bluebayou, is this true? I had no idea. (I didn’t want to hijack the other thread.)</p>
<p>At D’s rural public , maybe 10-15% make straight A’s each six weeks in high school. Maybe 1 to 3% have straight A’s the whole way through all four years. Maybe we should make sure the GC puts that in the school profile, huh? I would have never thought that was the case. In AP English Lit this year maybe 4 kids made A’s in the two sections. In Physics Honors-maybe 2 (class started with 25 kids or so, finished with 8). Well, that’s just great for our kids. We grade hard, and offer 4 AP’s. Total. That seems fair. LOL. </p>
<p>D has class rank which helps her and makes it O.K. but it would be nice for her friends with 3.8UW’s if the profile would describe the distribution of grades.</p>
<p>In some parts of the country, grade inflation has been going on for a long time. In my high school (mediocre) in the 1970s, more than half the graduating class was “honor roll” students. I don’t think it was very honorable to get on that roll.</p>
<p>I understand that some kids do not test well on standardized tests, and I am not talking about those kids. I’m also not trying to take up for the ACT or SAT folks or their biased tests, but would that 40% 4.0uw stat suggest a possible explanation for some of the apparent discrepancies between high GPA and low test scores within a given population? I know that seems obvious, but is it correct? Easy grading , high GPA school, with low test scores. </p>
<p>I guess I just asumed all schools were similar to D’s in their grading. I looked online at a small college and a girl D competes against in BBall was announced as an incoming first year. I googled her name and saw that she was her small school’s sal with a 4.0UW and an 1150 SAT. Now, I know nothing about her test taking skills or academic abilities , I just thought at first glance those stats were out of synch.</p>
<p>In many schools, students have their grades boosted for effort (e.g., turning homework on time) and having perfect attendance (S even got a Certificate for it!). Students can get bonus points for answering a trivial extra question, and thus receive scores over 100% (now you know the origins of the statement "I’m behind him 110%–and we worry American kids are not good at math :().</p>
<p>marite, D’s school does that stuff, too. The worst was the extra points for the class who sold the most boxes of Krispy Kreme Donuts.:eek: American education at it’s finest . I almost ruptured something on that one.</p>
<p>This is where the school profile really is extremely important. At S’s school there is a notation on the school profile that reads: (6.0 grading scale)</p>
<p>“In interpreting the 6.0 system, please know that earning a grade of 6.0 is extremely difficult. Of 391 final marks given in (2003), there were only 9 instances where a grade of 6.0 was given. Earning a grade of 5.0 or better represents outstanding work at ____ (school).”</p>
<p>There is a lot of information on the profile, but the above-paragraph has some bolding and italics and is very prominent. The school does not rank, so it really puts the grades on the transcript into perspective.</p>
<p>wow that is extreme. We usually don’t have anything over 100% unless the person does extracredit or sets the curve everytime. We usually have a limited number of straight A students. However I will say that the honor roll is not really an honor since it is very easy be on the list.</p>
<p>I’m puzzled by exactly what stat this represents. 40% of a graduating class with 4.0’s seems implausible to me. Bluebayou, can you reference a source?</p>
<p>D’s very reputable public hs graduating class had 3% (9/300) with uw 4.0’s. School does not weight. These kids took the greatest # of AP classes and had high standardized test scores (1400 - 1600). They all were at the top of every class they took. Very deserving group.</p>
<p>MOWC, I think the adcoms would find that info very helpful. </p>
<p>I think I have it now. SAT’s and ACT’s are biased and don’t test anything anyway. Some schools offer very limited AP’s because of money constraints. GPA’s are capable of grossly unfair manipulation by individuals and , it appears, schools. Class rank is capable of the same type of manipulation and some schools don’t rank at all for that reason and other reasons. That leaves …uhhh…that leaves …uhhh …“readin’ da voodoo bones”?</p>
<p>It can’t be true at our school. At our school, there are 5 grades for each course (4 marking periods plus final exam). If you get one B and 4 A’s, the final grade is still A. Three A’s and 2 B’s is A-. Two A’s and 3 B’s is B+, etc. For her final grades in high school, my D had one A- in each of three years, and one year she had a B and a B+. All the rest were A’s. Her final rank was 12 out of 720. Obviously, 40% of the kids did not have straight A’s (even considering weighting for honors and AP).</p>
<p>Wow, that is all quite interesting. Curm, I think our school is more like yours (and it is rural too). We had unweighted grades. Each marking period, a handful of students per grade get all A’s (there are about 160 kids per grade). But for the entire four years, I know that only one student had all A’s. That was the case for my D who was val. There was no tie and no weighting. There was a val this year too and I assume she may have had all A’s for four years but again, she was ranked highest (unweighted) and thus the only person who had all A’s. It sure ain’t 40% of the class here ! </p>
<p>Our class had 2 4.0s this year, representing the top .8%. It’s not uncommon for there to be NO 4.0s, including the valedictorian. Seems to me that’s the way it ought to be.</p>
<p>Curm it is frustrating. I have come to the conclusion that although colleges state that they know the hs and competitiveness, it really does not matter much. For example, you can go to small private hs and not have to do the kind of work expected in average hs and get a 4.0, and then get an 1150 sat score, and get into a college, and a 3.2 student with a 1300+ cannot get in. I have seen it from friends’ stats. I have heard that standardized tests are supposed to be the “great equalizer” but they are not. There are even classes within the same hs that do not require the same amount of learning. My son tells me that some honor classes are far easier than reg. classes, depending on the teacher. My son is coming out of a very competitive hs and I do feel that it has hurt his chances at admission to some schools.</p>
<p>Let’s see - D is a student at a hypercompetitive suburban HS. She’s got 4 Bs and is ranked in the top 5% (grades are weighted; her Bs were in weighted classes). So definitely far fewer than 40% have straight As. Now it’s also interesting to note that due to the weighting, if someone has a 4.0 (all As, no weighted classes), they are probably not in the top 15%.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know about other schools, but my daughter has around a 3.9 uw and is ranked 2nd in a class of 160 - she’s a rising senior but says that the ranking is unlikely to change – because the #1 student is too far ahead for her to catch, and the #2 student is too far behind to compete with her stats. She got a couple of B’s this past semester but doesn’t think that will affect her standing. </p>
<p>She does not do well on multiple-choice type standardized tests -but she did very well with SAT writing and great AP scores - so what I see is that she is fine in any context where she has room to think independently and express her thoughts freely. It is thinking-inside-the-box that seems to be enough of a weakness to keep her scores down. I found this statement from the 20-year Bates study of their SAT optional policy to be intriguing:
<p>Easy grading really annoys me at my school. Anyone that does all their homework and studies regularly will probably have at least a 94. SAT scores really separate the kids. I was the only kid to get a 1500 on it, and only like 5 kids got in the 1400-1450 range.</p>
<p>I think that the statistic is not unweighted but weighted. At my S HS they use a 4.0 scale. Here is how the grades breakdown:</p>
<p>95-100 A+ 4.5
90-<95 A 4.0
85-<90 B+ 3.5
etc.</p>
<p>.5 extra for AP and honors classes.</p>
<p>This is a fairly competitive catholic HS that sends over 90% of its graduates to 4-year colleges. The number of graduating seniors with over a 4.0 is about 33%.</p>