it - "why is this box not checked? Is it a mistake?" and when told no (they had his transcript) they asked "why are you not doing full IB dlipoma?" He and his GC explained the scheduling problem that made him unable to take one semester of one class (TOK) required. he was waitlisted at that school.
I have no idea if others have had similar experiences.

[nngmm]

That's ridiculous. "The most rigorous schedule" should be something that the students could do at school during normal school hours.

[2collegewego]

ojr,

First, I think *not* ranking is the best thing to do. It would be most fair to all the students-- the IB, the regular kids and the kids with scheduling problems. The school could also weight grades and provide a weighted and a non-weighted gpa. Then, the school profile could show the breakdown of kids (in deciles) who have each weighted and each nonweighted gpa. That way, schools could roughly figure out where a kid falls but the students get around all the cut-offs for ranking in scholarships.

[CDN_dancer]

Wow, I'm sorry for your situation. I'm not really sure what the answers are to your questions, but here's my experience (maybe it'll give you some ideas of how to address your school's issues?)

I attend probably the largest public in my city - just over 2000 students in grades 10-12. Our IB courses are also somewhat limited, I'm guessing mainly due to limited space and teachers, blocking/scheduling, budget, etc. We offer English, History, Chem, and Math HL, as well as Bio, Physics, French, and Spanish. (Rumor has it that Art, Music Theory and Philosophy may be added in the coming years, but it's not confirmed)

We don't weigh GPAs/averages, or at least not in the sense I get from reading postings here on CC. While a 90% in an IB course is "counted" the same as a 90% in a regular-level course (assuming both courses have the same credit value), what we do in our IB courses is "standardize" the marks, so they reflect what the student would be getting if they were in the equivalent-regular course. Since IB has been at my school for a number of years, I guess the teachers figured out a system that works fairly well; also, grade 12s in my province have to write province-wide standardized tests, so the results of those tests also give a good indication of the performance of the IB class when compared with the regular students. While each teacher standardizes differently, generally a class average of about 85-90% is set, and either every student has X% added to their "raw" mark, or some sort of computer program takes a class's marks, and adjusts it accordingly (using stats, standard deviation, etc...I'm not entirely sure how it works) Also, my school does not rank, probably for the reason that IB students may be at an unfair disadvantage.

As for TOK classes, we have to attend 2 TOK classes per week. What happens is they take place during the same block/time as say an IB English class, or history class. We are excused from that class (the entire English class would be given a spare for that block that day) and attend TOK. Would something like that work in your school?

[Mombot]

Although I hate weighted GPAs--kids' school did not weight so I thought D's 4.0 stood out more than all the weighted 4.0's--it sucks if you have such wildly different tracks.

I'd lobby for weighting GPAs...the IB program really is a lot different than standard high school curricula. That would encourage students to sign up for the full meal IB deal, rather than cherry picking. That seems a reasonable compromise around your "most rigorous" objection and the grade risk inherent in committing to a full IB program.

A lot of colleges recalculate GPA anyway, and they all get transcripts, so what box the counselor checks may not be that important unless you are talking about a huge numbers driven admission process that looks only at weighted GPA and test scores.

[Kelowna]

I still do not understand it fully - if someone takes everything that is required for a diploma but at the end does not sit for the exams, this is NOT the most rigorous ? Do I understand correctly?

The fact that TOK can't be taken during regular school hours seems to be absurd, I would do some investigation with the office in Geneva, or wherever it is....

[cangel]

>>That's ridiculous. "The most rigorous schedule" should be something that the students could do at school during normal school hours.<<

Highly agree. "Most rigorous schedule" is a determination the school has some freedom to make, and should be honest about it, BUT, within reason they should make determinations that are favorable to most of the students. If a child has taken all the IB classes offered at school except the one that you have to stand on your head to take - that is the most rigorous schedule. If half the class can get to the Saturday classes, and half can't, then spell that out and let the colleges make of it what they can. If onle one or two students take the extra class, then they went "over and above the normal curriculum ...". If half the IB kids only take a few IB classes, then the dichotomy is clear.

Begin advocating to get some other honors level classes, and fund that last IB class.

ALso - the more I think about this, the more stupid the situation sounds. Who pays the counselor's salaries??? Yes, the school must maintain some level of integrity, they can't give everyone, "most rigorous" or fabricate, but use a little common sense! They should be advocates for their students, why else be in that job???

[zoosermom]

My kid is in an inner-city school IB program. The IB classes are weighted 1 point on the 1-100 scale in recognition of the fact that the classes are much harder. I would be deeply upset if my kid was knocked out of the top 10-ish because of non-weighting. In fact, I don' t think we would have sent her to that school but would have let her take her chances with the elite public school or the private school to which she got a scholarship. There's a certain recognition in her school that everyone should be supported in finding a college, but that the kids in IB are a sure bet and the school wants to HELP them achieve the best possible placement.

[Anona]

Here's another wrinkle. In my school system the IB program is in one high school, and students from around my city can apply to go to it. (And no, it isn't an inner-city school.)

IB'rs are figured in with the regular school population for class rank (IB courses are weighted.) Is that fair to the non-IB'rs who happen to be zoned for the high school that gets the IBr's bused in from around the city? NO. It's also not fair because the IBr's take over leadership positions because they are always doing this that and the other thing for their CAS hours.

[orjr]

Thanks for the suggestions. So what I'm getting from most of you is that you DO feel like the "most rigorous" box is something worth talking/fighting for.
Also, that not ranking anyone, or weighting grades for ranking purpose is more fair than the current system.

Sometimes, to tell you the truth, it's just hard to see what's reasonable. I DO know that I strongly believe having TOK outside the school day is totally unreasonable. What our family found last year though, is that colleges just didn't care about whatever your reason was for not taking it.

Cangel - I love your post. I"ve been advocating for some "middle ground" classes - harder than the regular curriculum, but not IB level (and rigid) So the admin came back with yet another program to serve struggling underperforming students. It's a good program, but it isn't addressing the large middle - where students can handle 3 IB and 2 AP or honors, but not 6 IB plus TOK for two years.
Volunteer/parent frustration

[cptofthehouse]

I am surprised that your school even bothers to fill out those counselor forms. Around here, none of the schools I know do so. THey just give a several paragraph rec about the kid and attach it to the form without checking off ANY of the stuff on there. Let the danged college figure out what the class rank is, what the most difficult curric is. Most of the time they just look at the school profile and the courses taken and go from there. They won't notice one course missing for an IB diploma or exam.