<p>My son went to a large public HS where there was very little grade inflation. It sure did hurt the kids’ chances at the elites. The guidance department isn’t as good as those at elite private schools. So overall, it hurt the kids.</p>
<p>“I don’t usually find myself in disagreement with the erudite Xiggi, but the private school my kids attend provides a college counseling service that is so much better than others available in the area, words cannot describe.”</p>
<p>Cangel, I should have been more careful and repeat that my comment was specific to the area where I live. In this area, the private and a parochial school highest tuition is about $5,000. It is obviously impossible to compare our local guidance offices with larger and wealthier school where tuition might be 3 or 5 times higher. </p>
<p>As always, it is very dangerous to write comments that contain gross generalizations. There are great differences among private schools, parochial, and public schools depending on geographical distributions. I am sure that there are public schools that have tough grading policies and private with grade inflation.</p>
<p>My main point was that conservative grading policies are a thing of the past and that it invariably hurts the students and does little for the reputation of the school.</p>
<p>I see too many kids who don’t get into the school they want from prep school. I think they should inflate a bit more. Things have changed. The thing that is the most important thing about these schools is the wonderful education the students nearly always get. This above all is what they get. I am not as worried about these kids not getting into HPY & co (in fact they seem to be more recognizant of these grade scales), but there are kids that want to get into Penn STate Honors or U of Del or Binghamton, or Michigan. It’s crazy that they cannot get into those schools. It is even more painful when they cannot qualify for a merit award because of a low gpa or some other honor. Sometimes the GC s can talk to the colleges and get some movement, but for local scholarships, forget it. Nearly always a waste of time. I don’t see any earthly reason for these schools to pair those rigorous academics and high standards with low grades and tough grading curves.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Belmont Hills, but in my area many people sacrifice to send their kids to private schools as our publics in CA are pretty awful. They are planning on making up some of that money by sending kids to UCs, our only public schools which are pretty good. Incomes are generally too high for financial aid, so this is important. Parents here would be up in arms.</p>
<p>Many rigorous private schools do not offer as many AP courses. For one, they don’t want to teach to the AP curriculum but prefer to explore subjects in more depth, and secondly, because of the selective nature of their student body, they feel that most of their students should be in an honors/AP track anyways. </p>
<p>A median SAT score of 1360 is pretty darn high - there aren’t going to be many schools in the US with median scores above that.</p>
<p>The Boston Globe also talks about the case where a student’s grade is 89.5. Should this be rounded up to a 90 to give an A-? In my son’s HS, this does not happen.</p>
<p>I just don’t see how that calc teacher is giving up anything so danged important in his integrity in giving a kid a tenth of a point or so when you know that C+ can cost him in merit money and college opportunities. Who the heck does he think he is? I just don’t see it. I think he should be ashamed of himself.</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>of course, Belmont might not consider AP a key part of their curriculum, and as such, it is downplayed (which was my point in quotes). </p>
<p>Our local HS has a median SAT of 1250, but that includes many kids who have english as a second language and speak zero at home, kids who have only been in this country for a few years, kids with a weighted gpa of 2.9 who shouldnt’ be taking the test in the first place, etc. </p>
<p>As Xiggi has posted repeatedly, the SAT and PSAT, are somewhat easy to prep for…and I would expected a private, prep school, whose average parental income likely exceeds that of third-world countries, to have stellar stats in this regard. Heck, it would be really smart marketing on Belmont’s part – since certain schools love NMF’s, and throw money at them, if I was an admin at Belmont, I’d have every kid doing the Xiggi method after soph year. While the kid still may not get into H, his parents will still be extremely grateful to their HS when the kid earns a full tuition discount at the next tier schools.</p>
<p>Just MO, but at $100k over four years, I’d consider investing elsewhere.</p>
<p>I agree with Jamimom. The calc teacher seems to think that there is something absolutely scientific in his grading system.
In much of the discussion, there’s an assumption that kids who go to prep schools such as Belmont Hill come from well-heeled families. That may be true for the majority of students, but many prep schools also have kids on full or partial scholarships for whom paying full fare for a private college will be impossible (think of Chinaman’s case).
In certain ways, Belmont Hill’s story illustrates why so many students from NE prep schools do not stray far from HYP and similar LACs if they are going to be slaughtered at state Us.</p>
<p>I agree with everything Cangel wrote. </p>
<p>Xiggi, our school has 1 college GC for every 12 seniors. That leaves lots of time to strategize on exactly how to write to rec so as to address anything in the transcript that might be called into question. It also, IMHO, brings a high level of personal ivestment from the GC, where he/she feels very close to the success to each of his/her 12 charges. </p>
<p>It’s just too bad that the larger schools don’t have the time to look at students more subjectively. There’s an entire level of diversity that’s missing from the larger schools if groups of prep school kids are being shut out because their GPAs are too low to make it through the number crunch.</p>
<p>is this also not a self-selecting group in that a kid applies to Belmont because they want to go to an Ivy or top LAC? They dont’ go there with the intention of “settling” for Mich, UVa or Berkeley. 
