<p>I understand the concern, if its mostly white kids getting all As, well, it does raise an eyebrow. And if the school has such a system that the Val gets to speak, and they have 44 vals, well, how is she to pick? Um, eeny meeny miny moe, and people being the way they are, no matter WHAT she decides to do, people will be angry.</p>
<p>They need to look at the grading policy at the school from all sides- too many As, using an unweighted system, the embalance of whites getting the Val, that kind of thing.</p>
<p>And as for not letting in military recruiters, she is a fine American. This is America after all, and how dare you judge someone on being a true AMerican because they don’t want Military Recruiters on her campus. That is a ridiculous charge.</p>
<p>I agree there may be some inflation of grades- but not anymore so than at other schools with grade inflation like Harvard
The work my daughter has had is very challenging- to compare it to her school last year- the work was not so challenging, but she had a B-C average, in high school the classwork requires a lot more time and effort and she is getting B & As.
They do well on admission tests - a good percentage of the school will be attending top colleges and they are the kinds of students who have done well throughout their school history.
The students who have been indentified as the top 1% of the district and who have been in specialized programs in elementary and middle school have priority to Garfield- students who live all over the city in some of the most privileged neighborhoods even have priority over students living closer.
There is currently a debate whether we should still give priority to those students for high school. It is a tough issue. On the one hand having a good portion of the gifted cohort at Garfield attracts students and parents as well as teachers to the school.These students are hardworkers and lead more student programs like Post84 an outdoor leadership program than at any other school. Because of the strong music program in the gifted middle school, they are able to have top nationally orchestra and jazz band program.
Even students like my daughter who didn’t participate in these programs in middle school benefit from them. Both my girls do better if pushed to do so by their classmates. The teachers have fairly high expectations of some students and since most have no knowledge that she was previously in special ed , they have high expectations of her.
However, the gifted cohort at the school is very strong, and the parents of those students run the school. They actually are interested in having parents of other students participate in PTSA decision making I believe, but not enough to step down from their positions.
LIke in many schools- it is either take AP classes or be seen as a slacker. When parents disagree that so much emphasis should be placed on honors/AP classes , the attitude is “don’t you want your child to succeed?” I acknowledge that they have the highest graduation rate in the city, but I think there needs to be more identification and support of students who aren’t in the top 1%
Students can still be damm fine students with a 3.5. My oldest had a 3.3 in high school and she is getting above average GPA in one of the most rigourous colleges in the country.
But Garfield isn’t the only school with a lot of Vals, I think nationally there is pressure on teachers to have high performing students and principals look a class where everyone got a C and think there is something wrong.
I like the attitude that my daughters college has- make them ask for the grade, and notify them if they are in trouble, but try and put emphasis on the classroom rather than scores</p>
<p>My son graduated from this high school a few years ago. I think there are so many 4.0 students there for two reasons (both mentioned by earlier posters). First, an A-, an A, and an A+ are all scored as a 4.0. Second, many of the top students at this school did their pre-high-school studies in the city’s gifted program and are arguably the top students in the whole district.</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s much grade inflation at the school. My son didn’t even get a 4.0, but he’s on the dean’s list at college. He and his high-school friends seem to have been very well prepared for undergraduate work, because they’re all doing great at some of the best schools in the country!</p>
<p>Btw, at my son’s graduation ceremony, each of the 20+ “valedictorians” gave a one-line “speech”. I was really impressed with the thought and research that went into their quotes and personal statements. It was wonderful to see so many personalities shining through, and was easily the nicest graduation ceremony I’ve been to!</p>
<p>Interesting. In our district, they worry if you have more than about 15% failures, and one teacher who had all A students was called in for inflationary grading. Another was called in because of too many failures in a Latin I class - once the principal heard hte names of the kids, the teacher was told to go on and do his best with the kids. No problem! Our district believes in actual grading. There are some classes where there are a lot of A’s or mostly A’s - the advanced classes in foreign language (those kids really want to be there, and are the ones who have already succeeded in prior years, physics, math, etc.) We are a school with a mix of elite, regular, special ed, etc., kids. Very few actually get all A’s.</p>
<p>What’s ridiculous is not letting military recruiters even have the same standing as colleges and employers to meet with students. And yes I do dare judge people based on their actions and statements. A few choice quotes:</p>
<p>“Given the seriousness of what they are requesting people to participate in, we’d just prefer they not be on school grounds, which are supposed to be protected space for students,” said Hagopian.</p>
<p>I think our anti-recruitment movement is a great handle, because recruiting stations are physical manifestations of the military that we come into direct contact with. They are in neighborhoods where ordinary people live, and they are in poor neighborhoodsgosh, I wonder why? And they are great targets for the antiwar movement; this could really be a new frontier of the antiwar movement.</p>
<p>jeeze, and I thought my it was a big deal my school had 3 valedictorians and 2 salutatorians. obviously not. ’
~The 3 valedictorians had 4.0 UW/4.97 W
~The 2 salutatorians had one B (in the same class last semester) 3.9 UW/4.95 W</p>
<p>We had a super competitive class, all IB Diploma candidates in the same classes for the past 4 years.</p>
<p>I was thinking about the degree of grade inflation a lot yesterday. I had a long talk with a neighbor whose son will be a senior in the fall. He has a 4.0 and “great SATs,” so he wanted my take on MIT for his son (since my son is there). Turns out the son has a 630 on the Math Level 2 and PSATs in the 85%-range. I didn’t have the courage to tell him MIT wasn’t a good choice; I did suggest that maybe the University of Washington wasn’t such a bad idea. </p>
<p>This is so sad; he really thinks his son has a shot at MIT. Why? Well, he’s got a 4.0, doesn’t he? I did say that my S had some B’s–But that was at a school that doesn’t inflate grades. How do I explain this to a parent who’s justifiably proud of his son—but also unaware of how badly grades are inflated at the local public school?</p>
<p>I don’t think I would tell him not to apply- afterall he has at least another year before he will attend college- and I am assuming he is taken or has taken the advanced calc series or whatever that his school offers.
