All of our classes were changed to pass/incomplete option. I’m not sure how that works even.
I think it was the right call, but was kind of a motivation killer for D21. She has been struggling more than I thought with this whole deal, and I just found out that some assignments aren’t turned in. So we are dealing with that. When I asked her about it, she said it doesn’t matter this year anyway. For reference, this is my overly ambitious gunner who is 1/350+ in her class. VERY out of character.
Also she texted me at 2:00 am and said she was throwing up last night. So I guess APUSH isn’t happening today. Honestly I’m thinking about skipping the makeup test. I think our school will refund her money if she doesn’t take the test. She probably won’t use the credit, and if she doesn’t get a 5 to put on her apps then it’s probably just a waste of time. I would rather have her finish up her late school work. Or study for ACT or just relax and get her mind back in order.
@NJWrestlingmom S19 is actually having a similar issue in one of his classes. The sylabus changed, and a whole bunch of grades were removed from the grade book. He told me he has no idea if he has a B or is failing. I went through it myself and he isn’t wrong. He ended up changing 3/5 classes to P/F, and this is one. None are covering things critical for him to know for future classes, so I’m hoping to just survive this semester with passing grades. His other 2 should be fine and actually bring up his GPA.
@NJWrestlingmom That is ridiculous- bullying??? For informing a parent about grades and consequences- isn’t that his job? The parent emailing alone proves the kid could be doing work! I am all for helping kids pass- but this is getting crazy.
I can sympathize with all the grading woes. Despite “not being able to go lower”, at our high school it seems impossible to raise grades.
The kids are getting assignments, but most of them are “formative” (ie homework, small projects) which means they are worth less (about 20% of the semeste grade) and my kids always have near perfect formative grades. Tests/Labs are considered “summative” grades and are worth more (usually 80% of the semester grade) and are the only thing that really affect grades.
Those summative grades have been few and far between. So adding 2/2, 5/5 or 10/10 formative grades over and over are not helping their averages at all because it just keeps that 20% of the grade at a 95-100%. My freshman son had one bad test in February and an 88 at shutdown in one class (90 is an A at our school) and has only managed to raise it to an 89.1 throughout the entire shutdown, despite probably 30+ assignments. His one summative grade was a 22/24 that gave him the small bump. He needs a 92 on the final to raise the grade. I marvel at his ability to just soldier on and keep doing all the assignments when they are doing nothing for his grade.
I’m hopeful his teacher will just bump his grade up to an A (the proverbial “A for effort”) but we’ll see. I do agree that these grades will likely be disregarded for our juniors.
D’s school is counting grades through mid March as baseline. From there, your grade can go up, but it can’t go down. No system will be perfectly equitable, but I thought this was a reasonable compromise that preserved motivation for kids who were invested in and had the conditions to do well, yet provided some cushioning for kids who couldn’t do well for circumstances beyond their control.
At this point, I am more concerned about motivation, morale, mental health, and effective learning than whether or not the grades “count” for college admissions. My kid was extremely lucky in that her teachers transitioned relatively well and did their best to make sure nobody fell through the cracks. They also adapted assignments and expectations to maximize student success across the board. Not everybody is that lucky and it’s only fair that admissions officers adjust their interpretation about spring semester grades for all.
@3kids2dogs I agree. Raising grades has been a struggle with so few assignments that are weighted enough to move the needle. D21 had a poor French test grade in January (as did the whole class…average was a 75) and she’s moved her French grade up to a 89.2. That’s a B-plus. She’s never gotten anything but As in French. It’s one of her best subjects. It’s a 90 for an A, though, and she doesn’t want to ask the teacher if he’ll round up. I’ve let go of this one. If it’s a B+, I don’t care. The rest are As plus, like everyone is saying above, I don’t know how seriously colleges will look at these semester grades anyway. I figure there will be a passing look at hers and they will say, yeah they look like all the rest of her semesters, and that will be it.
The locked weighting kinda drives me nuts. I’ve seen situations where that one January quiz ends up being worth more than a chapter test as there are a few early quizzes but then the frequency of quizzes peters out quickly, with none late in the semester. Or the quiz questions, on a per-question basis, are worth a lot more than the questions on the long final, in the impact on the overall grade. Surely the teachers must realize, but sometimes I wonder if they don’t.