</p>
<p>The fact that many prep schools provide scholarship opportunities also is cause for concern in some ways, unless that recipient ends up tops in the class. Once at Belmont, that kid will likely not have the grades to be eligible for his/her state U. Thus, he is now competing with 71 other Belmont kids for spots in the highly selective privates. How likely are Emory, Tufts, BC, et al, to offer great finAid packages to these kids, particularly the no-loan type?</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just me, but an 89.5 is an A-. Why? Significant figures. An A- is a 90; a B+ is up to and including an 89: two significant figures. Most scientists round and don’t truncate - so you would do two sig figs, and that 89.5 is a 90; an A- is not a 90.0 and up. </p>
<p>Hee hee to Momsdream’s last sentence! ;)</p>
<p>Xiggi - concur that conservative practices might hurt students, esp. when college admissions seems to be changing quite rapidly. I don’t recognize the current system as similar to the one I operated under as a senior in '98. Couldn’t imagine trying to navigate it using 1980s tools.</p>
<p>At my children’s public high school, there are too many A’s, without a doubt. For a range of good work, the grade is an A, which is discouraging if you are really doing exceptional work becasue the kids who are doing good work are getting the same grade, there’s no distinction. The exception is when finally getting into AP classes, where several of the teachers are merciless. The kids who don’t rise to the challenge–formerly A students–end up getting 70s for the first time in their lives (grade inflation has a quick correction), and the kids who work their tails off learn tons and do well on the APs. When my kids finally hit these teachers (there were a couple notable ones in middle school as well) I was down on my knees in gratitude. Not really, but that’s how I felt. </p>
<p>I was very worried about college for my children, not knowing if the high-school preparation was rigorous enough, especially with the anti-grade inflation initiatives in the works, but so far the college profs seem very much like the best high school teachers. You have to really work your tail off and come up with great stuff, not just get the work done, to get decent grades. </p>
<p>All those easy A’s in high school had a lot of kids doing what had to be done, but not pushing any envelopes to really learn and challenge themselves. I’ll take the learning, given a choice, but exceptional work ought to be rewarded. Any college/university that evaluates the candidates holistically should catch the good students at Belmont but I’ll bet some of these kids are missing out on some major merit awards. And did I miss this–are they ranked? If so, that should help them somewhat.</p>
<p>momsdream: for perspective, we have 3 GC’s for 2000 kids…</p>
<p>Bluebayou, the reason to put a child in one of these schools is for them to get a top flight education. Most of these kids do end up learning to write, read, discuss issues at a high standard. Most of their peers at these school come from famiies that put the quality of education high on their priority list. </p>
<p>Parents who have hopes of getting their kids in “better” colleges by putting them into these schools really need to examine the situation to see if this would indeed be the case. Many parents are disappointed when they find that their neighbor’s kid who goes to the local public school gets straight A’s while their child at Prep is struggling to get straight B’s. You also miss out on a number public school venues that these private schools just do not participate. There were some schools in Westchester county where the Siemans competition was very strongly supported, and if your child was a likely candidate for this sort of thing, sending him to one of these prep schools is going to hinder him as these school are not programmed for this sort of thing. It is not always a clear choice which is the better route. For us, it was pretty clear, given our public school philosophy, but that is not always the case. I know a few parents who are a bit bitter about the disadvantage their kid got in admissions at some schools because this school does not designate any courses AP, and the grading scale is not generous at all. They will not deny that their kid got a superb education and is well prepared for any college, but they have to get into that college. </p>
<p>I think these schools are at a crossroads where they need to make a decision about how they are serving their students.</p>
<p>Bluebayou:</p>
<p>I thought one point of the article is that Belmont Hill students can still get into H but not into UMich or UVA because state schools don’t care that a B- at Belmont Hill might be an A+ somewhere else; as far as their number crunchers are concerned, a B- is still a B-. </p>
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<p>There is a great deal to be said for Belmont Hill’s curriculum (It was among the private schools I considered for my S). There is also something noble about not wanting to inflate grades, but Belmont Hill is fighting a losing battle against all those schools that not only inflate grades but give out 5s or 6s on a 4.0 scale. </p>
<p>Ariesathena: The grade given by the calc teacher was 79.5, on the borderline between a C+ and a B-. Now, if it had been a 79.6… Sheesh.</p>
<p>“perhaps Michigan has caught the Tufts Syndrome. At our HS last year, we had a couple of top kids that did not get into Berkeley or UCLA (state residents), but are off to an Ivy and a selective LAC. Go figure.”</p>
<p>The way the new weighting system at the UCs work, there are likely hundreds of students who attend Harvard who could not get into UC-San Diego, no less Berkeley or UCLA… We’ll never know because the pools don’t overlap. But if you are not in the top 12% of your class (or top 4% of the state), which would be true for hundreds of Harvard admits, it would be all but impossible to get into UCSD (unless you were a pole vaulter or some such, and even then, it would be difficult.)</p>
<p>maybe it’s because all these schools have a 10pt grading scale. At my school the grade scale was</p>
<p>94.5+ is an A
87.5-94 is a B
76.5-87 is a C
69-76 is a D
69> is a F</p>
<p>While my son goes to UCSD and I’m a fan, it’s simply not true in my opinion that there are hundreds of kids who can get into Harvard but not SD. Trust me, as a Hatvard alum and interviewer, I’m called on for advice and to write lots of letters, so I’ve seen over many years what it takes to get into each. A kid does need to be in the top 10% of their high school class for all UCs, but those from our area public high schools who get into Harvard tend to be in the top 2%. SAT scores required are also much lower at UCs. So I think the upshot is a school that doesn’t take note of where their grading philosophy compares to norms is just inappropriately out of step. If a kid from any school can get into Harvard and not UCSD, there is something very wrong.</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily the grading scale, but how hard it is to get the marks to get the grades.</p>