So is he interested in MIT because he is a big math geek or was he asking cause he knows your son attends?
If he is a big science geek there are of course lots of other schools where he should look- I know you know about them- but along with the UW and Reed, he could look at Macalester- and even U BC ( british columbia where a local physics whiz is attending)
It does sound like if he doesn’t have an ld that affects testing that his SAT scores are more representative of his skills.
I do think that many students need to get away from this area- if only to get away from their parents & so while I know lots of kids are attending the UW and doing great- and I may even recommend it for my younger daughter ( although she would rather go to U of Melbourne- the farther the better she thinks)- but it is huge and it can be overwhelming and the grad students can have too much responsiblity.
I have been reading blogs of Garfield students who have gone off to their various colleges ( UW- Harvard- Grinnell-Swarthmore) and the disadvantages of a huge school are evident in the posts from teh UW.
But that is hard- luckily no one has ever asked me my opinion of their kids chances, they just ask about what schools we have looked at and when I tell them that Evergreen was her first choice for a long time and we still really like it- they just look at me sideways and go “ohh, o.k.” lol
<p>Without knowing his high school/community college math prep it’s hard to comment on what level of “a shot” this kid has at MIT. Does this young man do well on his AP Exams? Has he always had difficulties showing his true abilities on standardized tests? I worried about this with my D two years ago. She is a rising soph at a very selective LAC, and a chem major. She had a 4.0, with 8 AP’s at a good public school that, of course, has some degree of grade inflation. She took AP Calc AB junior year, and scored a 5 on the exam. She then took the next two quarters of calculus for UofWash credit during her senior year, earning A’s there too. However, she never cracked 700 on SAT I math (2 tries), and just barely exceeded it on the SAT math IIc. She completed the 5th quarter of the calc sequence during her first term and was extremely well-prepared. I would steer this young man to schools that look heavily at class rank and rigor of curriculum.</p>
<p>EK4: the young man in question had already decided Reed students were “too studious.” </p>
<p>The father was also interested in Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton; he’s from the east coast (as are we, of course) and is interested in his son going to “a school I’ve at least heard of.” Since his son is not sure he’s interested in engineering, we did suggest that he might be better off looking at smaller schools with a broader curriculum, such as Carleton and Macalester. “I’ve never heard of either of those.” (He perked up after I mentioned the starting salary of a young friend who just graduated from Carleton in applied math.)</p>
<p>They had been to look at Gonzaga, but weren’t sure they liked Spokane. (Yes, I did point out that many schools on the east coast are also in not-the-best neighborhoods.)</p>
<p>The son has only taken AP chem (junior year) and of course did not yet have his score.</p>
<p>hmm…late post i know. i go to a public school in california (800+ people in senior class alone), and we had 38 vals and 1 sal. how embarrassing for me to be a val. anyways, not everyone had straight As. GPAs varied from 4.2-4.6 for Vals. the way they did it was: whoever had at LEAST 2 honors/AP classes with straight As was the cut off GPA, so everyone above that was a val. so if Bobby had 2 honors classes, with all As and a 4.1 GPA, everyone 4.1 and above was a val. we even had one girl who got a D her senior year as a val. whatever, the system is insanely screwed up.</p>
<p>My hs has around 740 graduating seniors and about 65 Valedictorians this year because everyone who had a weighted average of over 4.0 was considered to be a valedictorian and the kids ranked 1-65 has 4.0+ GPAs. The school and our teachers tell us they do this because they dont want to recieve the backlash for kids whoose parents feel shafted about their kid getting a 4.0 but not being the valedictorian. However, my school does try to honor the true valedictorian be naming them the Trustee Scholar, so in a way we still do have a true valedictorian in each class.</p>
lol