I also just realized D21 was invited to apply for Honor Society before all this. Induction ceremony was supposed to be next week. We haven’t heard a word since she got all her application material in. I assumed we would’ve heard either way - I wouldn’t think they would reject kids who submitted all the required materials, but I don’t know. Obviously, there won’t be a ceremony. But now I’m wondering if she was rejected since we haven’t heard anything???
@NJWrestlingmom I feel like so many things for spring slipped through the cracks. Your D’s honors society might be the same. Who knows if they even made decisions. D21 was supposed to have pom try outs in April and there was no word from the coach at all. Nothing. Kids emailed her and got no answer. Then last week, she got in touch and said try outs moved to fall which is dumb because they need to practice in the summer to be ready if football happens.
@NJWrestlingmom The honor society induction here has been postponed to Aug during the next school yr. All the NHS updates at our school are on their Instagram/FB acct, maybe check there to see if they posted.
Lol, realizing from the last few posts that our NHS induction ceremony was scheduled for last week. D got her letter that she was accepted in December (they do acceptances in fall and spring, but everyone gets inducted together in the spring) and I haven’t heard a peep about it since.
Like lots of things, probably will either skip it entirely or have something in August/September I guess.
We never even got around to NHS applications. D22 was expecting to hear about Beta Club the end of March. She had Spanish Honor Society inductions the night before everything closed.
In Jeff Selingo’s LinkedIn article “The Summer of Swirling Students” (easily Googled), here is more anecdotal evidence that fears of large numbers of college first years taking gap years is unfounded (so far). He points out that Davidson had 8 apply for gap years by their May 1 deadline with only 4 of those b/c of the uncertainty of fall semester.
Yes, seems like there have been more requests for info so far, rather than requests to take a gap year…yet, most schools haven’t announced their final Fall plans yet.
For those that go fully remote, they will likely see an uptick in gap year requests from frosh, and leave requests from current students.
On a throwback to a discussion a few pages ago about lots of these info sessions not being worthwhile, I thought the one this morning from Bates actually did give some flavor for the school. I love it when they say things like “if that doesn’t sound like something you would enjoy, you might want to reconsider whether you really want to apply here.” That’s what I want to hear.
They also started by saying something along the lines of “I assume if you are looking at us you are doing these for lots of sLAC’s in the Northeast. Most have small classes, accessible prof’s, clubs, decent food, etc. We are going to try to tell you how we are different.” They still ended up talking about the standard list too, but they glossed over it pretty quickly and tried to talk more about what makes them different.
Fortunately/unfortunately I think Bates moved up a bit on D’s list. I say unfortunately because the list is too long. But it is nice to have another school where she and I both think she will be happy. If she ends up going here, the first time she sets foot in Maine may be admitted students day (or move in day?). Which is a little crazy, but I went to NYU having been to the East Coast once in my life and spening less than 24 hours in NYC, on a trip that happened 4 years earlier. And that was pre-internet.
Bates said this morning that they have not seen an increase in gap year requests. Although I think @Mwfan1921 is correct that when schools announce actual plans is when the increase will come. I do think though that a school that may be accomodating in mid May would feel differently in July. Right now easy to pull someone off of the waitlist. That’s harder at the end of the summer I would think. I realize it happens, but I’m guessing less often.
@3kids2dogs I hear you! Our district also has adopted the system where kids get a grade if it improves from Q3, and pass/fail otherwise. In theory it makes sense to keep kids motivated, but in reality no one really knows where they stand. Teachers haven’t been putting grades in AT ALL. In most classes there might be a dozen or more assignments from the past month (“remote learning” started mid-April for us), but none have grades, and it’s unclear if they ever will. Like @homerdog I’m less worried about what colleges with think of the grades, but the kids are frustrated because there is so little clarity around what is actually expected.
I wish I could say at least the school year is almost over, but we have five more weeks ahead of us! ?
Gap year requests aren’t up yet because no school is sure of what they are doing for fall. Who would request a gap year related to Covid before they even know what their options are? Maybe if the student is immune compromised then they might jump the gun but, even then, colleges are saying kids who don’t want to come to campus will likely be able to take class remotely. It’s the same for leave of absences. No one would ask for one yet until they know what fall looks like.